Owner of Rivera plane being investigated by DEA

PHOENIX (AP) — The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe.DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson confirmed Thursday the planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized in Texas and Arizona,...

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PUC plan would put trust funds at risk

Even the most inattentive 401(k) owner surely understands today that the markets can bite you where it hurts, that promises of long-term investment gains can evaporate in the blink of a short-term crash and that the less understandable an investment scheme is, the more dangerous it is.Why, then, is California Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy...

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Ray Briem dies at 82; all-night radio host in L.A.

Ray Briem, the longtime KABC-AM talk show host who ruled all-night radio for nearly three decades with his phone calls to the...

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Microsoft plots living room domination with 43 new entertainment apps for Xbox 360

Game consoles are no longer simply for video games, as evidenced by last week’s announcement that the PlayStation 3 is the top Netflix (NFLX) streaming device of the year. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s (MSFT) chief marketing officer for its Interactive Entertainment Division, said this past March that Xbox 360 owners were spending more hours watching online entertainment...

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Sitar maker: Ravi Shankar's legacy inspires others

NEW DELHI (AP) — The walls of Sanjay Sharma's music shop are lined with gleaming string instruments and old photographs of legendary musicians.Beatles George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Indian classicial musicians Zakir Hussain, Shiv Kumar Sharma and Vishwamohan Bhatt. And the man who brought these two very different musical worlds together: Ravi Shankar.Like his grandfather and father...

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Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease. Tony Karumba/Agence...

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Retailers scramble to woo shoppers in final days before Christmas

The holiday crunch is on at the mall, and Toys R Us is opening all its stores for 88 straight hours until Christmas Eve. And,...

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Jenni Rivera jet linked to troubled company and executive

So far, this much is clear: Jenni Rivera, one of the most celebrated artists in the Latin world, died when her private jet went...

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Familiar names line up for Golden Globe noms

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A familiar lineup of Hollywood awards contenders are expected among Golden Globe nominations, whose prospects include past Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Helen Mirren, Robert De Niro and Sally Field.Nominations come out Thursday morning for the 70th Globes ceremony, Hollywood's second-biggest film honors after the Academy Awards.Among potential contenders are two-time...

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‘How to Survive a Plague’ Provides a Silver Lining on AIDS

Stephanie Diani for The New York TimesThe director David France in Los Angeles last week. LAST Wednesday night, David France, the director of the documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” made his way to the Open Society Institute in Columbus Circle for a question-and-answer session and a screening of his film, which is about the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Afterward, he was mobbed by well-wishers...

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