2013

Ken Venturi, who won the 1964 U.S. Open golf championship in dramatic fashion and became a longtime television commentator, died Friday in Rancho Mirage. He was 82. Venturi, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame earlier this month, died at Eisenhower Medical Center after battling a spinal infection, pneumonia and an intestinal infection, his son Matt said. The U.S. Open victory was one of Venturi's 14 tournament wins as a pro. Though he suffered from a severe stutter as a youth, he worked as the lead analyst for CBS Sports from 1968 to 2002.

What Congress giveth, Congress taketh away. And so it was that on Jan. 1 most wage earners found themselves a little light in the paycheck. The reason, of course, is that lawmakers late last year allowed the 2-percentage-point cut in the employee portion of the FICA tax to expire. That benefit was enacted in 2010 to put more cash in taxpayers' wallets during the tough economic downturn. But the greater tax burden doesn't mean would-be home buyers need to put off taking advantage of some of the lowest mortgage rates in eons.

When it comes to sequels, "Cars 2" flies in the face of conventional Hollywood calculus. Its predecessor was the least well-reviewed of Pixar Animation Studios' 11 movies and among its poorest performers at the box office — at least, by the premier animation studio's sterling standards. One attribute distinguishes "Cars" from most other films: it sparked a licensing bonanza that continued to fuel merchandise sales long after Lightning McQueen, Mater and the movie's other anthropomorphic autos rolled out of the megaplex.

Lena Headey, who plays the scheming Queen Regent Cersei Lannister on HBO's "Game of Thrones," is reportedly claiming she is broke, with "less than $5" in her bank account. Headey's financial situation came to light as a result of husband Peter Loughran's making an emergency court filing in their divorce proceedings, according to TMZ. In July 2012, Headey, 39, filed for divorce from Loughran, an Irish musician, after five years of marriage, citing "irreconcilable differences.

A new fight is brewing over health insurance companies letting millions of Americans renew their current coverage for another year - and thereby avoid changes under the federal healthcare law. That may offer a short-term benefit for certain consumers and shield some of those individual policyholders from potentially steep rate increases. But critics say this maneuver could undermine government efforts to remake the insurance market next year and keep premiums affordable overall. At issue is a little-known loophole in President Obama's landmark legislation that enables health insurers to extend existing policies for nearly all of 2014.

Hedda Bolgar, a psychologist old enough to have attended Sigmund Freud's lectures in Vienna but youthful enough to have treated patients until just a few weeks ago, has died. She was 103. Her mind was sharp, her zest for work keen, and her social calendar full until shortly before her death on Monday, said Allen Yasser, her longtime friend and colleague. "It took me a month to get a dinner date with her, and we were virtually family," said Yasser, a psychologist and psychoanalyst.

The powerful narcotic popped up on the cultural grid around the turn of the millennium. A Texas producer-remixer named DJ Screw paid homage to its woozy, heavy-lidded high by dramatically slowing down beats and vocals to replicate the drug's sleepwalker euphoria. Among Southern rappers, the chemical mixture - called "sizzurp" on the street - soon became as ubiquitous as gold jewelry. This wasn't some exotic new hallucinogen. In fact, it was usually mixed with fruit soda and sipped from oversized plastic foam cups.

Carrie Underwood may not see her hockey-playing husband as often as she'd like, but she's still gushing about their "sweet and sexy" wedded bliss. "You see each other when you can and you talk to each other as much as you can," the singer told People, whose cover she graces this week. "You just have to commit and make it work. " She and Mike Fisher married in July 2010 but are still juggling their busy schedules despite him moving from Canada to Tennessee to be closer to his wife.

In exactly one week, Los Angeles will wake up with a newly elected mayor. The lucky leader of 4 million restless campers with cracked sidewalks could be Wendy Greuel, the business-suited Valley kid who worked for Mayor Tom Bradley and President Clinton and would be the first female mayor in city history. Or it could be Eric Garcetti, who seems to have done everything in his 42 years except pitch for the Dodgers and kayak to Borneo, and whose adopted daughter may one day celebrate both a bat mitzvah and a quinceañera . Last week, I wrote about a Greuel visit to Tolliver's barbershop in South Los Angeles, where she was relaxed and sharp in front of a crowd that thinks she's the one. Today I'll report on my outing with her opponent, who, like Greuel, helped create some of the city's problems but now promises to deliver peace and prosperity to one and all. L.A. ELECTIONS 2013: Sign up for our email newsletter When Garcetti walked into a Westwood Village pizza parlor late Monday night, he was not recognized until after he'd selected artichokes, olives, onions and peppers as toppings.

Kelly Ripa and Regis Philbin of "Live! With Regis and Kelly" haven't kept in touch. Philbin retired from the show in November 2011 after hosting the talker since 1988, first with Kathie Lee Gifford. Ripa replaced Gifford in 2001, and when it was announced that Philbin would also be bidding the show adieu , Ripa did test-runs with various co-host contenders before ultimately settling on former NFL star Michael Strahan in September 2012. The announcement was made to quite a bit of fanfare, since Strahan was one of 50 guest hosts who had stopped by "Live!"