Randy Jackson and Rebbie Jackson, brother and sister of late pop star Michael Jackson, arrive at a courthouse for Katherine Jackson's lawsuit against concert giant AEG Live in Los Angeles, Monday, April 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

by Anthony McCartney

LOS ANGELES (AP) —Michael Jackson's words and music rang through a courtroom once again on Monday — this time at the start of wrongful death trial — as a lawyer tried to show jurors the pop singer's loving relationship with his mother and children.

JOKESTER IN CHIEF--President Barack Obama speaks at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel, Saturday, April 27, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

by Bradley Klapper

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama joked Saturday that the years are catching up to him and he's not "the strapping young Muslim socialist" he used to be.

CHILD ACTOR--Former child actor Rodney Allen Rippy poses for a photo outside Compton City Hall in Compton, Calif.  (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

by John Rogers

Associated Press Writer

COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — Before he suddenly surfaced in the race for mayor of this hardscrabble Los Angeles suburb, Rodney Allen Rippy's name was likely to evoke that question inspired by that class of former child stars who didn't die young, end up in jail or a celebrity rehab series: "Whatever happened to that guy?"

Rippy was just 3 in 1972, when he became the toast of a generation as the pint-sized TV pitchman for the Jack In The Box fast-food chain. When he picked up a hamburger that looked as a big as a hubcap and tried to cram it into his mouth, America was entranced. When he finally said, "Too bigga eat!" a national catchphrase was born.

Soon the cute, chubby-cheeked youngster with the Afro as big as his head was hanging out in Hollywood with Michael Jackson. He made movie cameos and recorded a hit album called "Take Life a Little Easier."

Then the 1970s ended, and so did Rippy's career.

More than 30 years, he resurfaced as a candidate for mayor in a city known variously over the years as the birthplace of gangsta rap, the murder capital of the country and the home of the drive-by shooting.

Although he got only 75 votes, finishing 10th among 12 candidates, his earnest but futile campaign raised the inevitable question of where he had been.

Rippy never strayed far from Hollywood, it turns out. He simply stepped away from the cameras.

When his Jack In The Box career ended about the time he was finishing high school, he went to college and earned a marketing degree.

"I wanted to continue to act, but at the time acting was a thing that unless you were really burning hot, you better have something on the back burner," he said recently over lunch at a Compton restaurant down the street from City Hall.

Seeing how the adults around him had turned a cute little kid from Long Beach into a national star, he decided marketing was the way to go.

He formed Ripped Marketing Group in 2000 and has promoted everything from smokeless cigarettes to leisure wear to country music. It gave him the idea, he says, that he could promote Compton too. He wanted to change the image of a city that, although financially troubled, has seen crime and gang violence drop precipitously in recent years.

He wasn't the first child star to remerge from anonymity to run for office. His contemporary, the late Gary Coleman, did the same when he launched his quixotic campaign for governor of California in 2003.

Unlike Coleman and many other former child stars, Rippy never got into a fistfight with an autograph seeker. He hasn't been caught in a crack house or drunkenly crashed his car.

"Don't get me wrong, I know the good, the bad, the ugly, but I have sense enough to stay away from it," he said. "My mom always said, 'Rodney, you need to understand this: It's very easy to get into trouble. It's very difficult to get out."

The Afro and the chubby cheeks are gone, but Rippy's appearance often has people scratching their heads, wondering where they've seen him before. Their reaction when they find out is sometimes like that of Saudia Pearsall's.

"THE RODNEY ALLEN RIPPY?" the waitress shouted with glee after she spotted him at a back table.

"Ahhhhh! I might vote for you just because I like you," she added, laughing. "That little Afro. 'This burger's too bigga eat!'"

A day later, she was having second thoughts, realizing she didn't know much about his campaign.

Her reaction — delight at meeting a celebrity but wondering what the heck he's doing here — is something Rippy says he sees often.

Rippy lost out on a marketing job once, when the person he was to work for started to believe he was being punked for a reality show: "He thought it was some kind of game, like I had some sort of hat-cam on."

NOLA JAZZ--Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band perfrom at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival sponsored on a rainy Sunday, April 28, 2013 in New Orleans. (AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Kathleen Flynn) 

by Chevel Johnson

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A steady, sometimes heavy rain pelted fans Sunday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but the music flowed on.

A soaked Dave Matthews and his band played through a strong downpour at the tail end of the closing weekend, much to the fans' delight as they danced along with him and cheered him through the bad weather.

Matthews ended his performance just before a flash of lightning and strong thunder echoed his goodbyes to the crowd, which stretched to the back track and beyond despite the weather, as is usual for that stage.

Umbrellas, rain boots and plastic ponchos were out in abundance early as fans stood among the puddles and water-soaked grass, awaiting clearer skies. The rain had stopped for a time in the afternoon, but came back in time to drench the evening crowd.

Paul Rother, of Venice Beach, Calif., said he and his friend, Mark Sender, of Hollywood, drove 2,300 miles to attend this year's festival, and a little rain wasn't going to make them stay inside.

"The bands go on, rain or shine. I was at Woodstock. It rained there, too," he said, laughing.

Rother, a first-timer to the festival, said he decided to attend after Sender spoke so highly of the city and the event.

"New Orleans is the best city in America," Sender said. "And since Katrina, I've wanted to contribute to the economy as much as I can."

As Steven and Jessica Kennedy pushed their 2 ½-year-old daughter, Miriam, in a stroller, the New Orleans residents said weather wouldn't deter them from getting out to hear the likes of the Nevilles, the Dave Matthews Band and B.B. King.

"She wanted to come more than we did," Jessica Kennedy said of the toddler. "We're prepared. We have a lot of rain gear."

"There are 600 bands here," added Steven Kennedy. "You can't beat the price of the ticket for that kind of talent and you get a good mix of national and local artists."

A torrential downpour blew through about 5 p.m. CDT, shortly before the day's final artists would take the stage, sending fans inside any shelter they could find, including covered tents, such as the one where jazz songstress Dianne Reeves entertained a standing-room-only crowd. Reeves canceled last year's scheduled appearance after her mother died.

Fans enthusiastically embraced her when she took the stage and sang her rendition of Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather" and Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

"It's such a pleasure and honor to be here with you tonight," Reeves told the crowd, who cheered in response. "We made it through the rain and storm clouds now sit back and relax and enjoy the music."

Calvin Cherry, of Newport News, Va., said when he saw Reeves was on this year's lineup, he knew instantly that he'd be in the house. Cherry, a professional dancer, said Reeves' voice is like "poetry in motion."

"It's so mysterious, so haunting and has such a deep and guttural quality that it's just phenomenal. There are spaces in her voice that just resonate with me and for me to use my body to interpret her music, it's just kismet," he said.

The downpour stopped the music shortly on at least one stage, as crews rushed to cover equipment at the height of the storm. But the sweet sounds of the Gipsy Kings — a group from Arles and Montpellier in the south of France who perform in Spanish — quickly returned when the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Just before 7 p.m., another line of severe weather dumped rain on the remaining fans, who stuck it out with Matthews until the end of his set.

Festival producer Quint Davis thanked Matthews for his effort and encouraged fans to return on Thursday when the festival resumes.

New Orleans artists Khris Royal & Dark Matter played the Gentilly Stage early Sunday as pockets of fest-faithfuls grooved and danced to his funky saxophone opening instrumental. Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band also enticed fans to the front of the nearby Fais Do-Do stage, where couples rocked a two-step to the band's steady beat.

The Nevilles, without brother Aaron, performed just before the Dave Matthews Band, which closed the fest's first weekend and largest stage.

"We almost didn't come," said Sandy Diaz, of Ocean Springs, Miss., after singing along and dancing with the Nevilles on "Meet de Boys on the Battlefront."

"It's a little disappointing that Aaron's not up there with him, but I'm excited about seeing Trombone Shorty next weekend," she said.

Trombone Shorty, whose real name is Troy Andrews, will close the largest stage May 5, the final day of the festival, which is held over two weekends annually.

Associated Press writer Stacey Plaisance contributed to this report.