Mystery

A decade ago, Gardena Police Capt. Tom Monson was surprised to discover that a $5,190 check had been mailed to his station from the Honorary Consulate of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Monson was unable to figure out what business the small police agency had with the government of Cambodia. Shortly afterward, Monson was presented with another vexing puzzle. His police department had recently purchased 173 bulletproof vests from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department - a lot, considering that the department had fewer than 100 officers.

BEIJING - Xi Jinping has a secret admirer and Chinese are yearning to find out who he (or she) is. Since Xi was named Communist Party general secretary in November, a mysterious blogger has been chronicling his every move. There are photographs of Xi on his computer, Xi at a vegetable market, Xi serving meals to the poor, Xi napping on a bus. Not the most scintillating coverage, but it is remarkable in China, where the movements of the leadership are choreographed down to the last handshake and released only to the tightly controlled state media.

NEW ORLEANS -- Officials from the NFL, Superdome and Entergy, the company that provides power to the stadium, still were working Monday to unravel the mystery of why the lights went out for 34 minutes of Super Bowl XLVII the previous night, although the league emphasized it would not affect New Orleans' chances to host future Super Bowls. "We know that they have an interest in future Super Bowls, and we look forward to evaluating that," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. "I do not think this will have any effect at all. What I think will be remembered is that it was one of the great Super Bowl weeks, and we thank the people of New Orleans for that.

OAKLAND - This is a story about Oakland. It has nothing to do with crime, or the rivalry with its flashier sister city across the bay. It's not even about medical marijuana. This is about gnomes. Gnomes and community. More than a year ago, a mysterious man wanted to do something nice for his neighbors near Lake Merritt. So he got some small wooden blocks, about 6 inches tall, and painted the fanciful creatures on them. Then he screwed them to wooden utility poles, at sidewalk level.

Was it one gunman or two? Was it a targeted hit, or something less calculated? The fatal shooting of a Texas prosecutor outside a courthouse Thursday triggered a manhunt for the person or persons responsible for what Kaufman County officials called an unprecedented killing. "I've been doing this for 40-something years, and I've never experienced something like this," Kaufman County Sheriff David Burns said at a televised news conference. Mark Hasse -- an unmarried 57-year-old assistant district attorney for the Kaufman County prosecutor's office -- was shot multiple times, Kaufman County sheriff's office spokeswoman Pat Laney told the Los Angeles Times.

BEIRUT - Before the first explosion, Laila and fellow architecture students at Aleppo University in Syria had gathered by chance in a stairwell, which shielded them from flying glass and shrapnel. In an instant, the less fortunate lay dead and injured amid the scattered debris. A second blast a few minutes later hit a dormitory across the street, causing more casualties. The twin explosions two weeks ago that killed more than 80 people and wounded 150 also left Laila determined to return to the university as exams and normal class schedules resumed Tuesday for the first time since the blasts.

They've been a mystery ever since they burst onto the cosmic scene several years ago -- short-lived, red eruptions that burned brighter than novas, yet dimmer than supernovas. Not only were astronomers hard pressed to explain what caused these newly observed events, they couldn't even agree on what to call them. They've been dubbed variously as supernova imposters, V838 Mon-like events, and intermediate-luminosity red transients, or ILRTs. Now, scientists say they may have solved the mystery.

Shortly after Carmen Trutanich took office as Los Angeles city attorney in 2009, he caused a big splash by taking on illegal billboards. And he's highlighted his crusade against unpermitted signs as he faces a tough reelection battle. So what's with the splashy Trutanich election banner splayed across a building along a busy stretch of freeway? The colorful sign, visible to drivers on southbound Interstate 5 near the Glendale Boulevard exit in northeast Los Angeles, features a picture of Trutanich, his campaign's website address and a message urging his reelection.

Urooj Khan, the Chicago lottery winner who likely died of cyanide poisoning,  has been buried for a second time, but it could be a long time before the mystery around his death is put to rest. Khan, 46, was reburied Monday afternoon following his exhumation Friday morning. He died in July, weeks after winning $1 million in the Illinois lottery. Officials reclassified his death as a homicide after a blood sample showed cyanide. Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Stephen J. Cina's office conducted an autopsy on Khan on Friday to take hair, fingernail and organ samples from his remains.

"Ripper Street," the Victorian-era police procedural debuting on BBC America on Saturday, opens with chilling promise and on a decidedly modern note. It's 1889 in London's notorious East End and a man leads a group of middle class English citizens to the sites of the Jack the Ripper killings. Six months since the body of Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth victim, was found, and already murder tourism thrives in Whitechapel. It is interrupted, in this case, by the discovery of another woman butchered, which leads the members of local H division, including Det. Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen)