Featured Articles From the Los Angeles Times

The Mississippi River began cresting and hit nearly 48 feet early Tuesday, falling short of a record but wreaking havoc across Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi as tributaries and creeks swollen from the flooded waterway spilled over their banks into residential, business and farming areas. At 7 a.m. Central time Tuesday the water level reached 47.87 feet as the coffee-colored river cut through Memphis, swallowing much of the riverfront recreation area. The tourist riverboat Capt.

Most people can count calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should. But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates ? not fat ? for America's ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension. "Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

A study on how people use social networking websites such as Facebook confirms what many of us suspected. Women who post loads of photos of themselves on their sites are conveying some strong personal characteristics, according to new research. These women are more likely to base their self-worth on appearance and use social networking to compete for attention. The study involved 311 men and women with an average age of 23. In order to better understand aspects of social networking behavior, the researchers looked at the amount of time subjects spent managing profiles, the number of photos they shared, the size of their online networks and how promiscuous they were in terms of “friending” behavior.

Whenever I hear about some amazing way to boost resting metabolism, my male-bovine-droppings detector goes berserk. Take the perennially popular one stating that 1 pound of muscle burns an extra 50 calories a day while at rest — so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, your resting metabolic rate (RMR) soars by an extra 500 calories each day. Awesome! And also drivel. I'm more likely to believe bears use Porta-Potties and the pope is a Wiccan. Though its origins are uncertain, any number of fitness magazines have made the "50 calories per pound of muscle" statement.

When Catherine Middleton walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey on Friday — a willowy vision in white — she appeared noticeably thinner than she had in previous months. Her weight loss sparked rumors that she was on the Dukan diet — what appears to be a French spin on the high-protein Atkins diet — after Middleton's mother, Carole, acknowledged using the plan to shed pre-wedding pounds. Suddenly, the diet that sold 4 million copies in France was making headlines in the States, with its promise of instant weight loss without hunger, portion control or counting calories.

Jacob is a golden retriever. Like many goldens, his favorite activity is retrieving a tennis ball. We throw the ball; he brings it back and drops it at our feet. It can go on for hours. Actually, we don't know how long it could go on because we always give up before he does. But Jacob sometimes gets stuck when we play this game at my in-laws' pool. This is because of two fixed, internal rules he has. The first rule is that he must stay on land until he is as close as possible to the ball and then swim the rest of the way. The second rule is that he must enter the water gradually.

Will the move to dismantle Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mean the end of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage as we have come to know it? Many housing proponents say that it will. Without the government's backing, they contend that the 30-year mortgage will become a relic of a bygone era when mortgage money was cheap and easy to come by. But others say America's most popular home loan will still be available — if you can afford it. Before digging deeper into the debate, a short primer: Although the long-term fixed-rate mortgage was born with the Federal Housing Administration — the government agency established in 1934 to help stabilize the then-shaky housing market — it was taken to its greatest heights by Fannie and Freddie, the two government-chartered institutions that were created years later to keep the money flowing for home loans.

Say it with me: Haley Reinhart. The name of "American Idol's" reigning big surprise doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it? "Idol" never simply crowns a voice; it defines a brand. The details define and reinforce a contestant's appeal, from back story to song choice to sartorial style to naturalness onstage. Reinhart, now one of the show's three survivors, has taken quite a while to get herself together as a marketable star. Her slow, uneven evolution contrasts strikingly with that of her two remaining rivals.

The news that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have split could not help but bring back memories of the reporting 7 1/2 years ago in this newspaper about Schwarzenegger's aggressive, loutish behavior toward women. No reason has been stated for the breakup between the former governor and California's former first lady. And maybe no cause will ever be revealed, though the stature of the two media-political heavyweights guarantees that there will be plenty of reporting and speculation.

He fell in love with his first wife because she was sincere and eager to please. His second wife, a cousin, was irresistible because she did everything he wished and nothing he didn't. "That alone made me love her. " His third wife won him because she submitted to his every request. "I saw her, I liked her. I went to her parents and asked for her hand in marriage. " Wife No. 4 was very obedient. So was wife No. 5. Wife No. 6, the same. As were wives 7 and 8 and 9 and … Well, by then — it was the late 1980s — things had taken off for Bello Maasaba, an Islamic faith healer in this city in Niger state.

California's much-vaunted high-speed rail project is, to put it bluntly, a train wreck. Intended to demonstrate the state's commitment to sustainable, cutting-edge transportation systems, and to show that the U.S. can build rail networks as sophisticated as those in Europe and Asia, it is instead a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. For anti-government conservatives, it is also a powerful argument for scrapping President Obama's national rail plans, rescinding federal funding and canceling the project before any more money is wasted on it. We couldn't disagree more.

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

In a basement downtown, the librarians are being interrogated. On most days, they work in middle schools and high schools operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District, fielding student queries about American history and Greek mythology, and retrieving copies of vampire novels. But this week, you'll find them in a makeshift LAUSD courtroom set up on the bare concrete floor of a building on East 9th Street. Several sit in plastic chairs, watching from an improvised gallery as their fellow librarians are questioned.