Marriage

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the breakup of his 20-year marriage, saying he was responsible for the split even as he refused to talk about what caused it. In a somber meeting with reporters at City Hall, Villaraigosa declined to answer questions about whether the break with his wife, Corina, was triggered by another romantic relationship.

Re "California, late to the altar," Editorial, April 26 Your editorial regarding the role of California in the race to recognize same-sex marriage omits what I believe to be the biggest catalyst of the changes taking place in the country. In 2004, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom took the politically courageous action of ordering his city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. His action began the entire cavalcade going on today and placed California at the forefront of this civil rights battle.

"The Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is usually focused on rehabbing canines -- but he's now revealing some work he had to do on himself following a suicide attempt in 2010. In February of that year, he lost his top dog, Daddy, to cancer after 16 years as a team. A month later, Millan's wife told him she wanted a divorce after 16 years of marriage. The combined blow knocked him for a loop, he shares in "Cesar Millan: The Real Story," a documentary on Nat Geo Wild. In May 2010, he attempted suicide via drug overdose, winding up unconscious and hospitalized, he said.

Three decades ago, an east Texas singer named George Jones took on an impossibly melodramatic, shamelessly sentimental song about a man who desperately clutched at lost love until his dying breath. His 1980 recording of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" became one of the most revered songs in country music history. Singers Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard were known for the poetically crafted lyrics of their country standards. But Jones' anguish-drenched vocals elevated "He Stopped Loving Her Today" above its soap-opera lyrics in polls of the greatest country music songs.

Jeanne Cooper Emmy winner starred in 'The Young and the Restless' Jeanne Cooper, 84, the enduring soap opera star who played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on CBS' "The Young and the Restless," died Wednesday in her sleep, according to the network. Cooper's son, actor Corbin Bernsen, said last month in Twitter messages that she had been suffering from an undisclosed illness. A Los Angeles resident, Cooper joined the daytime serial six months after its March 1973 debut, staking claim to the title of longest-tenured cast member.

Veteran "KTLA 5 Morning News" anchor Michaela Pereira will be leaving the station at the end of May to join CNN's new morning show in New York. Pereira will be the news anchor for the show, which will be hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan. The announcement was made jointly by KTLA and President of CNN Worldwide Jeff Zucker, who is aggressively shaking up the struggling network's lineup and personalities. "I've been looking forward to this announcement since I first joined CNN," Zucker said in a statement.

Until recently, it would have been fair to say that older people simply did not get divorced. Fewer than 10% of those who got divorced in 1990 were ages 50 or older. Today, 1 in 4 people getting divorced is in this age group. It turns out that those high-profile breakups of Tipper and Al Gore, and Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, were part of a trend. Baby boomers, who drove the huge increase in divorce that began during the 1970s and persisted through the early 1980s, are at it again.

Having been born to one of the most famous couples of this century--America's greatest modern writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his talented flapper wife Zelda Sayre--Scottie Fitzgerald was thrust a heavy mantle, particularly as their only child. Add to that the heady cocktail of parental alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, numerous failed suicide attempts and schizophrenia. Talent and tragedy were genetically passed on to Scottie as surely as her blond hair and blue eyes. Until now, very little was known about the Fitzgeralds' daughter beyond her school days.

Jada Pinkett Smith has responded to the rumor that she has an open relationship with hubby Will Smith, dubbing it "the most persistent" rumor that has dogged them during their 16-year marriage. Asked flat-out, "Is it true?" in a sit-down with Marc Lamont Hill on HuffPost Live , Jada replied, "I think, no, I think people get that idea because Will and I are very relaxed with one another and I think because, from how I've answered questions" about how she deals with other women when it comes to being married to a superstar.  Note that the word "no" actually appears in that quote, though it was hardly the highlight of the sentence.

Sara Gilbert of "The Talk" is engaged to Linda Perry, her girlfriend of more than a year, the co-host announced Monday on the show. The proposal, which was elaborate, is best captured by the notoriously shy Gilbert herself, who shares the event in the video down below -- definitely worth watching to hear all the intricacies. Be warned: It involves a love song, a breakup song, a picnic, a guitarist, a daydream, a string section and horns, T-shirts, moms, friends and musician John Waite.

