Fred

INFRARED burners are a hot option on gas barbecues, but are we merely buying marketing sizzle instead of cooking a better steak? The intense heat of infrared energy, the pitch goes, allows backyard grillers to sear meat the way steakhouse chefs do.

Most people can tell you exactly where they were when the bus and all those children disappeared. In the way of small towns, the connections to that dark moment are personal. Lois Rambo, who runs the lunch counter at Pioneer Market Cafe in Chowchilla, says her daughter would have been on that bus if she hadn't stayed home sick from school that day. Jodi Heffington Medrano, who owns a salon on the square, was one of the children who disappeared. Photos: Chowchilla kidnappings Even those who weren't born yet can't remember a time when they didn't know the story of the Chowchilla kidnappings.

Portland Mason Schuyler, the precocious and highly publicized child actress daughter of the late actors James and Pamela Mason, has died at age 55. Also a scriptwriter like her late mother, Schuyler died May 10 in Beverly Hills after a long, unspecified illness. From her birth Nov. 26, 1948, through her famous parents' bitter courtroom divorce squabbles in 1964, Schuyler was widely photographed along with them.

Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead. Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims. The church did not inform relatives of the deceased that it had taken the money, which amounted to 88% of the fund.

In the rarefied, regimented world of ballroom dancing, an incident in 1982 proved nothing short of a fashion coup: During an international competition, half a dozen of the world's reigning ballroom dancers--queens of the floor--threw down their tutus. For decades they'd been consigned to wear short skirts with layer upon layer of netting that made them look as if they had stick legs and huge hips. They'd had enough.

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 !

Oscar-winning actor GEORGE KENNEDY, who did the voice of one of the four roughnecks in the computer-animated and live-action movie "Small Soldiers," and his wife, Joan, have bought a home in the Santa Rosa Valley, between Thousand Oaks and Camarillo. Kennedy, who won the Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1967 for his role in "Cool Hand Luke," appears in the movie "Dennis the Menace Strikes Again," just released on video. He played J.R.

"I think every room in the house has its designed purpose," says software entrepreneur Bradford Karns. "And the bedroom is a place for sleeping. I don't hole up there with a box of candy." Karns wanted a sleek, minimalist environment with an indoor/outdoor feel and gallery-like space where he could hang his extensive collection of modern and contemporary art.

Question: Is bottled water really safer than tap water? How can one make an intelligent choice between Sparkletts, Arrowhead and the others? As for their "deep wells" claims--what about ground-water contamination? How effective is the monitoring of bottled water, and who does it?--B.S. Answer: Everyone in the bottled-water industry delicately tiptoes around the "safety" aspect of what it replaces--tap water.

In a year that has seen would-be action heroes Jeff Speakman and Brian Bosworth make well-orchestrated attempts to muscle their way into the action-adventure movie arena, Columbia Pictures is clearly betting that Jean-Claude Van Damme could be the next Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal--or even Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Double Impact," the $15-million action film in which Van Damme plays dual roles, opened well Aug. 9 and has grossed $15.