2011

WASHINGTON - Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana said they improved his strength and posture. Celebrity Kim Kardashian boasted they allowed her to ditch her personal trainer. But federal and state officials said the rocker-bottom Shape-ups and other toning shoes made by Skechers USA Inc. don't live up to the hype from the company and its high-profile endorsers. On Wednesday, the Manhattan Beach company agreed to pay $50 million to settle false-advertising allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of 44 states, including California, as well as the District of Columbia.

Top 10 lists are standard fodder for media: the 10 best dressed, the 10 best-looking, the 10 most wanted, etc. But the International Institute for Species Exploration, headquartered at Arizona State University, has a new take on such lists. For the last five years, the institute has been issuing a top 10 list of the quirkiest, most bizarre and just plain interesting new species discovered the previous year.

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Here's a big oops for Ferrari, the maker of megabucks sports cars: It made a mistake making the crankshafts for the engines in its California and 458 Italia models and now will have to repair or replace them, depending on what the owners prefer. Ferrari said it would recall the 2011 and 2012 model-year cars because the crankshaft error could cause the engines in the vehicles, which sell for $200,000 or more, to freeze suddenly and possibly cause a crash. The Italian automaker learned of the problem in a uniquely embarrassing way. The first of the cars to have its engine freeze was the one the company lent to critics to review.

The sister act of identical twins Tia and Tamera Mowry has centered on their clean-cut image and bouncy charm. The formula served them well as perky child stars in their '90s sitcom "Sister Sister," their Disney Channel 'tween vehicle "Twitches" and the more mature "Double Wedding" on Lifetime. The well-scrubbed image mirrored their off-screen lifestyle. Openly religious, the Mowrys were content to seek more uplifting roles rather than emulate their young peers. The sisters stayed true to their values — no trashy horror movies, sex tapes, battles with eating disorders, kids out of wedlock, club-hopping or revolving-door boyfriends.

Knott's Berry Farm will add three new mazes and a new scare zone for Halloween Haunt 2011 , according to theme park officials. Photos : View concept art of all 13 mazes and four scare zones for Halloween Haunt 2011 The 39th annual Knott's Scary Farm will start Sept. 23 and run for 27 nights. Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt 2010 mazes | 2010 scare zones | 2010 shows | 2010 review The granddaddy of Halloween events will feature 13 mazes and four scare zones scattered throughout the Buena Park theme park.

Universal Studios Hollywood has announced plans for haunted attractions based on "The Thing," "The Wolfman," "Scream," "Hostel" and "House of 1000 Corpses" films as well as shock rocker Alice Cooper and the La Llorona folk legend while continuing to drop online hints about more scare zones and shows for Halloween Horror Nights 2011. > Photos: Halloween Horror Nights 2011 at Universal Studios Hollywood The Thing: Assimilation, a creature-based maze, will be based on the film remake about a scientific research facility overrun by an epidemic.

Six Flags Magic Mountain will add three new mazes, four new scare zones and two new shows for Fright Fest 2011. > Photos: Fright Fest 2011 at Six Flags Magic Mountain The Valencia amusement park will also offer some extreme Halloween treats, including coasters in the dark, an alienated X2 and my all-time favorite: Colossus backward. Highlights of Fright Fest 2011: Haunted mazes Chupacabra (new in 2011) - The legendary creature terrorizes a Day of the Dead festival (X2 plaza)

Fright Fest got bigger and better this year at Six Flags Magic Mountain, with significantly more haunted mazes, double the number of scare zones and twice as many monsters in the park. Fright Fest 2011 at Six Flags Magic Mountain: Preview | Photos Magic Mountain increased the number of monsters this year from 200 to 400 and the talent investment shows in the eight mazes and six scare zones that seem to be delivering twice as many scares as last year. The high-energy crew of monsters in the mazes and on the streets never rest, relentlessly pursuing frightened visitors with a passion that borders on manic.

Shortly after Christmas, the same question arises every year: What are we going to do on New Year's Eve ? Here's what some California amusement and theme parks have planned for the last night of 2011: Disneyland in Anaheim will stay open until 2 a.m. with live bands, DJs and midnight fireworks. Across the way, Disney California Adventure will remain open until 1 a.m. with the ElecTRONica dance party and a midnight showing of "World of Color," the nighttime water spectacular.

