Texas

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.

OAKLAND — Right fielder Torii Hunter , on the restricted list since May 14 while he deals with the arrest of his 17-year-old son, will probably rejoin the team early next week, Manager Mike Scioscia said. Hunter has been in Texas, where Darius McClinton-Hunter was arrested on a sexual assault charge. Though the Angels have not been required to pay Hunter during his 10-day absence, he is receiving his full salary, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about it. If Hunter returns for Monday night's game against the New York Yankees in Angel Stadium, he will have been away for two weeks.

Sprouted-grain bread offerings in the market have been slowly but steadily on the uptick of late, and a number of health claims have attached themselves to the spongy, nutty-tasting loaves: more digestible, richer in protein and higher in vitamins and minerals compared with other breads. But are the claims true? Yes -- and no. Sprouted-grain products have distinct nutritional advantages over white breads, but when compared to other whole-grain breads, they're usually nutritionally comparable -- although nutrient contents can vary, depending on the sprouts included.

Retail gasoline prices fell in California and across much of the nation over the last week, while crude oil recovered a little of the previous weeks' losses. The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in California fell 3.1 cents to $4.336 a gallon, according to the Energy Department's weekly survey of fuel prices, released Monday. That followed two weeks of increases totaling 28.1 cents a gallon. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline in California was 12.1 cents cheaper.

Manny Hamelburg, 68, a retired businessman, had fought prostate cancer for years. First, he tried radiation, then a drug with side effects that nearly killed him, and finally Lupron, a drug that blocks production of testosterone, the hormone that can fuel prostate cancer. The cancer disappeared. But life was miserable. Without normal levels of testosterone, Hamelburg says, he had no energy, and "zero libido for seven years. I was like a eunuch. I was chemically castrated. Sex was just hugs."

When Pink Floyd first took its concept album "The Wall" to the concert stage more than three decades ago, even lead singer and chief songwriter Roger Waters couldn't imagine a day when rock music might get any bigger. But 32 years later, his magnum opus about the battle between individual freedoms and authoritarian oppression has magnified beyond Waters' own expectations of yore. Now the man who once excoriated the voluminous expansion of the rock concert experience has helped institutionalize it. "I famously hated playing to large numbers of people and playing in stadiums," Waters, 68, said from a tour stop in Austin, Texas, earlier this month.

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.

Not everything is bigger in Texas. The new Aquatica water park at SeaWorld San Antonio will be one-third the size and cost half as much as the innovative Aquatica water park at SeaWorld Orlando . PHOTOS: Aquatica water park at SeaWorld San Antonio Debuting May 19, the Aquatica park in Texas will feature 18 water slides on 20 acres at a cost of more than $24 million. That's considerably smaller than Florida's $50-million-plus Aquatica which debuted in 2008 with 36 slides on 60 acres as the new high-water mark for water parks.

In the remote northeastern corner of Guatemala, archaeologists have found what appears to be the 9th century workplace of a city scribe, an unusual dwelling adorned with magnificent pictures of the king and other royals and the oldest known Maya calendar. This year has been particularly controversial among some cultists because of the belief that the Maya calendar predicts a major cataclysm - perhaps the end of the world - on Dec. 21, 2012. Archaeologists know that is not true, but the new find, written on the plaster equivalent of a modern scientist's whiteboard, strongly reinforces the idea that the Maya calendar projects thousands of years into the future.

Watching Alzheimer's disease steal away the memory, talents and very selves of its victims is hard enough for the people who love them. Now, a new pill formulated by a respected pharmaceutical company and approved by the Food and Drug Administration will do little to help most patients and will bring misery to some, say two medical investigators. The drug, Aricept 23 mg, is no more effective on the whole than the disappointing ones already on the market - but is more likely to cause gastrointestinal problems, wrote Drs. Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth Medical College in an article published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ. The new formulation was devised to serve commercial objectives, they say, and was approved despite a poor showing in company-sponsored tests.

If you are traveling in Texas, a great dining stop is in the small town of Shenandoah, just west of Houston. Aldo el Sharif, who for years had a famous restaurant in Houston, semiretired here and opened Aldo's Cucina Italiana. He still has the magic touch and turns out authentic meals at moderate prices. With all the marvelous historic sites in the area, a great way to top off a day is with dinner at Aldo's. Pastas from $13, main dishes from $18. Aldo's Cucina Italiana, 18450 I-45 South, Shenandoah; (936)

The Angels put All-Star right fielder Torii Hunter on baseball's restricted list Monday after his 17-year-old son's arrest in Prosper, Texas, on suspicion of felony sexual assault of a child. Darius McClinton-Hunter , of McKinney, Texas, was arrested along with four high school classmates after a monthlong investigation, according to Prosper police. McClinton-Hunter and Garrick White , also 17, were arrested as adults, police said, along with three juveniles. No record of charges against McClinton-Hunter could be found on the police website.

