John

It was billed as a "shocking tell-all" and a "world exclusive," but the National Enquirer's March 26 cover story landed with a thud. TMZ, Page Six and other major players in celebrity gossip ignored the article in which a masseur claimed John Travolta offered money for sex. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article used the term "masseuse"; it should have said "masseur. " Five weeks after the issue left the checkout aisle, a DUI attorney from Pasadena put the anonymous masseur's tawdry tale in a lawsuit and it became an overnight pop culture sensation, topping Google News, trending on Twitter and meriting a segment on "Good Morning America.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — For a fourth day Wednesday, the jury in the John Edwards trial deliberated without reaching a verdict in a case focused on an illicit affair and federal campaign finance laws. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards violated election laws when payments from two wealthy donors were used to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during Edwards' failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Prosecutors contend that Edwards solicited $925,000 in illegal contributions from the donors in order to hide the affair and keep his campaign from collapsing in scandal.

Two 17-year-old girls have been sentenced for torturing and butchering an elderly woman, less than three weeks after a pair of 10-year-olds were charged with murdering a toddler. Again, a troubled nation is asking, how could this happen? Edna Phillips, 70, was throttled with her dog's leash and stabbed or slashed 86 times. The mental images of the crime have shocked the nation just as the video pictures of little James Bulger being led to his death did last month.

JAZZ A fleet-fingered and frequently awe-inspiring bassist who first rose to prominence as part of Chick Corea's Elektric and Akoustic bands in the '80s, John Patitucci could most recently be heard on his knotty 2009 release "Remembrance" as well as holding down the bottom end in Wayne Shorter's touring band. For this performance he leads a trio that includes pianist Jon Cowherd and drummer Adam Cruz, who turned a few heads in his own right with his 2011 debut album "Milestone.

Distancing himself from Republicans on housing issues, President Obama pitched a $5-billion to $10-billion plan to help a key segment of struggling homeowners — those still making monthly payments, but on underwater mortgages. Obama proposed Wednesday to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages. He argued that those homeowners — and the country — couldn't afford to let the housing market bottom out, as many Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have advocated.

If you give millions of seriously underwater homeowners a new equity position in their properties by reducing their principal mortgage debt, will they keep paying on their loans and avoid foreclosure? Call it a pipe dream or a significant model for other lenders and investors, but one company says it has found an important combination: Modify underwater borrowers' loans so that their payments are reduced to a manageable amount and cut their principal debt over time, but make the deal dependent on their scrupulous on-time monthly payments of the new amount plus sharing of a portion of any future profit they make on the house sale.

Pop star Andy Gibb died of natural causes--an inflammation of the heart probably caused by a virus--and not from a drug overdose or alcohol abuse, a hospital announced Friday. Gibb died at Oxford's John Ratcliffe Hospital on Thursday, five days after his 30th birthday. He entered the hospital Monday complaining of stomach pains.

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

Vertigo. For most people, the word summons images of Jimmy Stewart dangling from high places in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller by the same name. It means something else, however, to hundreds of thousands of people who experience the strange, dizzying affliction. The most common cause of vertigo, known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, usually can be treated with one visit to the doctor.

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards admitted Thursday that he fathered a child with a former campaign videographer, confirming rumors and reports that had been swirling around the former North Carolina senator for months. "I am Quinn's father," Edwards said in a prepared statement, referring to Frances Quinn Hunter, the toddler he fathered with the videographer, Rielle Hunter. " . . . It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me."

