Newport Beach

IF it's been a year or two since you've shopped for a mattress, you're in for some surprises. That memory foam bed that once seemed so novel? It's now decidedly mainstream. Latex is the hot material of choice. And that's not all that's changed. Choices are multiplying -- especially on the luxury end -- and prices are too.

A Newport Beach woman who arranged for a former NFL player to kill her wealthy boyfriend in a 1994 plot to collect $1 million in insurance money was sentenced Friday to life in prison. But sentencing for onetime New England Patriot linebacker Eric Naposki was continued to Aug. 10 after he refused to leave his courthouse holding cell. The prosecutor called Naposki's actions "a final blaze of no class and cowardice" by the man who fired six gunshots into the chest of Bill McLaughlin, who died in his Balboa Coves home.

The Trinity Broadcasting Network, which bills itself as the world's largest Christian network, is embroiled in a legal battle involving allegations of massive financial fraud and lavish spending, including the purchase of a $100,000 motor home for family dogs. Brittany Koper, a former high-ranking TBN official and the granddaughter of its co-founder, Paul Crouch Sr., was fired by the network in September after discovering "illegal financial schemes" amounting to tens of millions of dollars, according to a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court.

People who live along the shimmering coastline of Southern California have found many creative ways over the years to discourage the public from using the parts of the beach they would prefer to consider their own. They have put up gates that block public access and have taken down signs that say "public welcome. " The latest gambit, by residents in Newport Beach, involves planting lawns and hedges, installing sprinkler systems and fire pits, and plopping down furniture and ornaments that spill over from their property onto the public beach.

It's an evening tradition at Corona del Mar State Beach: At first, families descend on the 30 fire rings in the sand with bundles of wood, camping chairs and blankets, marshmallows and hot dogs. Then, as night falls, crowds of young people huddle around the glow of raging bonfires. When 10 p.m. hits, the police roll in to move them along. But that tradition could soon go up in smoke. Fed up with the late-night partying, smoke and mess left behind, Newport Beach officials may extinguish its dozens of fire pits once and for all. Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who is spearheading the effort, said the nighttime scene at the fire pits at Big Corona, as the beach is known, has gotten out of control, with revelers burning huge nail-studded pallets and leaving hot coals in the sand.

We can't keep caviar in stock. We have to order it daily. And we're ordering more and more. And that's Beluga at $70 an ounce. Not to mention the vintage Champagne. Or the live Maine lobster at $45 a crack. --Rex Chandler, October, 1990 It's been only 13 months since Rex Chandler brought his beachside restaurant to Fashion Island in Newport Beach at the request of billionaire Donald Bren.

Last of three parts No car, no work. That's the conclusion Lisa Twombly reached as she fought to hang on to her job as a caretaker for an elderly San Diego couple. Taking the bus and bumming rides from friends wasn't cutting it, and she was repeatedly late for work. Told she'd be fired if it happened again, Twombly put down $4,000 - all her savings - on a 9-year-old Chrysler Sebring with 95,000 miles. The dealership lent her the $2,600 balance at a steep 18% interest rate.

A former university professor was sentenced to 12 years in state prison Wednesday in a sexual molestation case sparked when photographs showing graphic abuse of a Newport Beach girl were found discarded on a Los Angeles street. Ronald Ruskjer, 44, a one-time faculty member at Loma Linda University's school of public health, wept and apologized during a 40-minute statement before a San Bernardino Superior Court judge.

On the map, the Newport Terrace condominium complex is a postage-stamp-size patch of orange surrounded by a sea of purple. Geographically, it is within Costa Mesa's boundaries. Officially, it belongs to Newport Beach. To residents, it's an island unto itself. "We really have our own kind of unique identity," said John Sexton, president of the Newport Terrace homeowners' association. "We're really in a world of our own."

They both have been lifeguards since their teens. Now, Michael Gaughan and Jack Lincke find themselves in need of 60 of those rescue officers of the water. The two Orange County men recently formed a company called U.S. Ocean Safety to provide lifeguards to patrol 15 county-run beaches. "There's never been a call for this many lifeguards at one time before," said Lincke, 44.

On the tip of Balboa Peninsula, where multimillion-dollar homes sit snug against the sand and the legendary waves draw crowds of bodysurfers, an unlikely battle is taking shape. At the center are the lawns, lounge chairs, hedges and playground equipment - even a rusty metal shark sculpture - that for years have sprawled out from oceanfront homes onto the public sand. It's all illegal, says the state of California, which has ordered homeowners along some of Orange County's most coveted coastline to rip out the landscaping, sprinklers and all the other upgrades that have crept steadily seaward.

