Houses

Michelle Knight, the longest-held of three women kidnapped and imprisoned in a Cleveland house for years, was discharged Friday from the hospital where she had been cared for after her ordeal. Reportedly in good spirits, Knight left MetroHealth Medical Center on the same day state officials announced that DNA testing had established that Ariel Castro, being held on kidnapping and rape charges, was the father of the 6-year-old girl born to another of the imprisoned women. Like her fellow captives, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, Knight asked for privacy.

The furor over the Benghazi talking points continues. Republicans still see them as the main event in a campaign to embarrass President Obama. The president, for his part, calls them a "sideshow. " Finally, on Wednesday, the White House released more than 100 pages of internal emails that showed, in excruciating detail, exactly how the talking points were edited - and the emails, at least to our reading, supported the president's characterization. Prepared by intelligence officials and revised in interagency discussions, the now-famous talking points were the basis for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's comments five days after the 2012 attack on the diplomatic compound in Libya that the siege had grown out of a spontaneous reaction to protests in Cairo over an anti-Muslim video.

WASHINGTON - How hot is hot when it comes to housing markets across the country right now? Crazy hot: Some houses sell within days, sometimes within hours, of listing. Then there are the growing numbers that sell even before they formally hit the market - sold through a controversial technique known as "pocket listing. " What's a pocket listing? Essentially it's a private, "off-market" listing, often of short duration. Instead of putting the house on the local Multiple Listing Service, which exposes it to a vast number of shoppers and agents via real estate websites, agents restrict access to information about the house to their own buyer clients or colleagues in the same brokerage, hoping for a quick, full-price sale.

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of House lawmakers has reached an "agreement in principle" on a sweeping immigration bill that would parallel work underway in the Senate, sources said Thursday. The consensus, reached after a private evening meeting, puts the House on track to unveil a bill in early June. The group of eight Democratic and Republican lawmakers had been stalemated to the point that House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) expressed concern earlier Thursday. U.S. immigration law: Decades of debate "It's been a difficult, arduous process and we haven't fallen apart yet," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)

Casey Kasem, who gained a national radio audience after "American Top 40" launched in 1970, and his wife, Jean, are listing their Westside estate for sale at $42 million. With 12,000 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms, the home has been the site of intimate interviews and sleepovers for as many as 20 youngsters a night. The yard has served as the site of elaborate celebrity-studded gatherings and paintball battles. The syndicated radio host bought the property for Jean Kasem in 1989 as a gift.

At the headquarters of Boston Medical Group in Costa Mesa, six salesmen were working the toll-free appointment line on a recent afternoon, fielding calls from men around the country enticed by newspaper and radio ads promising a "proven" solution to erectile dysfunction in "one office visit. " The results are visible "right there in the office," one sales representative told a caller. "It's amazing. " Following a script, he answered a few questions and offered to schedule a $195 consultation at one of the company's 21 U.S. clinics.

In these troubled times, who better to lead the 70th annual Hollywood Christmas Parade than Captain America? On Sunday, Peter Fonda will sport his "Easy Rider' persona, wearing a black leather jacket decorated with the stars and stripes to cruise down Hollywood Boulevard--albeit on four wheels--as the grand marshal of the 2001 parade. Fonda, 62, will be joined in this Tinseltown holiday celebration by dozens of celebrities, ranging from Pat Boone and Florence Henderson to Antonio Sabato Jr. and Eden's Crush.

I've been to Disneyland hundreds of times over the last two decades and have been writing the Funland theme park blog for about four years now. As a result, people are always asking me how to do everything at Disneyland in a single day. The short answer is you probably can't. It can be a struggle for even hard-core fans with military assault-like strategies. The longer answer is there's lots of ways to maximize your time in the park and get on the most rides possible. PHOTOS: How to do Disneyland in a day So in honor of Disneyland's 24-hour Leap Day celebration , here are my seven tips for tackling Disneyland in a day: Tip 1: If you're trying to get the most out of your day at Disneyland , I always recommend arriving just before the park opens in the morning, staying until the park closes at night and taking a long break in the heat of the afternoon at your hotel pool or cocktail bar. It may sound like a long day, but you'll get more done in the first two hours and the last two hours of your day than if you spent 15 hours straight at the park.

WASHINGTON - With full-fledged sellers' markets underway in dozens of metropolitan areas around the country, new research has found curious statistical patterns emerging: Even in cities where listings get multiple offers within days or hours, significant numbers of homes are sitting on the market for six months, 12 months or more with no takers. Call them turnoff listings. Despite roaring sales paces all around them, for one reason or another these houses send shoppers scurrying away, often because of mispricing, excessive restrictions on access to buyers and agents, failure to clean or make repairs and a variety of other marketing bungles.

