William Randolph Hearst's castle; Hearst Castle is a great diversion when visiting the central coast of California. The castle shows a taste of the life of William Randolf Hearst and his eclectic collecting passion. This magnificent estate of 165 rooms and 127 acres of gardens, terraces, pools and walkways commands an impressive view of the Pacific Ocean as well as the hills and dales of the Santa Lucia mountain range.
It was billed by Major League Eating organizers as a make-or-break moment for one of their biggest stars. Passersby just saw two guys quickly gobbling lots of giant calzones. 
When the owners of a $480-million seaside luxury resort said they needed more money to ensure it would open, they turned to Rancho Palos Verdes.
The stage version of Mel Brooks' comedy "The Producers" - which famously contains a lavish production number called "Springtime for Hitler" - is now playing in Berlin in a theater that once contained a box for the fuhrer. Martin Sommerlatte, dressed as Hitler, plays for laughs in that big production number.
For decades, Benny Goodman and his clarinet popped up just about everywhere, and when they did, just about everyone knew it. Goodman, who would have turned 100 on May 30, defined for most people the swing era that dominated popular American music for much of the 1930s and 1940s. From Carnegie Hall and New York's exclusive clubs to his backing up Jack Teagarden in 1933 on "Texas Tea Party," he was as versatile and prolific as he was famous.
Works from one of the world's great private collections of Chinese art are on display at The Huntington Library near Los Angeles. The collection is owned by Chinese American Wan-go Weng. It shows the importance of art in China and in one Chinese family, in particular.
Carole Bayer Sager's passion for music has given the world scores of memorable songs, including her collaborations on "Nobody Does It Better," "Don't Cry Out Loud," "That's What Friends Are For" and the Oscar-winning "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)." And to think it all started back in the '60s when, as a high-schooler, she wrote "A Groovy Kind of Love."
"Departures" is a gentle film about a quiet man in conflict with his world, his father, himself. It is also about death and its rituals. Yet the film manages to be anything but dark; whimsy and sweet irony are laced throughout, a warmhearted blend that turned it into the surprise winner of 2008's Oscar for foreign-language film.
"Burn, Baby, Burn," the monumental, recently acquired 1965-66 painting by Chilean-born Roberto Matta (1911-2002) was installed the other day at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, on the fourth floor of the building for Art of the Americas. It's quite something -- all 320 square feet (more or less) of it.
The Sleepers — Curtis, Deborah and their children, Kian, Perry and baby Theodore Wesley — live in a cave, a 17,000-square-foot gouge in the earth left by a 1930s sandstone mine. It’s Tom Sawyer country here in Festus, Mo., just a few miles from the Mississippi River, and the Sleepers showed their adventurous side by making their home 45 feet under a forest (and a neighbor’s home).
The decision to film two key scenes from "Star Trek" in the Dodger Stadium parking lot may not seem the logical choice, but that's just what visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett and director J.J. Abrams did. The drill platform scene with Kirk and Sulu battling Romulans high above planet Vulcan and the Delta Vega ice planet sequences were filmed there, on side-by-side sets over two weeks. "From a visual effects standpoint, you want people to believe that someone is actually standing outside on a drill platform," said Guyett, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic and second unit director. "We were looking for a piece of land that had as clean of a horizon as possible." The drill platform was a circular set 60 feet in diameter. Raising it 10 to 15 feet made it possible to shoot those hanging-off-the-edge moments. It also gave cinematographer Daniel Mindel mostly clear sky in his scope of vision. A green screen filled the bottom of the set.
The soft real estate market has developers of upscale condominium buildings auctioning brand-new units instead of trying to sell them conventionally. Thirty-eight units were sold at auction last week in West Ocean Two, a Long Beach high-rise completed in 2008.
Since its founders built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway northwest of downtown Indianapolis in 1909, the speedway and the race -- which was first held in 1911 -- remain among the sporting world's most celebrated fixtures. And for many fans, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500 -- like Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby, and the Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters -- endure as unique institutions whose popularity surpasses that of their sports. Shown above is Ray Harroun who came out of retirement to win the first Indy 500 in 1911.
One California Plaza (1985 - Arthur Erickson Architectural Corporation) and Two California Plaza (1992 - Arthur Erickson Architectural Corporation) are the 13th and 3rd tallest buildings in Los Angeles at 578 and 750 feet, respectively. Two California Plaza is on the left. Arthur Erickson passed away recently. He was 84.
Founded in 2007 in California, Airship Ventures Inc. operates the only passenger airship operation in the United States, featuring Eureka, the world’s largest airship. At 246 feet in length, the Zeppelin is longer than a 747, more than 50 feet longer than the largest blimp. Based out of Moffett Field, Eureka also flies out of Oakland and Monterey.
Reporting from New York -- It slices! It dices! It pierces and pokes! It pulls stubborn flesh from bone with the flick of a wrist! 
The items, including a chair with spiked seat, back and arm rests, orginated in the region of the Holy Roman Empire that became Germany. "Every one of the barbarous implements have been in actual use," says a catalog.
