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Oscar Pizza-Tip
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The pizza delivery man who fed stars at the Oscars received a best tip award for a supporting player: $1,000 in cash handed over by ceremony host Ellen DeGeneres.
That included money collected from A-list celebrities who chowed down on the pies during the ceremony Sunday and from DeGeneres herself.
Edgar Martirosyan received the tip during a visit Monday to "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
DeGeneres said she passed Pharrell Williams' oversized hat at the Oscars and collected about $600, then contributed more.
The Big Mama's & Papa's delivery guy said he had already gotten a reward: serving Julia Roberts, whom he called the woman of his dreams.
DeGeneres received her own Oscars spiff. Her talk show's producer, Telepictures Productions, says Monday's episode was the highest-rated in the series' 11-year history.
Backyard Gold Bonanza
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Word last week that a California couple found $10 million in gold coins on their property has set off a Gold Rush of theories over who left behind all that cash.
One is that Jesse James' gang deposited it in hopes of someday financing a second Civil War. Another claims the coins originally belonged to stagecoach robber Black Bart.
The theory gaining the most traction this week is that the hoard is made up of most of the $30,000 in gold coins that Walter Dimmick stole from the U.S. Mint in San Francisco in 1901.
But Mint spokesman Adam Stump said Tuesday the government has done its research and can't link the couple's coins to the theft.
Rare coin dealer Don Kagin represents the couple. He says they think someone in the mining industry once occupied their land and squirreled away the coins over time.
Pot in DC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana would no longer be a criminal offense in the nation's capital under a bill approved by the D.C. Council.
If the bill becomes law, the District of Columbia would join the 17 states that have decriminalized pot possession. Mayor Vincent Gray plans to sign measure, and Congress is not expected to intervene.
Smoking marijuana in public would still be illegal, and the law would not apply on federal property such as the National Mall. The council approved it Tuesday by a 10-1 vote.
Proponents say the decriminalization bill is one of the nation's strongest and would reduce racial disparities in drug arrests. Civil fines for possession would be $25, and police wouldn't be allowed to search someone just because they smell marijuana.
Corvette Museum-Sinkhole
UNDATED (AP) — Workers have plucked a third Corvette from a giant sinkhole that swallowed eight classic cars at a Kentucky museum.
More painstaking work lies ahead to retrieve the five cars still buried deep in the hole beneath the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green.
Progress continued Tuesday when a 1962 black Corvette was extracted by a crane.
John Spencer, a manager at the GM Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green, says the car has body damage but can be repaired.
Museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli says four cars are still buried under dirt, rubble, rock and concrete, while another is wedged in the hole.
She says those cars will remain trapped until workers further stabilize the sinkhole. That work could take two or three weeks.
The first two Corvettes were recovered Monday.
Art-Renoir Painting Returns
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Renoir painting stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art more than 60 years ago will return to public view later this month.
The museum announced Tuesday that Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting "On the Shore of the Seine" from about 1879 will be the centerpiece of a special exhibition March 30 through July 20. It's being reunited with 20 artworks from the collection of Saidie May, who had owned the painting and donated many other works to the museum.
The small Renoir piece became the subject of a dramatic legal dispute after a Virginia woman, Marcia "Martha" Fuqua, said she bought the painting at a flea market for $7. Others, including her brother, disputed the story.
A judge awarded ownership to the museum, citing evidence the painting was stolen in 1951.
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