Royalty

With royal fever still burning in Los Angeles in the wake of Prince William and wife Catherine's visit, it's natural to ask, "What did the coveted couple drink?" It turns out that mixologist (and Neve Luxury Ice founder) Michel Dozois — who created the artsy cocktail scene for Stark Bar at LACMA — was asked to make cocktails for William and Catherine at the black-tie British Academy of Film and Television Arts gala that took place downtown at the Belasco Theater over the weekend.

Among the most intriguing May peaches are three patented by Alan and Lori Asdoorian of Kingsburg, whose century-old Island Farms lies between two branches of the Kings River, southeast of Fresno. Because of the short period from bloom to harvest, May peaches naturally tend to be small, with only moderately sweet, clingstone flesh and a susceptibility to split pits. But early-season varieties can be lucrative for breeders and farmers, who have striven to find improved selections.

On a recent trip to Britain, what struck me most about that country's relationship with its sovereign wasn't the usual commercial tributes - the cheap china stamped with the queen's likeness, the tabloid stories about the royal family and such rot - but the genuine devotion modern Britons seem to have for Elizabeth II. And judging by Americans' fascination with events such as the recent royal wedding and the queen's Diamond Jubilee celebration (a...

Star sightings are common at the Grove, but on Thursday the breathless anticipation was for the grand opening of fashion retailer Topshop and its men's brand, Topman. The long-awaited debut marked the British brands' first West Coast store and brought out hordes of shoppers, some of whom stood in line for hours. "I'm pumped. We've been waiting for so long and now it's finally getting close," said Sydney Nassiri, 17, who arrived at the Grove at 9 a.m. with her friend Laurel Bylin.

Darrell Royal, the legendary football coach who died on Wednesday, was considered royalty in Texas, where he coached for 20 years. Royal was always referred to as "Coach Royal," years after he left the profession. He was hired at age 32 and retired in 1976, at age 52, after never having a losing season in 23 years as a head coach and posting a record of 167-47-5 in 20 years at Texas. The Longhorns won outright national titles in 1963 and 1969 and the UPI coaches' share of the 1970 championship, which was awarded before the team's Cotton Bowl loss to Notre Dame.

An acclaimed Los Angeles artist who has sued a prominent local collector to enforce the California "resale royalty" law could get his day in court long before the plaintiffs in class-action suits filed last week against Christie's and Sotheby's. Artist Mark Grotjahn has sued collector Dean Valentine to recover a 5% royalty for three artworks that Valentine resold. The case, which has been quietly working its way through the courts for nearly a year, now has a trial date in March.

'Finding Sarah: From Royalty to the Real World' Where: OWN When: 9 p.m. Sunday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children) 'Ryan and Tatum: The O'Neals' Where: OWN When: 10 p.m. June 19 Rating: TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children with an advisory for coarse language)

Prince William and Catherine Middleton skipping Disneyland? It's crushing to think that Britain's hottest newlyweds won't be doing the royal wave from "It's a Small World" during their whirlwind visit to Southern California this weekend. To commemorate the non-visit, Red Lion Hotel Anaheim near Disneyland will treat any married couple named William and Kate to a free stay this summer. The deal: No fair running off to a courthouse to change your name to cash in on this deal.

A bill introduced Thursday in both houses of Congress would force large art auction houses to pay a 7% royalty on sales of artworks costing more than $10,000. It would apply only to works by living artists, and dead ones whose works haven't yet entered the public domain, which occurs 70 years after the creator's death. Artists and their heirs wouldn't be the only ones getting paid. The bill, which amends existing copyright law to provide for America's first nationwide royalty on sales of visual art, calls for funneling half the proceeds to a new federally supervised fund that would help nonprofit museums buy artworks by living, U.S.-based artists.

No one saw this coming. Not this way, certainly, if there was any fuzzy vision of it happening at all. The Los Angeles Kings, who ranked next-to-last in the NHL in scoring, who went through the turmoil of a mid-December coaching change and weren't assured of a playoff spot until the last weekend of the season, zoomed through the first three rounds of the playoffs before running into resistance from the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Final....

