Man

Phil Jackson never liked to compare Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Believe me, I tried everything. Sometimes I'd ask him after random Lakers practices or before games against Charlotte, the team Jordan owned. Or after games in Chicago, where nostalgia hopefully would add to the mix. There would be a little nugget here, a tiny nibble there, but nothing that mattered. It's coming out now, though, in Jackson's 339-page memoir co-written with Hugh Delehanty and available Tuesday: "Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.

An Inglewood police officer fatally shot a man who was wielding a machete-like weapon Saturday night and using it to smash the windows of police cars, according to a department spokeswoman. The man with the blade was spotted in front of a police station on Manchester Boulevard just before 6 p.m., said Inglewood Police Lt. Gabriela Garcia. After the man advanced toward an officer with the weapon, the officer opened fire, Garcia said. The man was taken to a hospital and died in surgery, Garcia said.

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

A body found in brush in an unincorporated canyon area of Orange County was identified Friday as that of a 36-year-old Army veteran and soon-to-be college graduate missing since earlier this month, and her roommate has been arrested in connection with her death, authorities said. An autopsy confirmed that the body of Maribel Ramos was found Thursday afternoon near Modjeska Canyon, ending weeks of searching for the Cal State Fullerton student, Lt. David Hill of the Orange Police Department told reporters in a Friday news conference.

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

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.

Authorities in Northern California on Saturday announced the arrest of a 12-year-old boy in the stabbing death of his younger sister, whose killing last month sparked a manhunt for a supposed intruder who the boy had said committed the crime. Following a two-week investigation, Calaveras County sheriff's detectives arrested the boy in connection with the death of his sister, 8-year-old Leila Fowler. The boy, whose name was not made public, will be charged with murder, the county sheriff announced at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. - On any given day, this is a quiet, rural town surrounded by miles of hills stacked with golden hay bales. But on Sunday, the sun was hot and weeks of fear had pivoted into confirmation of a sickening suspicion: the brother of a slain 8-year-old girl, Leila Fowler, was now the suspect in the April 27 stabbing death. The community of 7,500 southeast of Sacramento let out a collective breath now that a suspect was in custody. Longing for normalcy, most people took their children to the nearby lake.

Scientists hoping to mimic the life-extending qualities produced by a chemical found in red wine and dark chocolate say they have solved one of the mysteries about how this compound works to combat the effects of obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and a host of other maladies. The findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, could lay the foundation for a variety of drugs that act like concentrated amounts of resveratrol, the compound that has inspired a $30-million-a-year supplement business.

As if you didn't know this already, we're coddling criminals in America. By that I don't mean the petty drug dealers, three-strikes necklace-snatchers and other mooks filling up our state prisons; many of them are doing hard time. I'm talking about people like Jeff Skilling. Skilling, you may recall, was a key architect of the rise and fall of the energy and commodities trading firm Enron, which around the beginning of the last decade claimed the trophy for the biggest securities fraud of all time.

BAKERSFIELD - About a dozen people gathered in front of the Kern County Superior Court building Thursday to protest the death of David Sal Silva, the man who died less than hour after he was beaten by Kern County sheriff's deputies last week. Standing near Kern County's replica Liberty Bell, some protesters wore masks and others held signs as their ranks slowly grew. Chris Silva said he should be home with his family - his brother's funeral was later in the day. But he felt he needed to be at the vigil.

More analysis will determine if footage might be missing from a second cellphone that Kern County authorities seized from witnesses who shot video of sheriff's deputies beating a Bakersfield man who later died, one of the witnesses said Wednesday. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood called in the FBI earlier this week after discovering that another phone that witnesses said contained video of the David Silva beating had no footage. Youngblood said the second phone did have some video of the incident.

WASHINGTON - A New Hampshire man who had his car towed when he was in a hospital recovering from a heart attack and the amputation of his left foot won a measure of justice at the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 9-0 decision released Monday, the court said Robert Pelkey can sue Dan's City Used Cars for disposing of his towed car without telling him or paying him. The case began during a snowstorm in February 2007. Pelkey's 2004 Honda Civic was parked legally in a handicapped parking spot in his apartment complex in Manchester, but he was confined to his bed. Under the apartment's policy, cars were to be removed to clear the snow, and Pelkey's car was towed away.

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

The Catalina Island Museum has opened a window into a dark period of life on the island with an exhibition devoted to a pseudoscientist who looted Native American graves for profit eight decades ago. "The Strange and Mysterious Case of Dr. Glidden," which opened over the weekend, examines the life and times of Ralph Glidden, a hucksterish entrepreneur who in the 1920s and '30s excavated bones and relics from Tongva Indian burial grounds for sale...

We're at the point where any San Diego Chargers victory can be summarized in two words. This goes back to Nov. 19, when between updates I saw a 24-7 San Diego deficit against Denver turn into a 35-27 Chargers victory and I text-messaged a friend to ask what happened. My buddy's reply: "LT happened." Flash-forward to Sunday, when the Chargers had to deal with a strong Oakland Raiders defensive effort, a shaky performance by quarterback Philip Rivers and a 14-7 Raiders lead in the fourth quarter.

Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, has died. He was 56. Known as Marc Christian, he died of pulmonary problems June 2 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The details were confirmed Friday by his sister, Susan Dahl, who said she did not publicly announce his death earlier because of her brother's wish for privacy.

What's to live for? The price of wine continues to skyrocket, and Warren Buffett is now tweeting. What's next for us culturally? Bingo night at the Louvre? Meanwhile, the criminal justice system insists on hammering on poor Lindsay Lohan. It's only a matter of time before her work suffers, and then who takes over as the freckled queen of American cinema? Leonardo DiCaprio? That's the obvious answer. Yes, I have issues with him as Gatsby, but more on that in a moment. For now, I'll tell you what's to live for. Summer, that's what.

Over the objections of Los Angeles County mental health officials, a judge Thursday ordered an 86-year-old murder defendant to remain in the government's care and not be released to a family member. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Norman Shapiro said that Nattie Kennebrew, who in 2009 allegedly shot and killed a handyman and tried to kill the manager at the Hollywood apartment building where he lived, must remain at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino and that the county must pay for his care.