Contests

Pacoima produced three of the four winners at the fifth annual Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Spelling Bee on Saturday. The winners will get a free trip to Washington, D.C., where Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills) will take them on a tour. Karina Bedolla, 9, of Pacoima Elementary School; Emilio Fuentes, 13, of Maclay Middle School in Pacoima; and Vanda Ayrapetian, 12, of Guardian Angel Catholic School are the Valley winners headed to the nation's capital April 30.

CAIRO - Seizing a moment in history they never imagined, the two old men walked arm in arm into a polling station on a day that was thoroughly and wonderfully Egyptian: Opinion polls were unreliable, intrigue was high, and there was a sense of destiny to rekindle the grandeur of the nation's ancient past. But it was also unlike any other day in this troubled land that has veered from euphoria to disgust to resilience: The name Hosni Mubarak wasn't on the ballot, and the two men didn't already know the outcome when they walked into the polling booth in an election that was as thrilling as it was unpredictable.

Debbie Kruck was the kind of little girl who wouldn't eat her vegetables. "I used to hide the lima beans in a napkin," she says. In high school, she used to feign illness to get out of gym class. At about the same time, she developed "a bit of a weight problem." So she tried every fad diet she could think of, only to end up gaining back more than she'd lost. Whoever imagined back then that someday she'd grow up to be named the first-ever "Ms. Fitness U.S.A."? Debbie Kruck, that's who.

WASHINGTON - Upstart state Sen. Deb Fischer triumphed in Nebraska's bitterly contested Republican primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, winning the right to face Democrat Bob Kerrey in November. The race had become a high-profile showdown among tea party leaders, who split their support among three candidates. The seat being vacated by Democrat Ben Nelson is considered the GOP's best opportunity for a Senate pickup this fall. Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had endorsed Fischer last week, giving the little-known rancher from the Sandhills region a boost.

Lurking in the 2,592 entries in the third annual Scariest Story Ever Told contest were thrills, chills--and a frightening brain scan of what's on the minds of Southern Californians. Our eight winners included eight writers--Joe and Denise Altick of Ventura, Peter J. Estes of Lancaster, Sara Ludovise of Laguna Niguel, Michael Hook Mack of Sun Valley, Lynn J. Reinert of Irvine, Michael Schwartz of Reseda, and Lotus Yu of Yorba Linda--and one illustrator, Barbara Abbott of Newport Beach.

A new breed of geranium will be hitting the market this spring, and already it has been declared a winner. Ranked No. 2 in potted-plant sales behind poinsettias and outsold in the bedding-plant market only by impatiens, geraniums are a universal favorite. With this new entry on the scene, there is no telling to what heights geraniums will climb. Members of this new class, products of the complex process of mating parents of different species, are being called floribunda geraniums.

Across the town of San Fernando, in kitchens where pigs' feet hang from clothespins and caldrons bubble with murky soup, families are gearing up for a historic event that may put this city on the culinary map: a menudo cook-off. The soup made from cow's stomach, pigs' feet and hominy is quintessentially Mexican, and this Sunday San Fernando will sponsor its first menudo festival to celebrate its Mexican American heritage.

The shores of Seal Beach will be transformed into a fantasy land of sandcastles Saturday when the United Way of Orange County holds its annual sand sculpting competition. Last year, more than 20,000 people flocked to Seal Beach to watch teams compete to build the best sandcastle. The contest kicks off the United Way's fund-raising season. "The event is not a fund-raiser.

Like its creator and star Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedy of "The Dictator" is mercurial to the extreme and as crude as the massive oil reserves of Wadiya, the fictional North African nation where his latest movie prank begins. By turns hysterical, heretical, guilty, innocent, silly, sophisticated, teasing and tedious, the film follows the power-mad leader Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen as he loses his bearings, his beard and his heart in New York City. "The Dictator" underscores both Baron Cohen's genius and his folly, and delivers the actor's signature blend of scatological outrage, sagacity and at least one full-frontal assault with a flaccid unmentionable.

On certain patriotic occasions contests are conducted in which students are asked to write essays demonstrating their understanding of America's institutions and traditions. Unfortunately, such contests seem to suffer from lack of definitely stated goals and standards, which can then be used to evaluate the results. For that reason I would like to propose an essay contest in which the scoring or evaluation will be entirely objective. Here is the standard: The winning essay must explain the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in language so clear, so lucid, so patently explicit that even Ed Meese can understand it!

