Mitchell Landsberg

Mitt Romney has a new ad out, touting what he'll do on his first day as president. "Day One," the narrator intones, "President Romney announces deficit reductions, ending the Obama era of big government."

That's pretty much what Romney has been saying all along. As president, he'll cut spending and end an era of what he views as dangerous government growth.

But on Day One? Apparently not.

In his mind's eye, Rob Adler Peckerar is sitting with his students on a doorstep in the bustling heart of Eastern Europe. They are in a town, perhaps in Lithuania, perhaps Ukraine. It is summer, and a warm breeze rustles the trees.

The students listen, spellbound, to a story written on this very spot a century or more ago in a language that is foreign and yet strangely familiar. And before them, the pre-Holocaust world of Eastern European Jews flickers for a moment to life -- rich, lusty, funny, sad and achingly poignant.

This is the idea behind the Helix project, which will begin in a very small way this summer when Adler Peckerar takes six students -- three from UCLA and three from UC Berkeley -- on an all-expenses-paid Jewish roots tour of Eastern Europe. Eventually, he would like to see it grow and become a viable alternative to the Birthright program that sends tens of thousands of Jewish college students annually to Israel, also free of charge.

Republicans look at Mitt Romney and see a future nominee or a Massachusetts moderate they can't support. Democrats see a formidable opponent with abundant vulnerabilities to exploit.

For one group, though, Romney's candidacy represents a unique mix of hopes and fears, pride and apprehension. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a lot riding on Romney's candidacy -- which is one reason why, paradoxically, they have steered clear of anything that smacks of support for the man who could become the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party.

LOS ANGELES -- A debate that has raged within the Presbyterian Church for more than three decades culminated Tuesday with ratification of a measure allowing the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers and lay leaders, while giving regional church bodies the ability to decide for themselves.

With the vote of its regional organization in Minnesota, the Presbyterian Church USA became the fourth mainline Protestant church to allow gay ordination, following the Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran churches and the United Church of Christ. The Minnesota vote was closely followed by one in Los Angeles.

PASADENA, Calif. -- As a prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi put Charles Manson behind bars. As an author, he outlined legal cases against O.J. Simpson, Lee Harvey Oswald and George W. Bush.

It turns out that Bugliosi was just warming up. Now the author of "Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders," has written a book that takes on God.