A Republican takeover of the House — maybe even the Senate — looks less impossible every day. Still, money and message problems continue to weigh the party down.

Two months before election day, the U.S. economy is teetering. President Obama's approval ratings are anemic. Republican voters are pumped. The smart money is betting against Democratic incumbents.

His unyielding liberal stance, delivered as savage black-and-white harpoons, bedeviled Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and others in power while shedding an uncompromising light on social injustices. He drew for The Times for nearly 30 years.

Paul Conrad, whose fiercely confrontational editorial cartoons made him one of the leading political provocateurs of the second half of the 20th century and who helped push the Los Angeles Times to national prominence, has died. He was 86.

Much of the land of the native Houma people is now underwater, and after the oil spill, one healer's great-grandson fears that the traditional plants once used to save the ill will soon be lost too.

Jason Pitre grew up hearing stories of how his great-grandfather healed babies on the cusp of death using herbs and plants found along Louisiana's bayous. The tribal healer, or traiteur , was known by the native Houma people for his potions and salves that seemed to treat any sickness.

BP sprayed chemicals massively in confronting the gulf spill, but scientists aren't sure how much good — or bad — they did.

In the wake of the BP oil spill, gaping questions remain about a key tool used during cleanup: the nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants sprayed over the water or onto the gushing wellhead on the seafloor. Do the chemicals help recovery, hinder it — or neither?

With the replacement of the failed blowout preventer and a cement plug in place, the well's seal is almost permanent, the federal spill response chief says. The final step will be to plug the well from the bottom.

With a new blowout preventer in place and a 5,000-foot column of cement filling its core, the BP well is no longer in danger of leaking oil, the federal spill response chief said Saturday — although he said it must still be plugged from the bottom for the job to be complete.

Scientists at MIT have created Seaswarm, which uses super- absorbent 'nanofabric' to suck up slick on the surface of the ocean. It's too late for the gulf spill, but it offers promise for cleaning up future slicks.

Want to clean up an oil spill? There's a robot for that. A team of scientists at MIT have developed a fleet of oil-absorbing robots — Seaswarm — that clean the ocean by collecting oil with a super-absorbent "nanofabric."

One reaction to Steven Leigh Morris' cover story on the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble play cycle about Iraq and Afghanistan ("The War Within Us," August 26) comes from a reader named David. "Great," he says, "do we really need ...