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.

Anida Yoeu Ali and Masahiro Sugano were excited when they heard about the White House video contest on issues affecting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. They spent two weeks putting together a three-minute film on the plight of Cambodian deportees, then watched as online views outpaced the competition. But they found out last month that they didn't win, and since then have been unable to find out how the contest was decided. They, and one contest winner, think the film's topic cut too close to a controversy over the record number of immigrants deported by the Obama administration.

Up, up and not quite away. That's the frustrating story of human-powered helicopters and the prize coveted by virtually everyone who has designed the cumbersome beasts and tried to get them aloft. So far, nobody has come up with a muscle-driven machine capable of hovering for 1 minute and rising 3 meters - requirements for the Igor I. Sikorsky Prize, an honor the helicopter industry has dangled before aeronautics buffs for 32 years. The prize has been offered so long that the booty, initially $10,000, became embarrassingly small.

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan and its southern rival slid toward a ruinous war Thursday, with fighting continuing along their contested border and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir threatening to teach the world's newest country "a final lesson by force. " A protracted war between Sudan and South Sudan, which separated peacefully in July, would almost certainly have a devastating civilian toll and seriously damage the oil sector on which both economies depend. But diplomacy has gotten nowhere, and civilians on both sides were urging their governments not to back down.

Former star center fielder Lenny Dykstra will not be allowed to post or solicit on social networking or e-commerce sites over the next three years as part of a plea deal with city prosecutors, authorities said. Dykstra pleaded no contest Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon involving women who responded to housekeeping ads he placed on Craigslist, authorities said Wednesday. Prosecutors said he would receive nine months in jail. Under the plea deal, Dykstra also was placed on three years' probation, including provisions to prevent him from misusing the Internet, which he used to lure women who traveled long distances and were desperate for work in the bad economy.

OXON HILL, Md. - A team of skilled teenagers from Highland Park traveled across the country recently to test its ability to protect American interests from potentially dangerous attacks. Its only weapon: laptops. Cloaked in blue oversized hoodies, a handful of students from Benjamin Franklin High School hunched over their computer screens, armed with the knowledge to thwart hackers from infiltrating computer networks and stealing sensitive information. At CyberPatriot: The National High School Cyber Defense Competition, held here, a stone's throw from the nation's capital, students mostly played defense against sophisticated computer whizzes with ill intentions.

A 28-year-old woman found dead hours after taking part in a radio station's water-drinking contest died of water intoxication, the coroner's office said Saturday. Assistant Sacramento County Coroner Ed Smith said a preliminary investigation found evidence "consistent with a water intoxication death." Also known as hyponatremia, water intoxication occurs when the body's sodium level falls below normal.

Rick Santorum won the Colorado GOP presidential preference straw poll, according to the Colorado Republican Party. The victory means a trifecta tonight for the former Pennsylvania senator, who also won in Minnesota and Missouri. It is a significant defeat for front-runner Mitt Romney, who took 60% of the vote in the Colorado's 2008 nominating contest. John McCain , the eventual nominee, won just 18%. PHOTOS: Campaign 2012 highlights The results were announced late Tuesday on CNN by Colorado Republican Party Chairman Ryan Call.

The city of Vernon on Wednesday was roiled by allegations of widespread voter fraud, including claims that outsiders were brought in to vote in an attempt to influence the city's first competitive election in years. The Chamber of Commerce alleges that nearly 30% of the registered voters didn't live in Vernon. In response to the group's complaints, city officials threw out six ballots Tuesday, tilting the election for a City Council seat to challenger Michael Ybarra, who won by five votes.

The day Rick Santorum suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination saw President Obama in Florida. He'll be back in the Sunshine State on Friday. Floridians can expect to see a lot of the president, and of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, as well as a deluge of television advertising over the next seven months. Florida is one of a handful of states - maybe as few as four or five - that likely will decide the election. Right now, Obama appears to have at least narrow leads in most of those states, judging by the most recent polls - two last month in Florida had him up by between three and seven points, for example.