AT first blush, they sound like deals worthy of a late-night infomercial: "Buy a two-bedroom cabin in the middle of the national forest just two hours from Los Angeles for a mere $169,000!" Chump change for equity-rich Angelenos, right? But the devil, as always, is in the details. The cabins are part of the U.S. Forest Service's Recreation Residential Program, started nearly 100 years ago to encourage use of what was then the fledgling national forest system.

WASHINGTON - Career CIA officers were responsible for administration claims that the armed attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead last fall grew out of a protest of an anti-Islamic video, an incorrect assertion that became a flash point for critics who say the Obama administration deliberately misled the public for political reasons, according to emails released by the White House on Wednesday. The 99 pages of emails from the two days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack reveal confused and occasionally sharp negotiations among officials at the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the White House and the State Department as they scrambled to craft so-called talking points about a nightlong assault that was still little understood.

WASHINGTON - Facing questions about the Justice Department's secret seizure of reporters' phone records, the White House says that it will renew its push for legislation that would offer federal protections to journalists and their sources. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the White House had asked Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reintroduce the so-called media shield bill, which would in some cases prevent reporters from being compelled to name confidential sources.

WASHINGTON - A defiant President Obama dismissed as a "sideshow" the controversy over his administration's handling of last year's armed assault in Benghazi, Libya, accusing critics of trying to make political hay from the deaths of four Americans. "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus," Obama told reporters Monday. Obama's angry remarks were his first since House hearings last week about the September 2012 attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, and his first public reaction to fresh evidence indicating the White House weighed political calculations as it released information in the days that followed.

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans have opened a new line of attack on President Obama's healthcare law, charging that the administration has improperly sought help from the healthcare industry and other outside groups to implement the landmark statute. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for months has been asking foundations, consumer and business groups, insurance companies and others to help enroll uninsured Americans in health insurance this fall, a key goal of the Affordable Care Act. Administration officials say those actions were entirely appropriate.

SOLANA BEACH, Calif. - As befits its name, issues of sand and surf loom large in this seaside community north of San Diego. For more than three decades, controversy has surrounded the proliferation of privately built sea walls meant to protect bluff-top homeowners along the city's approximately 1.7 miles of oceanfront. Property owners say the walls are the only way to keep the pounding waves from inexorably undercutting the tall bluffs and imperiling their pricey homes. Environmentalists view the sea walls - built on public and private property - as abominations that shrink the beach and place private interests above the right of the public to enjoy the coast.

La Piedra is one of 23 estates in Palm Springs' guard-gated Southridge community. The Midcentury Modern retreat, with views of the San Jacinto mountains and Coachella Valley, is made of more than 700 tons of quartz. Location: 2399 Southridge Drive, Palm Springs 92264 Asking price: $9.555 million Year built: 1983 Renovated: 2005 Architect: Edward Giddings House size: Five bedrooms, six bathrooms, 7,500 square feet Lot size: 2.25 acres Features: A great room with high ceilings, sunken wetbar, kitchen island, circular dining room, detached two-bedroom guesthouse, swimming pool with waterfall and spa, putting course, travertine shuffleboard court, outdoor kitchen.

Actress Jane Fonda bought a home in Beverly Hills last year with a feature that might seem counterintuitive for a fitness guru: an elevator. The Holmby Hills house that pop icon Michael Jackson leased has one within its 17,200 square feet of living space. So does the nearby 56,500-square-foot mansion heiress Petra Ecclestone bought from socialite Candy Spelling two years ago for $85 million. But home elevators aren't just for the super-rich anymore. Baby boomers looking to age in place are installing them to ease the burden of bad knees and growing girth.

On busy Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, some well-kept facades conceal a secret. Behind the Mediterranean with wooden doors, the white stucco two-story with a red tile roof, the long wall obscuring a three-structure compound, hides a singular, massive wealth fueled by obsession. This is Larry Ellison territory, where a Bay Area billionaire with seemingly endless patience and resources is buying up the best spots along Malibu's 21 miles of coast. PHOTOS: Expensive things Ellison has bought The Oracle Corp.

“The Biggest Loser” trainer Jillian Michaels has listed a house for sale in Hollywood Hills West at $2.45 million. The contemporary home, built in 2000, features  an open floor plan, three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. There is a swimming pool and a security camera system. There's no gym, but she probably works out at the office. Michaels, 39, is on her third stint on “Loser” since 2005. She had her own show, “Losing It With Jillian,”  in 2010.   She bought the property in 2008 for $1.565 million, public records show.

Mickey Rooney's waterfront house in a gated Westlake Village community has sold for $1.05 million. Built in 1976, the Traditional-style two-story includes a private boat dock. There are four bedrooms, three bathrooms and 2,413 square feet of living space. Grandest pool around? Malibu has it Rooney, 92, got his start as a child actor in silent films. His credits include “Babes in Arms” (1939), “National Velvet” (1944), “The Black Stallion” (1979) and “Night at the Museum” (2006)