A strike that would have shut down many of the nation's major seaports on the East and Gulf coasts has been averted by a contract extension. The International Longshoremen's Assn. and the United States Maritime Alliance have reached an agreement on so-called container royalty fees, one of the most contentious issues in the labor negotiation, said George H. Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which has been mediating the dispute. The agreement on the fees, which supplement dockworker wages, postpones any strike action until at least late January.

WASHINGTON - Because of a law passed during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, the federal government does not collect royalties from gold, silver, copper and other minerals extracted from public land, a source of revenue that could potentially generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the federal budget, government auditors reported Wednesday. Although the government collects billions of dollars in royalties from fossil fuels extracted from federal lands and waters, it does not even collect information from hard-rock mine operators about the amount or value of the minerals they take from public land because there are no royalty requirements, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office.

What a Royal and rollicking way to start a football game. Texas paid homage to former football coach Darrell Royal on Saturday, lining up in the formation he introduced - the wishbone - even though it was operating from its own six-yard line on its first play from scrimmage against Iowa State. Royal, who died Wednesday at 88, was credited for bringing the wishbone to major college football in 1968, though it was largely developed - which Royal acknowledged - by Longhorns assistant Emory Bellard.

Video may have killed the radio star, but it also sounded the death knell for the era of the rock 'n' roll billboards that dominated a 1.7-mile strip of Sunset Boulevard for three decades starting in the late '60s. Slick ads for fashion and TV shows have replaced those hand-painted monuments to rock gods such as the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin that might have been relegated to the memories of a generation were it not for the foresight of a curious 16-year-old. Robert Landau was living with his father in the hills above Tower Records when he walked down to Sunset Boulevard one morning and saw a 15-foot-high replica of the Beatles strolling single file in a zebra crossing from their "Abbey Road" album cover.

Darrell Royal, the legendary football coach who died on Wednesday, was considered royalty in Texas, where he coached for 20 years. Royal was always referred to as "Coach Royal," years after he left the profession. He was hired at age 32 and retired in 1976, at age 52, after never having a losing season in 23 years as a head coach and posting a record of 167-47-5 in 20 years at Texas. The Longhorns won outright national titles in 1963 and 1969 and the UPI coaches' share of the 1970 championship, which was awarded before the team's Cotton Bowl loss to Notre Dame.

HONOLULU - Palace intrigue? Check. Royal rapscallions? Some. Kings and queens and gorgeous things? You'll find those too. You thought we were speaking of Britain, perhaps? Well, no, although Britain celebrated Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee in June. Instead, we're turning to Hawaiian royalty, who ruled a kingdom now so popular that 7.3 million people visited last year. Royal watchers will find almost as many twists and turns in the story of the Hawaiian monarchs as they do among England's overlords.

Until recently, Betty and Floyd Kalessa never thought much about the oil that lies in the sandy soil far beneath their modest, two-bedroom home. The Kalessas were content to receive a monthly royalty check of about $180 from the oil company that leases the mineral rights to their Belmont Shore property. The money helped the Kalessas make ends meet for two decades, especially after Floyd suffered a stroke in 1973.

Boeing Co. may get hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation after winning a patent-infringement claim against NASA over an aluminum alloy used to build the space shuttle. Boeing developed a lighter structure for frames in the 1970s and 1980s to save on jet fuel costs. It claimed the technology was used in the external fuel tank that provides the backbone of the shuttle during launch and sued the government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington in 2000. Federal Claims Judge Francis M. Allegra said Boeing was entitled to a 1.25% royalty on the cost of the tanks.

You won't find the town of Charming on any real map of California and the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club — with all of its schemes, politics and skull-cracking heritage — is nothing more, of course, than a dark fiction that rumbles to life on FX for an hour every Tuesday night. But, when you actually visit the bad-to-the-bone clubhouse that has been created on the set for "Sons of Anarchy," it's tempting to leave disbelief leaning on a chrome kickstand in the parking lot. The illusion of Charming's most dangerous den is especially hard to resist when you hear the croaky baritone of Clarence "Clay" Morrow, the old lion of the gang, who is leaning over the club's bar like a blackjack dealer waiting for the first mark of the night.