Some conservatives are in a mild panic about the possibility that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will succumb to pressure from Democrats and the liberal media to uphold "Obamacare." This from a Wall Street Journal editorial: "You can tell the Supreme Court is getting closer to its historic Obamacare ruling because the left is making one last attempt to intimidate the justices.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A third day of jury deliberations in the campaign finance trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards passed without a verdict Tuesday, with the jurors due back in federal court Wednesday morning. The jury of eight men and four women requested two more prosecution exhibits, bringing to more than a dozen the number of exhibits sought by jurors since deliberations began Friday. The documents requested Tuesday were letters to or about Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, now 101, a billionaire heiress and Edwards supporter who gave $725,000 that was used to help hide the candidate's mistress during his failed campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal jury in the political corruption trial of former presidential candidate John Edwards deliberated for a second day Monday without reaching a verdict, as Edwards quietly awaited his fate inside a federal courthouse. The jury of eight men and four women requested seven prosecution exhibits. Among them were emails in 2006 and 2007 that discussed $725,000 provided to Edwards by wealthy heiress and supporter Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, now 101, during Edwards' campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

John Grisham is to literature what Cheerios are to a rushed breakfast, something you buy in bulk and consume without too much thought. Honestly, I'm relieved when a new Grisham book doesn't weigh more than I do. Yet his newest work, "Calico Joe," is as slender as a Dodgers shortstop. Coming in at under 200 pages, it is a breezy little baseball novel that will probably appeal to many men the way Nicholas Sparks' stories appeal to that other sex. Strangely, considering the subject matter, it is amazingly unevocative of the game itself.

It was billed as a "shocking tell-all" and a "world exclusive," but the National Enquirer's March 26 cover story landed with a thud. TMZ, Page Six and other major players in celebrity gossip ignored the article in which a masseur claimed John Travolta offered money for sex. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article used the term "masseuse"; it should have said "masseur. " Five weeks after the issue left the checkout aisle, a DUI attorney from Pasadena put the anonymous masseur's tawdry tale in a lawsuit and it became an overnight pop culture sensation, topping Google News, trending on Twitter and meriting a segment on "Good Morning America.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Both sides in the John Edwards trial gave detailed closing arguments Thursday to a federal jury that will decide whether the former presidential candidate knowingly violated campaign finance laws in a scheme to hide an extramarital affair. Prosecutors told jurors that testimony and evidence in the nearly four-week trial prove that Edwards solicited and orchestrated secret payments of $925,000 from two wealthy benefactors to save his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination from scandal.

The great director John Ford once introduced himself by saying, "I make westerns," and he certainly did. Ford's pictures set the standard for the genre, and it is a pleasure to report that four of his best will be on the American Cinematheque's big screen at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. A double bill of the cavalry epics "Fort Apache" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" will screen tonight, while Sunday has the twin classics "The Searchers" and "Stagecoach." Both nights start at 7:30. If you want more Ford, and who wouldn't, check out the multi-Oscar winning "How Green Was My Valley" on Friday night.

John Forsythe, the suave actor with the silvery hair and mellifluous voice who was familiar to millions for his roles on the popular television series "Bachelor Father," "Charlie's Angels" and "Dynasty," died Thursday. He was 92. Forsythe, who had heart bypass surgery in 1979 and was hospitalized for colon cancer in 2006, died at his home in the Santa Barbara County town of Santa Ynez from complications of pneumonia, publicist Harlan Boll said. Skilled at both comedy and drama, the actor began his long career on Broadway, where he stepped in for Henry Fonda in "Mister Roberts" and later originated the lead role in the hit comedy "Teahouse of the August Moon."

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The jurors who will decide the fate of former presidential candidate John Edwards deliberated for more than four hours Friday before breaking for the weekend in a trial focused on complex campaign finance laws and lurid details of Edwards' extramarital affair. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether Edwards knowingly conspired to violate federal election laws as part of a scheme to cover up his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley on Wednesday called for the resignation of Assessor John Noguez, whose office has been the target of a corruption probe. Cooley made the comments to reporters for several news organizations, a day after he announced that he planned to bring the case to a grand jury. "I don't think he should be there," Cooley told KNBC-TV Channel 4. "In my view, he should resign in the light of everything that's come out publicly. " Officials at the district attorney's office confirmed that Cooley would like Noguez to step down.