Clues

Can Wal-Mart Stores Inc. help you beat Angry Birds? Apparently it's trying. The retail giant inked a deal with Rovio, the Finnish tech company behind the hugely popular mobile game, to sell Angry Birds products sprinkled with game clues in its stores. The news coincides with the launch of Angry Birds Space, the latest iteration of the game, which takes the feud between birds and pigs into outer space and adds a zero gravity twist. Wal-Mart will carry apparel, food, mobile phones and plush toys studded with "golden eggsteroid" clues to open bonus levels in Angry Birds Space.

Thanks to a new method of modeling earthquakes, scientists may now understand why the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas fault - a carefully studied region known for producing moderate temblors every 20 years or so - has been behaving unexpectedly since around the time Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Taking data collected by sensors on the ground and in space and combining them with observations from laboratory physics experiments, Caltech researchers conducted a computer simulation of tectonic events at Parkfield and discovered that a series of small quakes there may have staved off a larger shaker that geologists predicted would occur in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

A study looking at differences in suicide methods between men and women found that while women are less likely to shoot themselves in the head than men, there may be specific reasons why they choose to die that way. Researchers from the University of Akron and Ohio State University examined 621 suicides that occurred from 1997 to 2006 in Summit County, Ohio. In addition to looking at methods of suicide and what led up to them they also divided the data by gender to see if men's and women's means to suicide were different.

MOSCOW - A new Russian passenger plane with 50 people aboard went missing Wednesday during a demonstration flight over Indonesia, officials said. The Sukhoi Superjet 100, on a South Asian promotional tour, disappeared from radar screens 20 minutes into its second flight from Jakarta. The crew last spoke to ground control while over Mt. Halimun Salak National Park in West Java province, the Rossiya 24 television network reported. "Before communication was lost with the plane, there was no information about the malfunction of the systems," said Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk, president of Moscow-based Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. "The plane has conducted about 500 flights with the overall flight time over 800 hours [and]

Police are still seeking clues in the brief kidnapping of a woman from her east Ventura home. The woman, whose name was withheld by police, told authorities that a man entered her Twin River Circle condominium as she slept at about 1 a.m. on June 27, took her wallet and forced her to leave with him in her vehicle. Later that morning she flagged down a California Highway Patrol officer and reported that she had been sexually assaulted in her car.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives Monday were seeking clues in the robbery and fatal shooting of an attorney in his West Hollywood apartment building. The victim, John Hartney, 48, apparently surprised the robbers in the garage at 1033 N. Carol Drive at about 11:15 p.m. Sunday as he returned home from a Christmas party, authorities said. Hartney, who was president of the Carolwood Homeowners Assn.

A T-shirt, a baptismal medal and a wheelchair sold by a New York man nine years ago are among the few clues investigators have in trying to learn the identity of a crippled and severely retarded boy who was abandoned Sunday in front of a home for mentally disabled adults near Saugus. "We've been working two days on this case and we haven't gotten anywhere," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Dennis Carroll.

Two days after the body of a small boy was found buried in the sand at an Albuquerque park playground, investigators focused on trying to find the child's relatives. "We are looking for the person who was the primary caretaker of the child, whether it is a parent, a grandparent or guardian," police spokesman John Walsh said. A preliminary autopsy provided no clues about how the 3- to 5-year-old child died. The body was found Friday by a woman who had taken her children to the park and spotted a shoe sticking out of the sand.

Police are investigating the murder of a Pacoima woman who was found stabbed to death on the driveway in front of her home Tuesday morning. The victim, Anna Maria Ruiz Fregoso, 23, was found dead at 4:45 a.m. in the 13300 block of Pinney Street after neighbors called police when they heard a woman screaming, Lt. Bernard D. Conine said. Conine said the woman had been stabbed repeatedly in the upper body.