South Korea: In early spring, the first leaves from the tea plant poke their heads into the sunshine of Boseong, a tiny town in the southern part of the country known for its tea fields. The leaves are harvested from early April through the first part of September, but these earliest leaves are the most prized. Handpicked by the local women who live in the South Jeolla Province, they're sold for exorbitant prices at fancy tea shops throughout the country.
Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin. It is a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes. It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832. The first complete edition was published in 1833, and the edition on which the current accepted version is based was published in 1837.
Thoughts of Hector Tobar: Over the years, the Dodgers have delighted me, but they've disappointed me many times more. The twilight, however, rarely fails to make the trek up and down the hills of the old Chavez Ravine worthwhile. 
It was the fourth round at the 1989 French Open, and the 17-year-old Chang already had defied long odds by pushing Ivan Lendl, the world's No. 1-ranked player, to a deciding fifth set.
Despite challenges, San Carlos' Tesla Motors says it hopes to complete nearly 1,000 all-electric Roadsters by year’s end and to open three retail outlets, including one in Santa Monica.
Zap in Santa Rosa sells electric scooters and low-speed, three-wheel cars, and CEO Steven Schneider says Zap plans to sell a highway legal three-wheeler starting next year.
Fisker Automotive made a splash at January’s Detroit auto show with a sculptural sedan, the Karma, that it says will reach 125 miles per hour and cost $80,000. Unlike competitors’ vehicles, the Karma is a plug-in hybrid, using battery and gasoline power.
The future of transportation is now available for lease. In the next few weeks, 450 consumers in California, New York and New Jersey will begin picking up fully electric Mini coupes, charging them at home and using them as their daily commuters for the next year.
Diana Friedberg's family woke up last Thanksgiving to the sound of fluttering wings. The family was spending the weekend on their farm, called Stillerus, in Healdsburg, north of San Francisco. "Thousands of starlings flew in and spent the day picking the last of the grape crop in our valley," says Friedberg, of Woodland Hills. "They circled and danced in the sky all day long. It was a magical experience." As the sun set, the birds set off south on their migratory path. She used a Panasonic Lumix to capture the shot.
The Alfa Romeo MiTo — pronounced “Me-Toe,” a hip mash-up of the city names Milan and Turin (Torino) — is aimed like a tiny cruise missile at the BMW Mini. Styled by Alfa designer Juan Manuel Diaz, the hatchback MiTo is an ecstatic shape, full of consonant lines and completed ideas, like a good piece of music. Price: $22,000 - $30,000
The Statue of Liberty is one of those places real New Yorkers never go, but the reopening of its crown-level observation deck might be enough incentive to hop the ferry over to Liberty Island, tourist throngs be damned. As the AP points out, the crown has been closed to the public since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but as of July 4, 2009, 30 visitors an hour will be allowed to ascend the 168-step spiral staircase to the gray iron observation deck, where spectacular views of New York Harbor extend for miles.
Dominic DiMaggio, left, seen in 1949, still holds the Boston Red Sox team record for the longest consecutive-game hitting streak, but was overshadowed by the towering legend of his brother Joe, the Yankee Clipper.
Reporting from Washington -- An Obama administration official who took the blame for the Air Force One flyover in Lower Manhattan last month gave his resignation Friday, after a White House investigation into a botched photo op that frightened New Yorkers with its echo of the Sept. 11 attacks.
An undated photo provided by Texas-based Smart Start, Inc., shows the company's Smart Start 20/20 Ignition Interlock device, a small handheld breath alcohol monitoring device that is wired to a vehicle's ignition system. A new law in Illinois that began Jan. 1, 2009, requires breathalyzer gadgets in cars for anyone convicted of drunk driving even once. Smart Start is one of several companies that provide the devices.
The desolate, semi-arid land once inhabited by the Fremont Indians contains areas of spectacular beauty. There are more National Parks (Zions, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands), National Monuments, and State Parks in the homeland of the Fremont Indians than any other area of North America. Shown above is the "Totems" in Utah.
LOS ANGELES - A man was charged Tuesday with smuggling songbirds into the United States by hiding more than a dozen of them in an elaborate, custom-tailored pair of leggings during a flight from Vietnam to Los Angeles.
"The Last Iceberg," the first Los Angeles solo exhibition by photographer Camille Seaman opened Saturday at the Richard Heller Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue, B-5A, Santa Monica. Pictured above is "Grounded Iceberg," East Greenland, August 24, 2006 -- the exhibition runs through May 30. Call (310) 453-9191 or go to richardhellergallery.com/.
A C-17 Globemaster III airlifter on Tuesday surpassed the 50,000 flight hour mark for the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force C-17 fleet. Aircraft ZZ175 marked the milestone during a mission from Afghanistan. During the eight years since the first C-17 delivery to the UK, the RAF's fleet of six C-17s has flown more than 22 million nautical miles (25 million miles or 41 million kilometers)." 
