I’M JUST back from a flying visit to California, a mini book tour with a few days in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Ojai (pronounced O hi) — a beautiful valley, north of Los Angeles, carpeted with orange and avocado groves and surrounded by the Topatopa Mountains.

Retirement communities built on golf courses and race horse stables housing thoroughbreds were among the sites engulfed by flames as the San Diego area became the latest front in California's wildfire fight.

Robert Pattinson is reportedly thinking about not attending a scheduled upcoming press appearance in the United States for his new film 'Cosmopolis'.

Calming winds have helped firefighters battle a 4,000-acre wildfire that prompted a voluntary evacuation of about 200 ridge-top homes.

Elmer Bernstein, the versatile, Oscar-winning composer who scored such movie classics as The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Escape and True Grit, died yesterday. He was 82.