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Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the breakup of his 20-year marriage, saying he was responsible for the split even as he refused to talk about what caused it. In a somber meeting with reporters at City Hall, Villaraigosa declined to answer questions about whether the break with his wife, Corina, was triggered by another romantic relationship.

With high school graduations ahead, life is getting easier for seniors and their parents. But for younger high school students, the worries about college are just beginning. What courses should they take now? How many AP courses are necessary? Do they have to take one of those high-priced trips around the country to see colleges? Do they have a shot at their dream school? The L.A. Times 4Moms project will host a live video conversation with two college counselors: Marlene Garza from the public Hamilton High School, and Jennifer Mandel, a private counselor.

Call it retirement anxiety, or maybe recession obsession. For all of their married life, Patrick Webster, 63, and Susie Martin, 54, have been extremely frugal. Webster and Martin, who both work at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, have been stashing away their combined income at an enviable rate - more than 25% - for retirement. Together they have more than $1 million in investments and no debt. But rather than feeling reasonably secure about their financial future, they dread a return of hard times.

AMMAN, Jordan - Recent battlefield advances by the Syrian military against U.S.-backed rebels are "very temporary" and do not signal that the government of President Bashar Assad is gaining the upper hand, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday. "Yeah, he's made a few gains in the last days," Kerry told reporters here. "But this has gone up and down in a seesaw. " Kerry also condemned what he called the "destructive role" of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, in dispatching "several thousands" of militiamen to aid Assad's forces.

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

T-Mobile introduced its new no-contract Simple Choice Plan this week, with Chief Executive John Legere boldly telling users that if the service is not good, they can drop it after one month of trying it. The new plan includes unlimited talk and text and half a gigabyte of high-speed Internet data for $50 a month. Users can choose to pay an additional $10 for a total of 2.5 GB of high-speed data or $20 for unlimited high-speed usage. Adding a second line costs $30, and each line after that costs $10. Although T-Mobile says there are no contracts, users must either provide a T-Mobile-compatible smartphone or buy one from the company.

You're at the gym working out, confident that you can lift more weight today than yesterday. You bend down to pick up the barbell and, as you come up, you feel a pop in the groin area. Next comes a dull pain and a queasy feeling. Even though the pain continues after you finish your workout, you figure it's just muscle strain. But the bad news is it may be a hernia. A hernia occurs when part of an organ within the body slips through an abnormal opening in the wall that normally contains it.

I've been to Disneyland hundreds of times over the last two decades and have been writing the Funland theme park blog for about four years now. As a result, people are always asking me how to do everything at Disneyland in a single day. The short answer is you probably can't. It can be a struggle for even hard-core fans with military assault-like strategies. The longer answer is there's lots of ways to maximize your time in the park and get on the most rides possible. PHOTOS: How to do Disneyland in a day So in honor of Disneyland's 24-hour Leap Day celebration , here are my seven tips for tackling Disneyland in a day: Tip 1: If you're trying to get the most out of your day at Disneyland , I always recommend arriving just before the park opens in the morning, staying until the park closes at night and taking a long break in the heat of the afternoon at your hotel pool or cocktail bar. It may sound like a long day, but you'll get more done in the first two hours and the last two hours of your day than if you spent 15 hours straight at the park.

"Arrested Development" costume designer Katie Sparks, whose efforts on the first two seasons of the Fox sitcom earned her a 2006 nomination from the Costume Designers Guild of America, was tapped by series creator Mitchell Hurwitz to work on the new streaming-to-Netflix season that will be released May 26. She recently spoke about her work on the original series and the challenges posed by revisiting - and re-dressing - the quirky Bluth family after...

As more people get their health information from TV and the Internet, it becomes crucial to have experts on the small screen who can provide accurate information. That's where Travis Stork, co-host of the TV show "The Doctors," comes in. Stork, an emergency room physician, is passionate about educating the public on how to prevent the illnesses that bring so many people in to see him in a crisis. Here, Stork, a onetime contestant on "The Bachelor," talks about getting outdoors, redefining fast food and using television as a positive influence.

The furor over the Benghazi talking points continues. Republicans still see them as the main event in a campaign to embarrass President Obama. The president, for his part, calls them a "sideshow. " Finally, on Wednesday, the White House released more than 100 pages of internal emails that showed, in excruciating detail, exactly how the talking points were edited - and the emails, at least to our reading, supported the president's characterization. Prepared by intelligence officials and revised in interagency discussions, the now-famous talking points were the basis for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's comments five days after the 2012 attack on the diplomatic compound in Libya that the siege had grown out of a spontaneous reaction to protests in Cairo over an anti-Muslim video.

We got another dog right away. That wasn't the plan. But back in March, less than two weeks after Rex died and when I still had faint bruises from digging my fingers into my forehead amid uncontrollable sobs, I signed us up to "foster" a Saint Bernard mix that had been rescued from a crack den. It was a classic rebound move, but the unbearable silence of the dogless house was too much to take. You don't realize how much a dog's presence defines the contours of your home until, in its absence, the walls seem to relocate themselves.

Fox and Twitter have entered into a partnership to promote the broadcaster's programs and help advertisers reach TV audiences as they discuss shows on the social network. Twitter Inc., which has established itself as the water cooler where America dissects the latest developments on NBC's "The Voice" or AMC's "Mad Men," is expected to strike more deals with broadcasters. On Tuesday, ESPN and Twitter plan to announce they are expanding their partnership. Last year the sports network, majority owned by Walt Disney Co., incorporated video highlights directly into Twitter feeds related to its coverage of the BCS championship game.

CHICAGO - When the Angels got Josh Hamilton following the Dodgers' signing of Zack Greinke , owner Arte Moreno emerged from hiding, took a bow and told everyone: "Think about how much fun it's going to be. Dodger fans and Angels fans get to argue about whose team is better, who's stronger, who's weaker.… Do you know how much fun it's going to be?" What a blast …of hot air. Are you having fun yet? I began the week talking to Don Mattingly , who felt really good about the Dodgers after three straight losses to the Giants.

Philip Hsiang and his wife, Mary Ann, used to pay almost $1,000 a year for a pair of cellphones under a family plan contract. But as recession gripped the economy a few years back, the Davis couple opted for low-cost prepaid phone service and never looked back. They shaved $800 off their annual phone bill, even though Hsiang could easily afford the pricier plan on his salary as an electrical engineer. "As a Chinese immigrant to the U.S., it's a virtue to be frugal," Hsiang said.

Rachael Mullenix, the Huntington Beach teenager who conspired with her love-struck boyfriend to murder her mother and dump the slashed body into Newport Harbor, expressed only grudging and limited remorse Friday as a judge sentenced her to 25 years to life in prison. "I don't care what the jury thought. I did not do that to my mother," Mullenix, 19, told Orange County Superior Court Judge David Thompson. "I can't even believe this is happening to me."

WASHINGTON - Email traffic exchanged during the drafting of talking points about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, last year shows that the State Department and White House were more involved in shaping the document than they previously let on. The newly released emails highlight the political concerns expressed in those discussions as President Obama's administration wrestled with what to tell the public in...

MOSCOW - The United States and Russia agreed Tuesday to try to bring together the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the opposition for peace talks, signaling a potential breakthrough in long-stalled diplomatic efforts to end a bloody conflict that threatens to destabilize the entire region. The proposed peace conference, announced by Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after a day of talks, appeared to reflect a softening of Russia's staunch support of Assad.