Trials

Until recently, very few people had ever heard of raspberry ketones, the aromatic compounds that give the berries their distinctive smell. Today, health food stores have trouble keeping the capsules or drops of the stuff on their shelves. Almost overnight, an obscure plant compound became the next big thing in weight loss - and all it took was a few words from Dr. Oz. In a February episode of "The Dr. Oz Show," Mehmet Oz told viewers that raspberry ketones were "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. " Once Oz calls something a "miracle," it doesn't remain obscure for long.

He is not in court. He is not even charged with a crime. But looming over the murder trial of a woman accused of strangling an aspiring model and actress in her Santa Monica apartment five years ago is a doctor who once dated the victim. A prosecutor told a downtown jury Wednesday that Juliana Redding was killed five days after her father broke off business negotiations with her ex-boyfriend Dr. Munir Uwaydah. Deputy Dist. Atty. Stacy Okun-Wiese said that Redding, 21, was killed by one of the doctor's associates, Kelly Soo Park, whose DNA was discovered on the victim's neck, tank top and areas of her apartment.

A worrisome abdominal pain drove Jalal Afshar to seek treatment last year at healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. The Pasadena resident and Kaiser member had lived for years with a rare condition known as Castleman's disease, which affects the lymph nodes and the body's immune system. But this was the first time he experienced such severe symptoms. Kaiser granted his request to see a specialist in Arkansas. But it ultimately declined to pay for his treatment there. By June, Afshar said, Kaiser was arranging for hospice care so that he could die at home.

A 16-year-old girl was found guilty Friday of murdering her mother and stepfather, capping a two-week trial in which the teen admitted driving to buy party supplies while her mother's decomposing body was in the back of her vehicle. Jurors quickly rejected defense arguments that Cynthia Alvarez was an innocent victim of horrific abuse who had been helpless as her violent teenage boyfriend killed her parents in her Compton mobile home in October 2011. After deliberating about three hours, the jurors found her guilty of first-degree murder in both killings, with some members of the panel saying outside court in Compton that they believed Alvarez plotted and actively participated in the slayings.

Los Angeles police will not pursue through the courts scores of motorists with unpaid tickets from the city's defunct red-light camera program. The city Police Commission voted this week to end its contract with the company that operated L.A.'s cameras until they were shut off last summer. And authorities are now planning to reassign a small group of officers who regularly appeared in court to testify in contested photo enforcement cases. With the cancellation of the contract, officers will no longer have easy access to the photo and video evidence that courts require.

Scientists hoping to mimic the life-extending qualities produced by a chemical found in red wine and dark chocolate say they have solved one of the mysteries about how this compound works to combat the effects of obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and a host of other maladies. The findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, could lay the foundation for a variety of drugs that act like concentrated amounts of resveratrol, the compound that has inspired a $30-million-a-year supplement business.

A young woman whose diary entries told of her fear of her ex-boyfriend and helped convict the man of her murder were read in court again Friday as he was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. "I swear to God that I hate Richard Namey," Sarah Jane Rodriguez had scrawled on a scrap of paper days before she was shot to death. "I hope he goes to prison for life. He is just so very mean to me."

The Menendez family estate, once valued at up to $14 million, is virtually depleted, it was disclosed Tuesday at Lyle and Erik Menendez's murder trial. Shrunken by taxes, legal fees and other costs, Jose and Kitty Menendez's estate is worth no more than $800,000--and has debts at least that high, defense lawyer Leslie Abramson said in court. Probate records are sealed and the defense had kept financial figures secret throughout the trial.

Prosecutors on Tuesday displayed a series of graphic autopsy photos for jurors in the murder trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez that appeared to reduce the brothers to tears. The color pictures show that their father, Jose Menendez, was hit six times and their mother, Kitty Menendez, 10 times with shotgun blasts. Jose Menendez suffered a fatal shot to the back of his head, a coroner's deputy testified as prosecutors posted a picture of the wound.

Lyle Menendez testified Monday that his mother was "very strange" and frequently violent and that she--like his father--sexually abused him. Until he was 13, his mother would wash his body "everywhere," he said. She also would invite him into bed with her and he would touch her "everywhere," he testified. "I took it to be love," Lyle Menendez said, adding, "She was enjoying it." But he was not enjoying it, he said, so he stopped the activities, which enraged her.