The consensus in polling this week is that jobs and the economy are the top concerns for voters in the presidential election. And if that's the case, there was mixed news for the White House in the release of new state-by-state unemployment data on Friday. Overall, the unemployment rate went up in eight states, held steady in 12 and dropped in 30 from February to March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The five biggest declines came in Oklahoma and Mississippi (down 0.6%)

PHILADELPHIA - When President Obama told a Russian leader that he could be "more flexible" after the election - during what he thought was a private conversation - Mitt Romney came down like a hammer. He accused his Democratic rival of "pulling his punches with the American people" and hiding his real agenda. Romney found himself in similar circumstances Monday after he was heard telling donors at a Florida fundraiser that while he planned to slash government programs, he probably would not share those plans with voters before November.

Investigators were probing the backgrounds and Facebook pages of two white men arrested early Sunday in connection with a series of fatal shootings in Tulsa that may have targeted blacks. Police responding to an anonymous tip arrested Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, both of Tulsa, about 2 a.m. outside a home north of the city, near where the shootings had occurred, Tulsa Police spokesman Jason Willingham told The Times. The pair were unarmed and cooperated with arresting officers, Willingham said.

Fossilized imprints of raindrops that were sealed into stone 2.7 billion years ago indicate that Earth's early atmosphere could have been packed with greenhouse gases, according to new research that addresses a long-standing paradox of the planet's early history. About 2 billion years ago, the young sun was far less bright, emitting less than 85% of the light and heat it puts out today. With such weak sunlight, Earth should have remained frozen. But ancient water-damaged rocks and algae-like fossils show clear evidence that there was indeed liquid water in the distant past.

Can Wal-Mart Stores Inc. help you beat Angry Birds? Apparently it's trying. The retail giant inked a deal with Rovio, the Finnish tech company behind the hugely popular mobile game, to sell Angry Birds products sprinkled with game clues in its stores. The news coincides with the launch of Angry Birds Space, the latest iteration of the game, which takes the feud between birds and pigs into outer space and adds a zero gravity twist. Wal-Mart will carry apparel, food, mobile phones and plush toys studded with "golden eggsteroid" clues to open bonus levels in Angry Birds Space.

A finger bone fragment, DNA samples, a photo showing a wheel protruding from water. Amelia Earhart disappeared 75 years ago, but the clues continue to surface. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is set to meet with historians and scientists as a new hunt is launched for the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will begin the search in June, according to the Associated Press, off the remote island of South Pacific island of Nikumaroro , in the nation of Kiribati.

Agatha Christie fans are in clover. Two of her classic mysteries from the 1950s are running simultaneously. Both are set in characteristic isolated manors, and both are faithfully produced. But one show enjoys a richer bouquet. The clues are barely discernible. This is a case for the village constable. One, "The Mousetrap" at the Richard Basehart Playhouse in Woodland Hills, opened in London when Harry S. Truman was President, and it's been running there nonstop ever since. The other, "The Unexpected Guest" at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, is not so cherished or well known, but flawless acting and pristine direction turn it into an unexpected treat.

Authorities Tuesday began scouring a car believed stolen last month by murder suspect Warren James Bland, hoping to find evidence that might link the convicted sex offender to the kidnap-slaying of a 14-year-old Placentia girl. San Bernardino County Sheriff Floyd Tidwell described Bland, 50, as "the only suspect we have" in the unsolved killing of Wendy Rachelle Osborn, but he added that evidence gathered so far against Bland is not conclusive enough to charge him in the case.

A black teenager's last phone conversation with his girlfriend before being shot dead in Florida shows that the suspected killer stalked the youth and killed him "in cold blood," a lawyer representing the victim's family said Tuesday. It was the latest turn in a case that has raised allegations of institutional racism in Sanford, Fla., where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed Feb. 26 by a neighborhood watch volunteer in the gated community where the shooting took place. George Zimmerman has admitted shooting the unarmed teen with his 9-millimeter pistol, saying he acted in self-defense.