Chris Horner had perhaps his most successful year as a cyclist in 2011. He won the Amgen Tour of California, finished second in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, a celebrated one-day race, and finished fourth at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Yet what most cycling fans remember about Horner's 2011 racing is something Horner doesn't. During the seventh stage of the Tour de France last July, Horner crashed. He suffered a concussion, broken nose and broken ribs. But despite being woozy and dazed, Horner got back on his bike and finished, though he had no idea where he was or even quite what he was doing.

Continuing its uncanny ability to surf from one blockbuster hit to another, Activision Blizzard Inc. posted first-quarter revenue and profit that exceeded Wall Street's expectations, thanks in large part to the success of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, a popular children's game with a suite of collectible physical toys. Still, the Santa Monica games giant's net income for the quarter that ended March 31 dropped 23.7% to $384 million, or 33 cents a share, from $503 million, or 42 cents a share a year earlier.

The Los Angeles Times won Newspaper of the Year for 2011 among the state's largest daily newspapers and a total of 20 journalism awards as part of the annual Better Newspaper Contest, officials announced Saturday. The Times won first-place awards among newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 or more in the following categories: local government coverage, investigative reporting, sports, and arts and entertainment. The paper also received second prize for design and general excellence in the contest sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn., a nonprofit trade group.

CLEVELAND — When Jordan Walden lost his closer job after giving up a walk-off home run to Tampa Bay's Brandon Allen on Thursday, he was not demoted to a seventh- or eighth-inning role. The right-hander whose 98-mph fastball earned him a trip to the All-Star game last season has been reduced, at least temporarily, to a mop-up guy until he can start throwing his slider for a strike. "Our preference is to get him into a low-profile inning and let him work on some stuff," Manager Mike Scioscia said.

A year ago, when the NFL was slogging through its labor meltdown, there was plenty of hand-wringing that rookies wouldn't be as prepared to play as in seasons past. It was a reasonable assumption they would be shortchanged by a compressed off-season and frantically rushed training camps. Instead, the 2011 rookie class produced several spectacular players, among them Carolina's Cam Newton, Denver's Von Miller, Cincinnati's A.J. Green and Andy Dalton, Arizona's Patrick Peterson, San Francisco's Aldon Smith and many more.

Comcast Corp.'s highest-paid executives — Chief Executive Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke — experienced compensation deflation last year. Roberts' pay package shrank 13.3% in 2011 to $26.9 million. That included a performance-based cash bonus of $5.5 million for the 52-year-old executive. Meanwhile, Burke's compensation dropped a whopping 32% to $23.7 million, which included a performance bonus of $6.7 million. The 53-year-old executive's amount fell dramatically last year, as it was the first time in three years that he did not collect a signing bonus.

 Neil Diamond and Katie McNeil were married Saturday, the "Sweet Caroline" singer announced Sunday on Twitter, the same place he told the world of their engagement back in September. "Katie and I got married last night, we wish you all could've been there," the singer-songwriter told his more than 300,000 followers. "It was magical! Love, Neil. " The couple - he's 71, she's 42 - tied the knot in L.A. in front of friends and family, his rep told People. It's McNeil's first wedding, and the third for Diamond, who was previously married to high school sweetheart Jayne Posner, then to Marcia Murphey.

The fifth straight week of gas price declines in Southern California has finally brought motorists back in range of what they were paying at the pump last year, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch. The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, for example, fell another four cents since last week to $4.228, the Automobile Club said. That was 15.7 cents a gallon lower than last month's price and just a penny a gallon higher than what motorists were paying last year.

The United States logged 222 measles cases last year, well above the median of 60 cases a year that has been the norm during the last decade and the most cases since the 508 cases that occurred in 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Most of the new cases were clustered in 17 outbreaks, about four times the normal number. All were the result of imported virus, either by U.S. citizens returning from vacations or by foreign visitors. About half of the cases originated in Western Europe.