ARLINGTON, Texas — This wasn't what slugger Mark Trumbo meant Saturday when he said the Angels need to "come out a little angry" and play with a "figurative chip on our shoulder. " Ace Jered Weaver took that suggestion to the extreme Sunday night, flying into a rage upon returning to the dugout after giving up a third-inning grand slam to Nelson Cruz, which helped power the Texas Rangers to a 13-6 romp of the Angels at the Ballpark in Arlington. "We had a chance to win the series, and I let the team down," said Weaver, who fell to 5-1 with a 2.83 earned-run average but is 2-7 with a 5.21 ERA in 14 career starts in the Rangers' hitter-friendly park.

If the Angels were in the English Premier League, they'd be in danger of being relegated to the second division right now. They didn't look like they belonged on the same field as the Texas Rangers on Friday night. Josh Hamilton continued his torrid slugging with his major league-leading 16th and 17th homers, a towering shot to right in the second inning and a laser to right in the fourth, and Yu Darvish weathered a 1-hour, 56-minute rain delay to throw 51/3 solid innings to lead the Rangers to a 10-3 victory at the Ballpark in Arlington.

ARLINGTON, Texas - C. J. Wilson, working on no days' rest, silenced a hostile Ballpark in Arlington crowd with 5 2/3 solid innings Saturday, and Mark Trumbo hit a two-run home run and sparked a two-run rally with a walk to lead the Angels to a 4-2 victory over the Texas Rangers. The Angels also got 3 1/3 hitless innings from their bullpen, including 1 2/3 superb innings from right-hander Ernesto Frieri, to trim Texas' American League West lead to seven games. Wilson, the former Rangers ace who signed a five-year, $77.5-million contract with the Angels in December, became the first pitcher in franchise history to start consecutive games after a 1-hour, 56-minute rain delay in the first inning cut his Friday night start short after 22 pitches.

It's almost serendipitous the way it worked out, with the rotations of the teams expected to battle for American League West supremacy aligning so that Angels left-hander C.J. Wilson will face Texas right-hander Yu Darvish on Friday night in the first game between the clubs this season. Wilson, 31, helped the Rangers reach the World Series in 2010 and 2011 and was somewhat disappointed with the team's halfhearted attempts to retain him before he signed a five-year, $77.5-million deal with the rival Angels on Dec. 8. Why the Rangers never made a formal free-agent offer to their ace became clear a few weeks later when they spent $107 million to acquire the rights to negotiate with and then sign Darvish, the hard-throwing, 6-foot-5 Japanese sensation who replaced Wilson in the Texas rotation.

Authorities brought a sudden crisis under control at a courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, on Wednesday after a shooting left at least one person dead and several others injured. Beaumont police told The Times that the situation had been resolved Wednesday afternoon with a suspect in custody. Police said they could not release the name of the suspect or details of the shooting, including how many people had been killed or injured. The shooting occurred outside the courthouse, near the entrance, according to  ABC News.

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

The U.S. foreign-born population has risen to its highest level since 1920, with 13% of all those living in the nation in 2010 having been born elsewhere, a new report from the Census Bureau shows. Forty million of those residing in the U.S. in 2010 were born in other countries, up from 31 million, or 11% of the total, a decade earlier. The foreign-born share of the population dropped between 1920 and 1970, hitting a low of 4.7% in 1970, before rising again for several decades. But that growth has slowed in recent years as immigration has dropped, census officials said Thursday.

President Obama has never been wildly popular in West Virginia, but Tuesday's Democratic primary marked the state's sharpest rejection of the president yet. A Texas prisoner, listed as Inmate No. 11593-051, received 69,766 votes, a surprising 41% of the total, showing that many West Virginians would vote for just about anyone other than Obama, regardless of their status as a felon. Obama still won the primary, with 59% of the vote. Keith Judd, the prisoner in question, is currently serving a 17½-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana after being sentenced for extortion in an altercation with the University of New Mexico.