CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 16, 2012
Russell Arms Actor who started on 'Your Hit Parade' Russell Arms, 92, a singer and actor who was a regular vocalist on the popular TV musical program "Your Hit Parade" from 1952 to 1957, died Monday at his home in Hamilton, Ill., where he had retired with his wife, Mary Lynne. The Lamporte-St. Clair Funeral Home in Hamilton confirmed his death but did not give the cause. Along with other regular cast members Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson and Dorothy Collins, Arms performed what were billed as the seven most popular songs in the country every Saturday night on the NBC show.
NATIONAL
February 15, 2012 | By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times
The beads were flying all around them, some pooling in the street, some caught by revelers and cherished for a moment — most of them destined, in all likelihood, for the landfill. It was Mardi Gras 2011, and Kirk and Holly Groh were stationed in their family's traditional viewing spot downtown, where they had watched so many parades roll by in years past. This time, they kept thinking what a waste it was. Their hometown had never seemed more environmentally fragile.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 11, 2012 | By Adolfo Flores and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
Prosecutors on Friday declined to file murder charges against former Tournament of Roses official Richard Allen Munnecke, finding that DNA evidence presented by sheriff's detectives was insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision came two days after Munnecke, 71, was arrested at his Alhambra home in connection with the 2004 death of Donna Lee Kelly, a Buick saleswoman and a longtime Tournament of Roses volunteer. The abrupt change in course left Pasadena's tournament community trying to process the news after an already surprising couple of days.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 10, 2012 | By Adolfo Flores, Andrew Blankstein and Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times
By all accounts, Richard Allan Munnecke was a model citizen. He devoted several decades to the Tournament of Roses, working up the ranks until he was one of its top directors. He sang in his church choir in San Marino and served in the Pasadena Rotary Club and many other civic groups. It was through his work at the Rose Parade that he met Donna Lee Kelly, a Buick saleswoman who was also a longtime volunteer for the annual parade effort. In 2004, Kelly, 59, was found dead, stuffed in the trunk of her car. Police investigated, but the case quickly went cold.
NATIONAL
February 9, 2012 | By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
Three sanitation workers found it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march: a nest of wires in a backpack. The homemade bomb was equipped with an unusual remote-controlled trigger and stuffed with more than 100 heavy fishing weights coated in rat poison. The Spokane County bomb squad disarmed it hours before the route would have been flooded with marchers last year. If the device had detonated and the weights had torn into the intended victims, the poison would have prevented their blood from coagulating, all but ensuring their deaths, lab analysts concluded.
NEWS
February 1, 2012 | By Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Disneyland Paris will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a new nighttime spectacular in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle and a revamped evening parade starting in April. The Disney Dreams show will feature castle projections, water screens, dancing fountains, pyrotechnic displays and laser effects that combine elements from the Magic, Memories, and You show at Florida's Magic Kingdom and World of Color at Disney California Adventure. PHOTOS: Disney Dreams water show at Disneyland Paris The new Disney Dreams nighttime spectacular at the French theme park will employ 30-foot-tall water screens in the moats in front of the castle that will serve as giant canvases for Disney animated scenes set to an original musical score.