Bryan

Marcel Melanson was a hero in Compton. The fire battalion chief led teams that raced to help victims of car crashes and street violence. Three years ago, he got national exposure as a star of a BET reality TV program that followed Compton firefighters on emergency calls. "We're constantly battling the perception of the city," he told the Los Angeles Times when the show premiered. "It's constantly thought of as this bad place. " On Friday, he was back in the public eye, but under very different circumstances.

It's a small swath of Los Angeles, near the city's heart, that hasn't received much attention from the mayoral candidates. But a Times analysis shows that a 2.8-square-mile, Mid-Wilshire neighborhood has had an unmatched record of picking mayors in both primary and runoff elections since 2001. And interviews suggest it could again be a bellwether of the concerns, apathy and ambivalence voters take to the polls Tuesday as they choose the city's new chief executive. Both Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti have supporters here, though most voters approached on a recent day voiced the sort of indifference that could keep turnout near record lows.

Jeanne Cooper Emmy winner starred in 'The Young and the Restless' Jeanne Cooper, 84, the enduring soap opera star who played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on CBS' "The Young and the Restless," died Wednesday in her sleep, according to the network. Cooper's son, actor Corbin Bernsen, said last month in Twitter messages that she had been suffering from an undisclosed illness. A Los Angeles resident, Cooper joined the daytime serial six months after its March 1973 debut, staking claim to the title of longest-tenured cast member.

The American Library Assn. announced its 2013 book award winners Monday at its annual national conference, held this year in Seattle. While the best-known awards are the John Newbery Medal and the Caledecott Medal, there are dozens of awards, each of which helps librarians bring excellent books to the attention of young readers and their parents. The Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children was awarded to "This Is Not My Hat," written and illustrated by Jon Klassen.

WWE's biggest pay-per-view of the year, WrestleMania 29, was held Sunday in New Jersey and many fans, especially those who hate John Cena, were interested in the results, specifically who would win the match between Cena and The Rock. Most fans who don't like Cena (pretty much any male over the age of 18), were hoping that Cena would lose. They are tired of his character. But, WWE has a business to run. Cena sells more merchandise than any other wrestler, he is the face of the company, and the match result Sunday was the best for long-term business.

Prosecutors in the Randy Steven Kraft murder trial say a paper with 61 entries, found in his car trunk when he was arrested May 14, 1983, is a death list--Kraft's own score card of how many young men he had killed dating back to late 1971. Kraft's attorneys deny it is a death list, and call it meaningless information that will only inflame his jury. Kraft himself, in a 1983 interview, called the list nothing more than references to friends of his and his roommate at the time.

Bedbugs combine all of the bloodsucking annoyance of mosquitoes with the survival instinct of cockroaches. No bigger than apple seeds, the adult bugs hide in ingenious places ? inside electrical outlets, behind baseboards, deep in carpet fibers ? during the day and attack their victims during the night. You may never know that you have a bedbug problem until bites start showing up on your skin. Bedbugs don't spread any illnesses, but still. Ick. The bugs are tough, they're devious and they're gaining new ground in homes and hotel rooms across the country, says Susan Jones, an entomologist at Ohio State University in Columbus.

I'll bet you that archaeologist Betsy Bryan's perspective on reality-show behavior is a little longer than most. Since 2001, Bryan has led the excavation of the temple complex of the Egyptian goddess Mut in modern-day Luxor, the site of the city of Thebes in ancient Egypt. And the ritual she has uncovered, which centers on binge drinking, thumping music and orgiastic public sex, probably makes "Jersey Shore" look pretty tame. At least it was thought to serve a greater societal purpose.

During a recent interview with England's Daily Mail newspaper, Steven Spielberg revealed his one-time desire to direct a James Bond movie. "I went to [Bond producer] Cubby Broccoli and asked if I could do one and he said: 'No,'" Spielberg told the paper . "I've never asked again. " It worked out OK for Spielberg; he went on to direct the first film in his own globe-trotting franchise, "Raiders of the Lost Ark. " But what if Spielberg had directed a Bond film? What would that have looked like?

Brit­ish roots mu­sic band Mum­ford & Sons took the top hon­or for its album "Ba­bel" at the 55th Grammy Awards ce­re­mony Sunday. The night mostly dis­trib­uted hon­ors broadly to an ar­ray of young­er gen­er­a­tion acts in­clud­ing New York in­die trio Fun., Aus­trali­an elec­tron­ic pop artist Gotye, rap­per-R&B sing­er Frank Ocean and Ak­ron, Ohio, rock group the Black Keys. See the complete list of 2013 Grammy winners and nominees below. #story-body-text h2 { font-weight: bold !