California finds itself in an unaccustomed place these days: behind the curve. Another state, Rhode Island, and two more countries, France and New Zealand, were just added to the steadily growing list of places where same-sex marriage will receive full recognition and status. The roster now encompasses 14 nations and 10 states - as soon as the Rhode Island legislation is signed - as well as Washington, D.C. Missing from it is California. How could California, with its frontier live-and-let-live sensibility and a reputation for social progressiveness that verges on downright weirdness, have ended up in this situation?

PARIS - The French Parliament on Tuesday approved a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt, voting after months of often angry debate and sometimes violent protests in the streets. Members of the Socialist government chanted "Equality, equality" and stood up to applaud the results of the 331-225 vote in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The center-right opposition party immediately announced its intention to appeal the law. Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, a strong supporter of the bill, said she was "overcome with emotion.

From the well-lighted Argentine restaurant - my suggestion via Yelp - to the 70-degree night, all is well on this second date. As Dylan tactfully yanks shrimp from their shells, he tells me about his Japanese father, who strictly regulated all behavior in his mixed-race Kentucky home, from television viewing to bowel movements. How disturbing and interesting. Go on, I tell him with nods and eye contact. "We couldn't swear - ever," he says. "Not even d-a-m-n. " He still tries not to curse.

New Zealand became the latest country to legalize gay marriage on Wednesday, spurring cheers and applause inside and outside Parliament. Smiling couples and their supporters in the House of Commons broke into a Maori love song after the 77-44 vote was tallied. “Nothing could make me more proud to be a New Zealander than passing this bill,” Louisa Wall, the lawmaker who sponsored the marriage law, said Wednesday after thanking her partner. “I thank my colleagues, for simply doing what is fair, just and right.” With the Wednesday vote, New Zealand has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region where gay marriage is legal.

Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, is addressing those open-marriage rumors again - less than two weeks after chatting about it on HuffPost Live. Now, the Ministry heard a "no" the first time around when Pinkett Smith was asked flat-out, "Is it true?" but we appear to have been in the minority. So much so that Jada took to Facebook over the weekend to try to explain herself, framing her comments as a discussion of trust and love. Or, as she put it, TRUST and LOVE. Can you hear her now?

It seems to me things in Vietnam might have turned out differently for the United States if  only we'd had Trudy Campbell fighting on our side.  Because, as I've long suspected and as Pete discovered in Sunday's “Mad Men,” hell truly hath no fury like a Trudy scorned. Though she doesn't get much screen time, Trudy has long been one of my favorite characters on this show. Her unique ability to be perky, gracious and utterly ruthless all at once, and to get alpha males like Don Draper to bend to her will without so much as mussing a hair is, in a word, inspiring.

As of 2010, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, married couples had fallen to barely 51% of U.S. households, with a full 5% drop in new marriages between 2009 and 2010 alone. The data for 2011 aren't in yet, but if that decline continued last year, less than half of American adults are in a legal marriage now. Is marriage going the way of the electric typewriter and the VHS tape? Not exactly. The decline of marriage seems especially dramatic in comparison to the way things were 50 years ago. In 1960, almost half of 18- to 24-year-olds and 82% of 25- to 34-year-olds were married.

The marriage lasted less than three years. They had no children. But when their divorce settlement was finalized in April, after a year of messy negotiations, former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann was ordered to pay his second wife close to $1 million of marital property and $3,500 a month in alimony. The Theismann ruling captured headlines, not only because of the famous name but for the amounts involved.

Health insurance for married individuals is complicated enough these days without the pitfalls faced by many same-sex couples nationwide. Silver Lake residents David Michael Barrett and husband Mark Peters were married in 2008 during the brief period in which same-sex marriage was legal in California. And for almost a decade, they considered themselves fortunate to qualify for work-based insurance coverage provided through Peters' employer. But when Peters left his job last month, the couple faced a new round of insurance decisions and questions about eligibility and benefits.

France is one step closer to allowing couples of the same sex to wed and adopt children after its Senate on Friday approved a landmark bill to legalize gay marriage. Justice Minister Christiane Taubira , a supporter of the bill, said legalizing gay marriage and enshrining adoption rights “is an act of freedom, it is an act of equality, and it is an act of brotherhood” (link in French). “Marriage becomes a universal institution,” she added. Polls have shown that a majority of the French support gay marriage, but are divided on granting adoption rights to partners of the same sex. The Socialist government of President Francois Hollande has backed the “marriage for all” legislation through fervent protests by religious conservatives in the traditionally Roman Catholic country, a split reflected in the 179-to-157 Senate vote.