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50 DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER

50 PAGES 2013 WST

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2013

latimes.com

COLUMN ONE

Between these sheets, music of dreams

L.A. Public Librarys vast trove of old sheet music is full of quaint songs and images. You can almost hear the hum of history.
RANDALL ROBERTS POP MUSIC CRITIC

Syrian peace hope grows fainter

Neighboring nations and world powers are feeling pulled in as the conflict spreads.
Don Bartletti Los Angeles Times

IRVINE HIGH SCHOOL classmates Shadi Masoud, left, Aram Yaco and Kelly Dunkle gather at the tree in

By Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter BEIRUT With violence increasingly spilling over Syrias borders, refugees swamping its neighbors and new arms transfers to both sides on the horizon, a solution to the Syrian conflict has rarely seemed so urgent and so far beyond reach. U.S. and Russian officials this month raised hope for a peace conference that could lead to a transitional government and, eventually, free elections. The accord between Washington and Moscow, long at loggerheads on Syria, followed a United Nations-backed formula long ignored as outside powers on both sides pushed their Syrian proxies for victory. Its unclear now, however, whether the conference will even take place. Instead, more than two years after it began, the Syrian conflict shows signs of morphing into a sectarian-fueled conflagration that drags in neighboring nations and pits global powers and their allies against one another in the worlds most volatile region. On Tuesday, backers of each side accused the other of hypocrisy over arms sales. The prospect of Britain and France arming Syrian rebels was met with a Russian threat to ship sophisticated antiaircraft weapons to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group, has also gotten more deeply involved. Last weekend, it declared de facto war on behalf of Assad, labeling [See Syria, A4]

the median of Jamboree Road in Newport Beach that was struck by the speeding car.

Like postcards that wished you were here, the song titles are as alluring as the full-color covers of the sheet music they adorn, each a melodic tale of the Southern California of the imagination: Strolling Neath the California Moon, Ill Pick Myself a California Rose, Where the Mission Bells Are Chiming Down Beside the Sea. And then theres one called, simply, California, whose songwriter is burning for a spot where hearts are true/Tward the west, toward the best my eyes are turning/For Im yearning so for you/California. Part of the Los Angeles Public Librarys vast collection of old sheet music spanning from 1849 to the present, the individual pieces are but quaint ditties about the California dream. But gathered en masse, the songs spring to life and accompany a fascinating story of the city and its budding culture. Sheet music was there every step of the way, says Josh Kun, professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC and editor of a new book on Los Angeles [See Sheet music, A8]

ABDULRAHMAN M. Alyahyan, 17, the driver, in a cellphone photo.

Shock and questions

car crash in memory. They groped, and failed, to come up with a worse one. The violent collision, just down the road from Fashion Island and the Newport Beach police station, killed five teenagers from neighboring Irvine, scattering debris and bodies across the pavement. Police say the 17-year-old driver, Abdulrahman M. Alyahyan, a senior at highachieving University High School, was speeding south in an Infiniti on Jamboree Road near Island Lagoon Drive when the car swerved out of control and struck a tree, the violence shearing it in two. What was left caught fire. Abdulrahman and all his passengers were killed. Among them were two sisters who attended Irvine High School Robin A. Cabrera, 17, a 12th-grader, and Aurora C. Cabrera, 16, a 10th-

CECILIA D. ZAMORA , 17, center, an 11th-grader at Irvine High.

NOZAD AL HAMAWENDI , 17, was always upbeat, a friend said.

Memorial Day wreck in Newport that killed 5 when a speeding Infiniti hit a tree and split apart leaves grieving friends searching for answers
By Christopher Goffard, Lauren Williams and Anh Do In a city with a grim history of high-profile car wrecks, even veteran police and firefighters seemed stunned by the death toll on Jamboree Road. They called the Memorial Day wreck in Newport Beach the single worst solograder. Also killed were Nozad Al Hamawendi, 17, and Cecilia D. Zamora, 17, both 1 1th-graders at Irvine High School. The car was so fragmented that firefighters initially believed two vehicles had been involved. One of the cars occupants was thrown partway out of the car, while the four others were hurled out completely, police said. Some of [See Crash, A9]

Images from L.A. Public Library

top, and 1915, came with vibrant images.

SHEET music from 1907,

In New Mexico, county leads the charge against fracking

By Julie Cart OCATE, N.M. Sitting in the tidy living room of the home they built themselves, Sandra and Roger Alcon inventory what they see as the bounty of their lives: freedom, family, community, land, animals and water. Weve lived off the land for five generations, said Roger Alcon, 63, looking out on a northern New Mexico landscape of high mesas, ponderosa pines and black Angus cattle. We have what we need. Weve been very happy, living in peace. Wells are the Alcons only source of water. The same is true for everyone else in Mora County, which is why last month this poor, conservative ranching region of energy-rich New Mexico became the first county in the nation to pass an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing, the controversial oil and gas extraction technique known as fracking that has compromised water quantity and quality in communities around the country. I dont want to destroy our water, Alcon said. You cant drink oil. In embracing the ban, landowners turned their back on potentially lucrative royalty payments from drilling on their property and joined in a groundswell of civic opposition to fracking that is rolling west from [See Fracking ban, A12]

Associated Press

A TEMPLE in Luxor, Egypt, was defaced by a Chinese visitor who wrote Ding Jinhao was here.

Rule is eased in innocence cases

Supreme Court lifts time limit for rare prison appeals. NATION, A6

Giving a bad name to Chinese tourists

A boys graffiti spurs soul-searching about the behavior of those who travel abroad
By Barbara Demick BEIJING Ding Jinhao was here. It was a banal declaration scratched by a teenager into an artifact at a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple that has launched a round of soul-searching about the bad behavior of Chinese tourists. The Chinese-language graffiti was discovered at Luxor this month by a Chinese tourist who posted a photograph on a microblog in which he deplored the behavior of his countrymen abroad. Im so embarrassed that I want to hide myself, the microblogger wrote last week. Within days, Chinese had outed the vandal as a boy from Nanjing who had visited Egypt with his parents. The incident has set off a very public debate in China about etiquette and the countrys image abroad. In response, the National Tourism Administration issued guidelines Tuesday advising Chinese going abroad on eight key points of etiquette, from waiting in line to re[See China, A5] fraining from spitting and lit-

Markets rally on housing rebound

Surging prices and rising confidence fuel optimism. BUSINESS, B1

Bill to boost RX oversight fails

State plan would have boosted funding for enforcement. LATEXTRA
Weather Page ......... AA6 Complete Index ..... AA2
Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

Printed with soy inks on partially recycled paper.

KINGS ADVANCE
The defending Stanley Cup champions finish off San Jose, 2-1, to move on to the Western Conference Finals against Chicago or Detroit. SPORTS, C1
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