SAN FRANCISCO - A prison inmate whose triple-murder arson conviction was overturned after he demonstrated "actual innocence" will be retried rather than released, prosecutors said. U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii ordered the state last month to release George Souliotes, 72, or retry him immediately. After finding that Souliotes had proved his innocence, the judge overturned his conviction on the grounds he had been incompetently represented by his lawyer. Souliotes has spent 16 years in prison for murder in the deaths of Michelle Jones, 31, and her two children, Daniel Jr., 8, and Amanda, 3. The three died when a fire erupted in the home the family was renting from Souliotes.

A federal magistrate released a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from jail Monday on strict pretrial conditions that include 24-hour home confinement and $100,000 bail. The friend, Robel Phillipos, a 19-year-old Boston native, is charged with making false statements to the FBI related to the April 15 explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. After a hearing before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler, Phillipos quickly left the courthouse in street clothes and a baseball cap, surrounded by family and friends.

BERLIN - The surviving member of an alleged neo-Nazi cell accused of a string of racially motivated murders went on trial Monday in a case that has forced Germany to confront the extent to which racism continues to pervade society here. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is accused of complicity in the murders of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007. Her trial in Munich is expected to raise questions about the failings of security services and police, who suspected the slain immigrants of having connections to organized crime and refused to pursue tips about a far-right gang.

Fearing lawmakers may fail to pass a package of medical reform bills, a coalition of consumer groups and trial lawyers is mounting a campaign to put before voters an even more ambitious slate of initiatives aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse and holding doctors more accountable for misconduct. About two dozen state and national advocacy groups - including the Consumer Attorneys of California, California Nurses Assn., the Center for Public Interest Law, and Public Citizen - have been organizing privately since December and plan to unveil the campaign at the state Capitol on Thursday.

As Michael Jackson's highly anticipated comeback shows approached, promoter AEG was so desperate to become No. 1 in the concert industry that its executives ruthlessly pushed the pop star to perform, caring little about his health, an attorney said Monday. In his opening statement, Brian Panish, who represents Jackson's mother and his three children, told the jury that Anschutz Entertainment Group was willing to do whatever it took to catch up to its competitor, Live Nation. "AEG had a problem, and they wanted to fix it," he said.

He was a smooth-talking swindler who operated Orange County's most notorious and lucrative strip club, the Mustang Topless Theater. Born James Stockwell, he rebranded himself Jimmy Casino and lived the extravagant lifestyle of a character from an Elmore Leonard novel. Expensive cowboy couture. Luxury cars. Enemies who wanted him dead. After years of staying a step ahead of the law and the people whom he owed money, Casino, 48, was ambushed at his Buena Park condo Jan. 2, 1987.

If you're over 40, you probably remember that first time someone called you "Ma'am" or "Sir. " It almost surely hurt, no matter how young and fit you felt. Evidently, your age was showing in those wrinkles and sags. Some decide to live with it; others do everything they can to obliterate the evidence. Today there are more nonsurgical options than ever to erase lines, thanks to new developments in the world of fillers. Thirty years ago, a filler such as Zyplast (cow collagen) would be injected to bring a line or scar up to the level of the surrounding skin.

Collene Campbell arrived in court Thursday wearing the St. Christopher medal her brother, slain racing legend Mickey Thompson, wore during his races. It lay over a diamond necklace her mother gave her on her deathbed 11 years ago, asking Campbell not to take it off until her brother's killer was brought to justice. On Thursday, after nearly 19 years, 74-year-old Campbell was released from those mystic bonds.

Michael Jackson's death nearly four years ago has been the subject of intense curiosity, endless media speculation and even a dramatic courtroom drama in which the King of Pop's doctor was found guilty of causing his death. But all that may end up being a warm-up act for the legal showdown set to begin Monday . In a wrongful death lawsuit, the singer's mother and three children accuse concert promoter Anschutz Entertainment Group of threatening to end Jackson's career if he failed to deliver on a series of comeback concerts in London and hiring the doctor who was later convicted of giving the singer a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol.

In another major setback for efforts to develop an HIV vaccine, federal researchers have shut down a key clinical trial after an independent panel of safety experts determined that volunteers who got an experimental vaccine appeared to be slightly more likely to contract the human immunodeficiency virus than those who got a placebo. Investigators involved in recruiting volunteers and running the trial at 21 sites across the country were ordered Tuesday morning to stop immunizing volunteers with the genetically engineered HVTN 505 vaccine and to inform the nearly 2,500 people who participated in the study whether they got the vaccine or the placebo.