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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon was sworn in as the first Latino to head the California Senate in more than a century with an expensive and out-of-the-ordinary soiree Wednesday night in downtown Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Elizabeth Pena, the versatile actress who shifted between dramatic roles in such films as “Lone Star” and comedic parts in TV shows like “Modern Family,” has died. She was 55.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Elizabeth Pena, the versatile actress who shifted between dramatic roles in such films as “Lone Star” and comedic parts in TV shows like “Modern Family,” has died. She was 55.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Los Angeles County Sheriff is investigating actor Stephen Collins on an allegation of indecent exposure or molesting a teenage girl three decades ago, the department said on Wednesday. The alleged incident happened in the summer of 1983 in West Hollywood, Calif., while the victim was 13 years old, the sheriff’s department said, a week after the Los Angeles Police Department said they were reviewing a past case against the “7th Heaven” star. …

By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) – Michael Keaton hung up his “Batman” cape more than two decades ago, but the versatile actor soared to new heights with a high-octane performance as a has-been trying to revive his career in comedy-drama and early Oscar favorite “Birdman.” In the film by Mexican director and Academy Award-nominee Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu (“21 Grams,” “Babel”), which opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, Keaton plays actor Riggan Thomson, who like himself found fame playing the superhero in an action franchise he left years ago. …

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Veteran television actor Stephen Collins is being investigated by Los Angeles sheriff’s detectives after a woman reported the former “7th Heaven” star exposed himself to her in the early 1980s.

By Piya Sinha-Roy and Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Neil Patrick Harris, popular with younger TV viewers as the star of the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has been tapped to host next year’s Academy Awards ceremony, the organizers of Hollywood’s biggest night said on Wednesday. Harris, 41, best known as Barney Stinson on the long-running CBS series, has also hosted TV’s Emmy Awards. He has won three Emmys for hosting theater’s Tony Awards. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is eager to draw a greater number of younger viewers to the TV broadcast of the 87th Oscars. …

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Growing up in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, animator Jorge Gutierrez waited to see his people appear in Hollywood’s animated fare. “I never saw myself or my family or my friends up on the screen in animation,” Gutierrez said. “I kept waiting for the Latina princess to show up, and she never did.” Gutierrez embarked on a 14-year journey to make “The Book of Life,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, drawing on Mexican art and wooden puppets to animate a colorful love story rooted in the Mexican Day of the Dead festivities. …

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — After more than a century of fruitless lobbying, Greece is pinning its hopes of reclaiming the 5th-Century B.C. Parthenon Sculptures from Britain on mediation by the United Nations’ cultural agency — and a touch of Hollywood glamor.