Organizers of the famed Newport Beach-to-Ensenada sailing regatta were stunned by the mysterious loss of four crew members aboard a 37-foot boat that disappeared in mid-race, marking the first fatalities in the event's 65-year history. While the U.S. Coast Guard was still investigating the accident, regatta organizers said they believed the boat was hit and demolished by a much larger ship - perhaps a freighter or tanker - passing in the dark early Saturday. The boat disappeared from the online tracking system around 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

Soon after developer Randall E. Presley took his company public in 1969, he announced plans to build homes in Capistrano Beach that would "break the price barrier" for ocean-view residences there. Prices ranged from $23,000 to $29,000. By then, Presley had already built homes in 50 California subdivisions. His Presley Development Co. would construct at least 110 more residential communities in the state and points east before he negotiated a takeover of the company in 1984. Presley, once one of the state's leading home builders, died April 12 at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach of complications from pneumonia, said his wife, Cecilia.

After a 14-year dark spell, the remodeled Port Theater in Corona del Mar will reopen during this year's Newport Beach Film Festival with free screenings and seminars. The theater will officially welcome the public back on Saturday with the seminar series "Vision and Craft: The Art of Filmmaking," from 1 to 5 p.m. "Kingdom Come," a documentary by first-time director Daniel Gillies, will be screened at 5:30 p.m. The buzz surrounding the reopening of the East Coast Highway venue, which closed in 1998, could have been expected to increase ticket sales, but festival organizers said they decided to offer all of the programming for free throughout the festival, which opens Thursday and runs through May 3. "We thought that this was an important opportunity to give back to community and we are hopeful that in the future, patrons and sponsors will underwrite these opportunities," said Gregg Schwenk, the festival's chief executive.

She is 96 years old, all bones and little skin. Her ribs are split and rotted in places and stained by rust. Nonetheless, she is a slightly fearsome presence, commanding her surroundings like a T. rex in a natural history museum. When the Shawnee first hit the water in 1916, she was a striking beauty - a 72-foot sailboat made of old-growth oak and Douglas fir, African mahogany, naturally curved hackmatack and gleaming teak. Her hull had the seductive curve of a wineglass.

Angels right fielder Torii Hunter returned to his Newport Beach home from morning workouts at Dodger Stadium, and settled in for a movie on the couch when he heard someone fiddling with his front door. "I grabbed a knife and was about to start Bruce Lee -ing on whoever was there," Hunter said. Good thing Hunter didn't take the steak knife outside, where police were waiting with guns drawn after the outfielder's home alarm had been activated accidentally by a door that was opened in the house.

John Wooden was a young high school teacher and coach in the 1930s when he first wrote his personal definition of success, searching for a way to assure his students — and their parents — they could be successful without earning all A's. "I wanted to give them something to aspire to beyond higher marks in English classes or more statistics in sports," he told The Times in 2004. Wooden tied success not to achievement, wealth or fame, but to how close a person came to their potential.

A secret in the bluff-top communities of Newport Heights and Cliff Haven overlooking Newport Bay is not just the serene, rural atmosphere of the area but the odd collection of mailboxes proudly lining neighborhood sidewalks. One is a replica of a locomotive. Another is shaped like an anchor. Down on Catalina Drive, nearly every house has a peculiar box, such as the big blue-green and yellow swordfish outside one house that is likely to catch the eye of passersby.

The financially beleaguered Assn. of Volleyball Professionals has been sold to a 37-year-old Irvine native and former executive at a multinational computer technology company, the league announced Monday. Donald Sun, a former executive at the Fountain Valley, Calif.-based Kingston Technology Co., said recently in an interview that he paid $2 million for the pro beach volleyball league, which was previously owned by Nick Lewin, a managing member of DFA PVA II Partners, LLC. Lewin gained control of the AVP in December 2010 when his firm used $3.8 million of debt to buy the tour that in August of that year had shut down and canceled its five remaining events when it had run out of money.

Mariner's Mile Marine Center, a nautical landmark in Newport Beach, has been acquired by a local investor for $25 million, real estate brokers said. The property at 2429-2507 West Coast Highway holds five New England-style buildings that date to the 1960s. Mariners Mile holds offices and shops as well as a shipyard and large boat slips, said broker Mark Larson of Lee & Associates Investment Services Group. One of the boats docked there is the Wild Goose, a minesweeper-turned-yacht once owned by actor John Wayne and now operated by Hornblower Cruises.