PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune Nicola Schumacher (left) and Stacey Farmer took a break yesterday at the BIO International Convention in San Diego.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday lauded the world's biotechnology industry for tackling a pile of complicated issues – therapies for disease, diagnostics to improve health care and alternative fuels that may one day create “a carbon-free world.” “This room is sizzling with brain power and creativity,” he told a crowd of about 20,000 biotech executives yesterday at the San Diego Convention Center. “I will walk out with a 10 percent increase in my IQ just for being here.”

Santa Monica's Ye Ye has lofty ambitions. One of these days, the microbiologist would like to defeat the SARS virus. Yesterday at the BIO International Convention downtown, though, her goal was more down-to-earth: a pair of Crocs. Size 6. Free.

SACRAMENTO – As four California Indian tribes waged one of the most expensive ballot fights in U.S. history last winter, they promised that gambling deals hanging in the balance would pay the state a huge bounty, more than $10 billion over 23 years. To collect, voters had to approve the four big compacts, the tribes urged in a $100 million media blitz.

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan – Using helicopter gunships, NATO and Afghan forces battled Taliban insurgents yesterday in this strategic district just a few miles north of the city of Kandahar. The fighting killed two Afghan soldiers and about 23 Taliban fighters, including two commanders, the Afghan Defense Ministry said.

Bob Cole was happily putting on the practice green at Torrey Pines Golf Course yesterday morning, waiting for his name to be called on the first day the public could play the South Course since Tiger Woods' dramatic playoff win Monday over Rocco Mediate in a U.S. Open for the ages.

Colette VandenBroeck of Coronado remembers the second she lunged for a put-away shot during a tennis match. “I planted my foot, but my body kept rotating and I felt something pop. I felt pain and then I fell,” she said. “Then I went into denial and continued to play, but there was nothing holding my right leg structurally together. It was all sliding around, and I forfeited the match.”