Color

What would it take to get you into an electric car today? Forced by state regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles, automakers are tripping over each other to offer consumers rock-bottom lease deals. For the first time, electric vehicles are penciling out cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts. Honda joined the price war this week by dropping the lease on its Fit EV from $389 to $259 a month. It threw in collision and vehicle theft coverage, maintenance, roadside assistance - even a charging station at your house.

TARTUS, Syria - War may be ravaging much of Syria, but there is no sign of conflict on bustling streets here, where diners wearing designer sunglasses order freshly caught fish at seaside cafes and gaze out on a palm-fringed expanse resembling a slightly tattered version of southern France or the Greek isles. Absent are the rows of pulverized apartment blocks that mark parts of battleground cities like Homs, Damascus and Aleppo. But that doesn't mean this ancient port - once home to Phoenicians, Romans and Crusaders - hasn't suffered its share of losses.

Obsession of the moment: Hasami porcelain plates and bowls released in a new matte black finish by the Japanese design importer TGS, or Tortoise General Store, in Venice. The Hasami porcelain is beautiful in its spare simplicity and smart function. The pieces nest nicely for storage. Optional oak lids pair well with the stone bowls and can be used separately as serving trays. TGS co-owner Keiko Shinomoto says  the collection has a nice back story too: It's part of a project in the southern Japanese town of Hasami, where a pottery tradition that dates to 1599 is ailing because of -- can you guess?

Once the weather warms up, it's all too likely your glowing complexion will go from dewy to sweaty. But by switching up several key products in your makeup arsenal - reconsidering the weight of certain formulas as well as brightening your color palette - you can master an easy warm weather makeup routine without having to start from scratch. "It's important to change your makeup for a few key reasons," says celebrity makeup artist Mai Quynh, who counts Ginnifer Goodwin and Jessica Paré as longtime clients.

A man with no risk factors for prostate cancer can go his whole life without ever taking a PSA test, according to the American Urological Assn. In a new clinical guideline unveiled Friday, the urologists said that only men between the ages of 55 and 69 should even consider getting a PSA screening test if they have no signs or symptoms of prostate cancer. Men should only get tested after discussing all the pros and cons with their doctors, and if they decide to get tested, they should not get tested again for at least two years, the guideline advises.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc. unveiled a daring overhaul of its mobile operating system to kick off its annual developers conference, where it hopes to show critics that it has lost none of its innovative swagger. In addition to unveiling iOS 7, the company made a blizzard of other product and feature announcements that included upgrades to MacBook laptops and a new streaming radio service. As expected, there were no new iPhones or iPads, which are often announced separately. But the presentation seemed in spirit to also be a rebuttal to critics who contended that Apple had lost its innovative edge in the last year.

Once color analyst Pat Jensen drapes you in a rainbow of colors, dusts pastel hues on your eyelids and pairs you with a season, you may never see yourself the same way again. Jensen is one of a number of Orange County color analysts who provide one-on-one consultations with men and women to determine their most flattering colors. The sessions--based on the much-publicized four-seasons color theory pioneered by Gerrie Pinckney, owner of the Fashion Academy in Costa Mesa--are held in Jensen's Huntington Beach home.

Nearly 1.5 miles beneath Earth's surface in Canada, scientists have found pockets of water that have been isolated from the outside world for more than 1 billion years. The ancient water, trapped in thin fissures in granite-like rock, has been bubbling up from a zinc and copper mine for decades in Timmins, Ontario. Only recently have scientists been able to calculate the age of this water and determine that it is the oldest ever discovered - possibly as old as 2.6 billion years, when Earth was less than half its current age. And it may harbor life.

Americans spend billions on hair-care products each year, a remarkable investment for a part of the body with no real function. We clean it, nourish it and style it -- and we definitely mourn its loss. Lots of products and procedures promise to restore thinning or disappearing hair. One especially intriguing option is the HairMax LaserComb, a hand-held laser device that supposedly revives hair follicles.

What does it take to go from a sixth-generation 2013 Corvette to the seventh-generation 2014 model? $1,400. Chevrolet on Friday announced pricing for the all-new C7 Corvette Stingray. The car will start at $51,995, including destination. The Stingray convertible will start at $56,995. PHOTOS: Seven generations of Corvettes Both models reflect a $1,400 increase over the outgoing Corvette. That extra money buys you a lot of changes, not the least of which is the controversial styling.

Beneath the massive trees of the Malibu mountains, four small groups of people clad head-to-toe in red, green, yellow or blue stand around several long tables playing a heated game of flip cup. "Get it, blue!" a young woman shouts into a bullhorn. "You got this, green!" hollers another. It looks a little like a frat house basement dragged into the light of day, but this competition is much more innocent. It's part of Adult Color Wars, a weekend designed to give adults a chance to relive their days at camp.

