Remains

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

Even as a tentative housing recovery in the Southland appears underway, a big stumbling block remains: the vast number of underwater homeowners. Nearly 1 in 3 homeowners with a mortgage in Los Angeles County owes more on the loan than the property is worth, according to fresh data from real estate website Zillow. In the hard-hit Inland Empire, that climbs to more than half of borrowers. In roughly 10% of Southern California cities, 1 of every 5 homeowners with a mortgage owes double the value of the house, according to the data, released Wednesday.

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.

Nearly a year after a social worker blew the whistle, Los Angeles County supervisors acknowledged Tuesday that a "crisis" had developed in a Wilshire Boulevard office building used to house difficult-to-place foster children and requested a new plan to house them. Supervisor Gloria Molina said the office near MacArthur Park, where the county's child protection agency has its nighttime, emergency operations, has become a "dumping ground" for hundreds of the county's most troubled children when social workers can't find a suitable foster home.

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.

The remains of a Japanese mini-submarine that participated in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been discovered, researchers are to report today, offering strong evidence that the sub fired its torpedoes at Battleship Row. That could settle a long-standing argument among historians. Five mini-subs were to participate in the strike, but four were scuttled, destroyed or run aground without being a factor in the attack. The fate of the fifth has remained a mystery.

A tangy, sour, fermented milk drink may not sound like a likely candidate to move from health food stores to mainstream supermarkets, but that's exactly what kefir has done. The beverage is steadily gaining fans convinced of the health benefits -- proponents tout its purported ability to help cure cancer, reduce high cholesterol and treat high blood pressure -- yet the scientific studies to support the claims are still few. Kefir's closest cousin is yogurt, also made by fermenting milk with bacteria.

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

The Washington state home where Josh Powell killed himself and his two young sons -- first striking the boys with a hatchet before setting the house on fire and causing it to explode -- has been demolished and the debris removed. The home in the Graham, Wash., area was torn down Wednesday as neighbors looked on, according to the Bellingham Herald.  Many of them were likely relieved. The owner of the house, Patrick Small, who had rented it to Powell, told the Herald: “It's a hell of a sight.

Three and 0 was a mirage. We know that now, even those who had been unwilling to admit it before. Look, Tennessee was ever memorable, just going down to Knoxville and shutting up 100,000 frothing loudmouths. But those wins over tinman teams from San Diego and Kansas? Let's put it this way, those teams, they're no Stanford. We can say as much after Stanford 24, UCLA 16. Now the Bruins fall to 3 and 1, the mirage having melted into a crisp sunny breeze on a Saturday afternoon by the Bay. But Bruins faithful, don't lose heart.

WASHINGTON -- No progress was made last year in reducing motorcyclist deaths, even though overall motor vehicle fatalities dropped to their lowest level since 1949, according to the Governors Highway Safety Assn. One reason, the group said, may be that high gas prices are driving more people to ride motorcycles. But the group also sought to use the data to make the case for mandatory helmet laws, which are under attack in five states.

CAMP DAVID, Md. - In a significant political victory for President Obama, the leaders of Germany and other European nations endorsed a policy of economic growth over austerity and emphasized that Greece, which is trying to battle its way out of a crippling debt crisis, should remain in the Eurozone. Meeting on the cloistered grounds of the presidential retreat here, the leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations said in a joint statement that Eurozone economies should work to narrow deficits through "fiscal consolidation" and that each country must decide for itself the best mix of policies for promoting economic recovery.

Moviegoers may be impressed by "Snow White and the Huntsman's" computer-generated trolls, flying fairies and mythical beasts. But it could be Colleen Atwood's complicated, handmade costumes that really steal the show. The film's Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) may be losing her grip on the title of fairest of them all, but she nevertheless tops the cast's best-dressed list. In some cases, some of Ravenna's 20 outfits (counting several multiple versions of the same gowns) took weeks to construct, though they might appear on screen for only a few seconds.

JOPLIN, Mo. - Arielle Speer started to cry. She was having a panic attack, and the movie hadn't even started. Speer is a Joplin tornado survivor, and she had come to remember. Almost a year ago, the 28-year-old was standing on the side of Connecticut Avenue looking at the pile of rubble that used to be her apartment building. It had since been cleared away, and now Speer was sitting in a local university auditorium, waiting to watch a documentary about the storm that destroyed it. A lot has happened since May 22, 2011, when a massive tornado erased nearly a third of Joplin and killed about 160 people.

Slow and steady. Nice and easy. Efficient and unspectacular. That's what impressed the Clippers so much about playing against the San Antonio Spurs. "They play the same way whether they are down 20 or up 20," Blake Griffin said. "And they always play hard. " In fact, the Clippers had the Spurs down by 24 points in the second quarter of Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals at Staples Center on Saturday. The Spurs cut it to 10 by halftime and took the lead in the third, never turning back.

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.

A sixteen-year-old girl brings a heart-shaped box to her Arizona high school English class. The box contains the cremated remains of the girl's mother, who died two years before. While showing the ashes to a girlfriend, the teenager inadvertently spills some of the ashes on the floor. The next day, 100 students are absent from the school. What went wrong?

Operators of a Jewish cemetery in Mission Hills allegedly broke open concrete interment vaults and discarded or lost human remains as they made room for additional decedents, attorneys asserted Monday. A class-action lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday against Eden Memorial Park and its parent company, Service Corporation International, alleges that the cemetery attempted to improperly squeeze plots together for profit, breaking existing vaults and moving or discarding remains in the process.

What could possibly cause rocks picked up at a popular state beach to ignite in the pocket of a woman's cargo shorts? To scientists, the answer is - well, there is no clear answer. The case of an Orange County woman severely burned after rocks collected last weekend from San Onofre State Beach ignited in her pocket has puzzled scientists, who say they've never seen anything like it and aren't quite sure how it happened. "It's pretty implausible," said Larry Overman, a professor of chemistry at UC Irvine.

SAN ANTONIO - He might be getting older, but Spurs power forward Tim Duncan does not appear to have lost a step. For the second straight game, Duncan schooled the younger Clippers defenders in footwork and fundamentals, and helped lead his Spurs to a 2-0 series advantage with a win in San Antonio on Thursday night. The two-time NBA most valuable player scored 18 points on nine-for-14 shooting to help San Antonio cruise to a 105-88 victory. The win takes the 36-year-old yet another step closer to his fifth NBA title.