Matter

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.

So, against all odds, you managed to get your hands on a few shares of Facebook stock via one of the most hyped initial public offerings of all time and managed to survive its messy first day of trading. Congratulations. You're now married to Mark Zuckerberg. The 28-year-old company founder is today one of the most deeply-entrenched chief executives in American business. Thanks to a two-class stock structure, Zuckerberg will own about 28% of Facebook but control 57% of all shareholder votes.

Sprouted-grain bread offerings in the market have been slowly but steadily on the uptick of late, and a number of health claims have attached themselves to the spongy, nutty-tasting loaves: more digestible, richer in protein and higher in vitamins and minerals compared with other breads. But are the claims true? Yes -- and no. Sprouted-grain products have distinct nutritional advantages over white breads, but when compared to other whole-grain breads, they're usually nutritionally comparable -- although nutrient contents can vary, depending on the sprouts included.

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.

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

Los Angeles police will not pursue through the courts scores of motorists with unpaid tickets from the city's defunct red-light camera program. The city Police Commission voted this week to end its contract with the company that operated L.A.'s cameras until they were shut off last summer. And authorities are now planning to reassign a small group of officers who regularly appeared in court to testify in contested photo enforcement cases. With the cancellation of the contract, officers will no longer have easy access to the photo and video evidence that courts require.

CAIRO - A mechanic hammered a fender and boys wandered amid tin and rust as Adham Bishr, his opinions flaring on an agitated afternoon along the Nile, said Egypt's next president should give him a job, not tell him how to worship God. Men gathered around Bishr in a scrap of shade, arguing over inflation and politics before disappearing into the grit and anger of a neighborhood at Cairo's edge. The men, mostly unemployed drivers, mill hands and laborers, want work; their sons, college students with dim prospects, wonder whether the future will bring enough money to take a wife.

BALTIMORE — In the midst of the greatest time of his professional life, horse trainer Doug O'Neill is being followed around by an asterisk. Reporters want to know about his Kentucky Derby-winning horse, I'll Have Another. They want to know about O'Neill himself — how he got started, who he is, what he thinks about any number of topics. They want to know about young jockey Mario Gutierrez, who should have been way too green to ride the kind of race he did at Churchill Downs. They want to know about owner J. Paul Reddam, who made his money in the loan business and who named the horse by reprising a scene at home, where he sits on the couch, eats a cookie and requests another one from his wife.

Re "No end in sight to obesity epidemic," May 8 Of course there is no end in sight to the obesity epidemic. If the government can hold a conference that might suggest that Americans consume less junk food, then what makes us believe that the government wouldn't stop there and would suggest that Americans eat more broccoli? The Supreme Court has already given its lecture that our vegetable-averse Founding Fathers have hidden in the Constitution a prohibition to a broccoli mandate, even though one would improve citizens' health.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Many Memphians filed out of churches after Sunday services ended and headed to Beale Street, swelling the famous strip to its edges, guzzling down beer and wine - the street hosted the city's annual "Great Wine Race" - as dusk approached. Then scores funneled into the building they call "The Grindhouse" in honor of their team's "grit-and-grind" style of play to watch the Memphis Grizzlies play host to a playoff series for the first time in franchise history.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - I begin by challenging Randy Foye and telling him if he hits his threes, the Clippers win. If he does not, the Grizzlies will triumph in the playoffs. I have never sounded so ridiculous, and that's a lot of history to overcome. Here I am pressing someone who was 3 when his father died in a motorcycle accident. Five when his mother, selling drugs on the streets of Newark, N.J., just vanished. He was parentless before first grade, the Crips and Bloods waiting for him to grow up, his brother shot 11 times, surviving and only recently getting released from prison.

Two floating bridges across Lake Washington connect Seattle with its eastern suburbs. The roadbeds rest on huge pontoons and sway a bit as you drive across them on a windy day. One is the last gasp of Interstate 90 as it finishes its journey from Boston to the Puget Sound. The other is State Route 520, or "the 520," as it's known. Which bridge to take where, at what time, using which entrances and exits has long been a major preoccupation of Seattleites, and a frequent icebreaker with strangers.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

The 10 campuses of the UC system should be given more power to govern themselves and be allowed to set their own tuition, decide how many out-of-state students to enroll, approve construction projects and control some investments under a proposal released Monday by UC Berkeley leaders. The plan, which is already provoking debate, would maintain the central Board of Regents for such overarching policy matters as admissions standards, state funding and top appointments. But it contends that UC has gotten so complex and governance has become so balky that campus governing boards should be established and given autonomy over many issues, similar to states in a federal system.

Please don't take this wrong. You look absolutely fine the way you are. It's just that ... well, with a little work, you might look even better. We're not talking plastic surgery. Just the daily grind of buckling down and trying to eat better. Fresh from the March issue of the journal PLoS ONE comes word that scarfing down a few extra fruits and vegetables - yes, those again - could give you a significant leg up in the attractiveness department. Scientists have known for a while that the same pigments that give fruits and vegetables their color - carotenoids - can accumulate in your skin and give it color too. What they didn't know was this: How many fruits and vegetables do you have to eat for how long in order for people to notice the difference in your coloring?