Linda Beuret and her husband, Peter, traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia in January to sail on the Mekong River, which had been a dream of theirs. "We were amazed at the Mekong River and all the people who live on the river without stepping on land," she said. At Kampong Cham, along the Mekong about 50 miles northeast of Phnom Penh, they spotted these young monks touching up the paint at Wat Nokor temple. The Santa Barbara resident used a Panasonic Lumix DMC-EZ28. To submit your photos, visit our reader photo gallery . When you upload your photos, tell us where they were taken and when.

Rinconia Drive is one of those narrow, tree-shaded roads that snakes up the Hollywood Hills, lined with a mix of older bungalows and towering modern mansions. But when you get to Chris Brown's concrete-and-steel-and-glass Jay Vanos-designed home, the mood changes dramatically. A flashy Lamborghini is parked in front, blocking the sidewalk and part of the street. A creature in a silver spacesuit is perched on a ledge. And on the walls are massive paintings of monsters, standing 8 feet tall in bright neon colors.

The reason the bike lane on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles is bright fluorescent green is so drivers and bicyclists alike can see it easily and avoid running into one another. However, the very conspicuousness of that color has brought on a collision between politics and business in the city. Bicyclists and downtown neighborhood groups are fans of the 1.4-mile stretch of green bike lane on Spring Street from Cesar Chavez to 9th Street. But location scouts and production managers who bring filming to the city's historic downtown core are not so happy.

Upstream Color ERBP, $24.95; Blu-ray, $29.95 Available on VOD beginning May 7 Since opening at Sundance this year, this sci-fi-inflected indie drama has been described as "baffling," but even though it's a complicated film, its basics aren't that hard to understand. A woman (Amy Seimetz) has her life ruined when a crook hypnotizes her with a psychedelic worm, and in the aftermath, she finds herself drawn to a handsome stranger (played by the film's writer-director-producer Shane Carruth)

Though his time in the national spotlight amounted to only about a decade, Clerow "Flip" Wilson was one of the great comic voices of the 20th century, a compact fireball whose early-1970s NBC variety series embedded characters such as the Reverend Leroy of the Church of What's Happening Now and Geraldine Jones (a self-assured bundle of sass whose catchphrases were "The devil made me do it" and "What you see is what you get") in the national consciousness. As portrayed in Kevin Cook's new and overdue biography, "Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar" - which nicks its subtitle from a 1972 Time magazine cover story - Wilson was a more troubled person than his easy and attractive onstage demeanor would suggest.

Frontier Airlines announced that this summer it will become the third U.S.-based airline to charge passengers a fee to bring carry-on bags into the cabin. Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air already impose a carry-on fee. But Frontier added a twist. Passengers can avoid the fee ($25 if paid in advance, $100 at the gate) by booking the flight directly through the airline, at FlyFrontier.com. (There is also no charge if the bag fits under the seat.) By directing fliers to book with FlyFrontier.com, the airline avoids the booking fees it pays when passengers buy tickets through travel sites such as Expedia.com or Orbitz.com.

The fashion news in fish bait this season is color. Living, wiggling color. When it comes to worms, brown is out. Day-Glo chartreuse, red and blue are in. Designer squirmers, created in Canada, made their debut in Ventura County last week. Anglers have tried them at Lake Piru and Lake Casitas, and although fish in Lake Piru don't seem impressed, some bait shops on the road to Lake Casitas are doing a brisk business.

When packing, pick one basic color around which to create your "fashion palette" so you have plenty of mix-and-match outfits to choose from. Marlene Hassel Newport Beach Keep extensive notes on your trips. I have traveled a great deal and have kept those notes. I filled up a notebook on my 30-day trip across Europe on a Eurail pass. Now that I am about to celebrate my 100th birthday and am writing my memoirs, I have all the juicy details of things that happened on my trips: forgetting to take a towel to swim in the Olympic pool in Munich, Germany; the reception I went to in Salzburg, Austria; the green and red figs in Dubrovnik, Croatia; the 550 steps at Santorini, Greece.

Latifa Echakhch's installation “À chaque stencil une révolution (For each stencil a revolution)” wraps the Hammer Museum lobby stairwell in a wave of brilliant indigo. From ceiling to floor, the vivid pigment drips through a range of shades -- from the deep, near-black of a moonlit sky to a pale, electric sheen of dusk -- before gathering in delicate pools along the floor. It is an enchanting color, a poetic color, sensually manipulated, drawing associations with Yves Klein and Mark Rothko.