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A key prosecution witness in the Bell corruption case testified Wednesday that signatures on city contracts, minutes for council meetings, agendas and even resolutions were forged. Bell City Clerk Rebecca Valdez's testimony could bolster the defense's argument that record-keeping in Bell was so sloppy that it would be difficult to prove that six former council members inflated their annual salaries to nearly $100,000 by serving on boards and commissions that met for a few minutes, if ever.

FT. MEADE, Md. - Lawyers for five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators asked a judge Tuesday to allow them to spend 48 hours every six months inside the Guantanamo Bay prison to document conditions to persuade a jury not to recommend the death penalty if their clients are convicted of capital murder. The highly unusual request came on the second day of weeklong pretrial hearings at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was challenged by military and government prosecutors who said they would permit just "one single visit," control whom the lawyers talk to and what they see, and be in charge of the defense lawyers' written notes, sketches and photographs of the prison.

More than two years after the Bell corruption case erupted, the prosecution called its first witness Friday in an effort to show that the leaders of the small, working-class city became some of the highest-paid city politicians in California by serving on boards that sometimes met just so they could approve further pay hikes. Rebecca Valdez, Bell's city clerk who has been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony, testified that it was her job to take notes at council meetings, including marking the start and end time of the various boards on which council members served, such as the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.

Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement, including keeping them out of California to avoid prosecution, according to internal Catholic church records released Monday. The archdiocese's failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement has previously been known. But the memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr.

Kevin James, the sole Republican among the main contenders in the Los Angeles mayor's race, raised a little more than $42,000 in the final quarter of 2012, but spent more than four times that amount, largely on high-priced political consultants. James, an attorney and former talk radio host who has never held elected office, spent $178,595 in the fourth quarter, a few thousand shy of top-tier candidate and key rival Wendy Greuel, according to campaign finance documents filed with the City Ethics Commission on Thursday.

Before iPads, smart phones and even computers, there was the page: a tangible place to jot down thoughts, work out ideas, write a novel, love letter, thesis or equation. "Pages," an exhibition at the Williamson Gallery at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, focuses on the simple piece of refined pulp as a place for formal and finished ideas and a space for creativity. "It's a way of celebrating the page as our human external memory of choice for the last two millennial," said co-curator and gallery director Stephen Nowlin.

The Food and Drug Administration released long-awaited documents Dec. 21 on genetically modified salmon: an assessment of the fish's potential environmental effects and a preliminary “ finding of no significant impact ” of the fish on the environment. This brings AquAdvantage salmon -- Atlantic salmon that has been modified with a growth hormone gene from chinook salmon so that it reaches maturity faster -- a significant step closer to FDA approval.   Astute readers will notice that the recently released documents are dated May 4. So why were they just released Dec. 21 -- seven months later?

CAIRO - President Mohamed Morsi apparently secured a victory at the polls Saturday for a new Egyptian constitution, locking the country into a bitter contest between his ascendant Islamist camp and his secular opponents. Morsi managed to push the controversial document through after a political crisis brought on by his declaration a month ago giving himself wide-ranging emergency powers. Although Morsi rolled back much of that decree - amid massive protests and street clashes - he insisted on bringing the new constitution to a referendum.

"Tchoupitoulas" is a jewel-bright whoosh of a ride through nighttime New Orleans. Embarking on a mission to create "an artifact of an adventure," sibling filmmakers Bill and Turner Ross turned their kinetic lenses on another set of brothers, the adolescent Zanders trio from the city's Algiers neighborhood. From nine months' worth of shooting they've created a single night's story, disjointed in its logic (sometimes it's Mardi Gras, sometimes it isn't) but perfectly coherent in its sensory-immersion chronicle of the boys' peregrinations.

CAIRO - Egypt's public prosecutor, appointed by President Mohamed Morsi last month, resigned from his post Monday amid ongoing tension between the nation's judiciary and the president. Talaat Ibrahim submitted his resignation to the Supreme Judiciary Council, according to the state-run news agency. The council said it would deliberate Sunday on whether to accept the resignation. Members of the Judges Club and the nation's judiciary have been furious with Morsi since he decreed Nov. 22 that an Islamist-led assembly writing the nation's draft constitution was immune from judicial oversight.