Families

Even before the morning dew dried on the knolls of Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary in Whittier on Saturday, hundreds of Chinese families were lined up outside the gate, their cars packed with bountiful offerings: fruit, noodle and vegetable dishes, whole roasted pigs. The long procession of cars -- 15,000 to 20,000 are expected through this afternoon -- meandered up the steep pathways to the west side of the cemetery, where many of Southern California's Chinese are buried.

What was once a family outing will turn into a sad farewell race today at Santa Anita, for a horse named Return Of The King. The 7-year-old gelding will run in the second race, a six-furlong test for older horses, with a purse of $33,000 and a claiming price of $40,000. Return Of The King is the last horse remaining in James Ortega's stable.

Life has settled down somewhat for Hugh McCutcheon, the man for whom the Beijing Olympics became the best of times and the worst of times. He is home in Irvine, but also back in Minnesota frequently, where his mother-in-law, Barbara Bachman, has recovered from the stab wounds she suffered in the attack at a tourist spot. The same attacker, Tang Yongming, killed her husband, Todd, the 62-year-old chief executive of a Minnesota gardening business.

The same driveway that played host to so many family parties -- including 4-year-old Roberto Lopez Jr.'s birthday celebration last month -- turned into a scene of sorrow Wednesday, a day after the boy was killed by shots fired at a red car driving through the neighborhood south of Echo Park. Under a blue tarp suspended over the driveway, dozens of relatives, friends and neighbors formed a circle on the pavement, weeping and praying on the same spot where just a month ago Roberto Jr.

Nadya Suleman has 14 children, including newborn octuplets. She has no job, no income and owes $50,000 in student loans. Still, the 33-year-old Whittier woman said she's confident that she can afford to raise her huge family, insisting she can do it without welfare. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, she said she could use student loans to make ends meet until she finishes graduate school and gets a job.

A year ago, Michael Bowler took in 16-year-old twins he met while volunteering at a Los Angeles County probation hall. Bowler, a 51-year-old special education teacher who volunteered through the Catholic Church, thought he could help the county as well as Edward and Louis Hanson by giving them a home. Instead of thanking Bowler, the county billed him nearly $10,000. When the bill arrived in October, Bowler studied it, confused.

The woman who barely escaped with her daughter when a commuter plane plowed into their house, killing her husband and all 49 people aboard, returned to the disaster scene Wednesday. While she was there, investigators continued to collect evidence they hope will tell them what brought down the aircraft. Karen Wielinski, 57, and her daughter Jill, 22, were escorted by police to the site where her home once sat.

She was sinking in a soured economy until co-workers gave her a hand up by sending her Down Under. Employees at a Pasadena auto dealership chipped in to pay the way to Australia for car saleswoman Sue Ellis after she learned that her elderly mother was facing a cancer operation there and had a roughly 20% chance of surviving.

On some afternoons in the West Wing, as he wonders how best to convey the White House's messages about an economic downturn, financial calamity, job loss and tough foreign policy challenges, Robert Gibbs finds himself thinking about a turtle named Yertle. The press secretary to President Obama is trying to figure out whether he can get home for story time with his 5-year-old son, Ethan, whose book of choice is frequently the Dr. Seuss classic about the king of the pond.

Nancy Davis, daughter of the late Los Angeles billionaire Marvin Davis, alleges that her brother Gregg cheated his siblings and mother out of millions of dollars by low-balling the value of the family oil company in a forced bankruptcy sale. Gregg Davis, 45, conspired with a New York investment bank and others to acquire Davis Petroleum Corp.