Andrew Blankstein

LOS ANGELES - Daryl F. Gates was in his 13th year as head of the Los Angeles Police Department when four of his officers pummeled Rodney King on a darkened roadside in the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of L.A.

LOS ANGELES -- The former live-in housekeeper and nanny for Sharon Stone claimed in a lawuit filed Wednesday that the actress made repeated derogatory comments about her Filipino heritage and religious beliefs.

LOS ANGELES -- The coroner's investigation into the death of Whitney Houston came to a close Wednesday with a final autopsy report that described the singer submerged face-down in hot water in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills hotel suite with a unidentified white powdery residue left in a spoon on the bathroom counter.

The report released Wednesday confirmed that the 48-year-old singer drowned in a bathtub, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. It concluded that Houston's death was accidental.

LOS ANGELES — A confrontation between federal law enforcement agents erupted in gunfire Thursday evening in Long Beach, leaving one dead and another seriously injured, authorities said.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles County coroner's office said Wednesday that investigators have made contact with "a number" of doctors as they try to determine how Whitney Houston died.

Authorities collected several bottles of drugs from Houston's suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where she was found dead Saturday. But officials have said the amounts of drugs did not seem unusually large, leaving it unclear whether the medications had anything to do with the singer's death.

LOS ANGELES -- A brawl between several people dressed as action figures erupted in front of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Thursday evening, resulting in a Jack Sparrow character being pepper-sprayed by an attacker, police said.