Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES - Famous Serbian basketball player Vlade Divac showed at a recent game between his former team the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors that he still has great skill, despite retiring 9 years ago.

A song poking fun at the killing of black teenager Michael Brown by a white policeman, performed at a retired officer's party, has prompted the Los Angeles Police Department to launch an internal investigation, its chief said on Dec. 23.

The United States Olympic Committee announced Tuesday it will bid to host the 2024 Summer Games, but the candidate city won't be selected until early next year.
      
Los Angeles, Washington, Boston and San Francisco all made their final pitches for staging the four-yearly showpiece to the USOC board of directors on Tuesday.
      

Crowds of jubilant royal watchers cheered as Britain's Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate arrived in New York on Dec. 7, kicking off a three-day trip to the East Coast.
      
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's motorcade pulled up outside the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side around 5:45 pm (2245 GMT), and the couple smiled broadly before heading into the building.

On Dec. 6 a man was shot by a police officer in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and later died in hospital.

Bill Cosby's attorney on Dec. 4 said a lawsuit accusing the comedian of sexually molesting a teenager four decades ago was meritless and alleged that the accuser tried to extort $250,000 from Cosby before filing the suit.

Bill Cosby was sued Dec. 2 by a Southern California woman who claims the comedian molested her in a bedroom of the Playboy Mansion around 1974 when she was 15 years old.

National Guard deployed in U.S. town amid riots

FERGUSON -- Officials in the U.S. state of Missouri have ordered more National Guard troops to be sent to the town of Ferguson.

A police officer who shot and killed an African American youth there and whom a jury failed to indict has said his conscience was clear.

Protests spread across the United States late Nov. 25 and more than 2,000 National Guard troops were deployed in the St. Louis area to prevent a second night of rioting and looting after a grand jury declined to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

Tensions have escalated again in Ferguson, over the past hours, with protesters marching there and also in a number of US cities.

This was the second night of protests after a court ruling sparked unrest across Ferguson, where Michael Brown was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson in August.