Diane

'ABC World News With Diane Sawyer' Where: ABC When: 6:30 p.m. weekdays Rating: Not rated

Like Freeway, the lovable stray dog at the center of this very teary comedy, "Darling Companion"has lost its way. Even the marquee ensemble anchored by Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Kevin Kline and Richard Jenkins is not enough to rescue this motley mutt of a movie. Maybe it's a case of emotions getting the better of filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan. "Darling Companion" is close to his heart, inspired by Mac, the dog he and wife Meg rescued from a Los Angeles shelter who was lost during a trip to the Rockies.

When she took over anchoring ABC's evening newscast last month after 11 years of rising before dawn to host "Good Morning America," Diane Sawyer thought she would finally get to catch up on her sleep. Charles Gibson, Sawyer's predecessor on "World News" and her former co-host on "GMA," had promised her, "Oh, you won't believe the difference," she recalled. So much for that. Sawyer kicked off her tenure by traveling to Copenhagen to confront Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about his nuclear ambitions.

Actress and historic home renovator Diane Keaton has listed a live-work town house in downtown Los Angeles for lease at $2,800 a month. She recently bought the condominium for $570,000. The three-level unit in a Arts District building dating to 1906 features exposed brick walls and steel beams, skylights, clerestory windows, wide-plank wood floors, vaulted ceilings, a patio, a rooftop terrace and an open floor plan. The 1,285-square-feet of living space contains two bedrooms and 21/2 bathrooms.

Quietly taking over as anchor from Charles Gibson at " ABC World News" at the end of last year, Diane Sawyer brought with her not only an impressive résumé, an excellent name-recognition rating and some pretty cool new graphics, but also a remarkably counterintuitive manner. In a world dominated by YouTube moments and professional hysterics, Sawyer exudes an alarming level of elegance. From the moment she opened her show -- "Good evening, and it is so good to be here with you tonight" -- it was clear that she was not going to so much report the news as preside over a series of conversations about the news, conversations she simply must share with you, her personally invited viewer.

Diane Sawyer will anchor ABC's "World News" from Afghanistan tonight and Tuesday, her second trip abroad since taking the helm of the evening newscast less than a month ago. In her fifth trip to the country, which she last visited in April 2007, Sawyer will report on the status of the war effort as part of ABC's "Afghanistan: Where Things Stand" series. Her coverage will include an interview with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. "Good Morning America Weekend" anchor Bill Weir, embedded with U.S. forces, also will report.

Thursday night, retiring ABC anchor Charles Gibson was feted by colleagues in a Lincoln Center reception hall overlooking the Hudson River. Among the hundreds on hand, one person was conspicuously absent: Diane Sawyer, who succeeds him tonight on the network's flagship evening newscast, "World News." She was already on assignment, headed to Copenhagen to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an exclusive interview to kick off her tenure. It was a move that speaks volumes about her ambitions for "World News" -- a post she has long sought.

Confirming speculation about her political plans, state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said she would seek the seat of retiring Democratic Rep. Diane Watson, who appeared with Bass at a Los Angeles news conference Wednesday to give the speaker her endorsement. "This is a very, very humbling moment," Bass told community leaders and supporters who joined her outside her Mid-Wilshire-area office. "I am so proud to announce I'm going to throw my hat into the ring." If elected, Bass said, she'll have "very big shoes to fill."

Nearly a generation ago, they were three young lawyers working their way up in the Clinton administration. Now, one of them could very well be the next justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Merrick Garland was a Justice Department official overseeing the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh from afar. Diane Wood worked in the building too, specializing in antitrust law. And down the street at the White House, Elena Kagan was taking on Big Tobacco. Their paths later diverged.

It was a hot little story while it lasted. Some people thought it was sweet. Others thought it was sick. But it sure had America talking. (Hey, America has to talk about something.) "Mike" was a teenager, an honor student and a virgin. "Diane," ditto. They decided to make love. Smart, stupid, whatever, they were not the first kids to make this decision and they won't be the last. With one big exception: They decided to do it on the Internet. Live. In front of millions of strangers.

Stylish tots and their mothers rejoice -- a collection designed by Diane von Furstenberg hits BabyGap and GapKids stores and the Web today. In this latest partnership between high-end design and mainstream retail, Von Furstenberg, best known for breezy wrap dresses, distilled her aesthetic to create colorful printed apparel, accessories and shoes for the under-14 crowd. Von Furstenberg also reinterpreted her signature wrap dress with a higher waist for young girls to match their mothers.

Actress-writer Diane Farr has listed her Spanish Revival-style house in West Hollywood at $899,000. The gated home, painted in bold colors, was built in 1927. Inside, the 1,712-square-foot house blends original details — 20-foot ceilings, arched doorways, tile, hardwood floors — with upgrades including skylights, custom bathroom sinks and high-end kitchen appliances. The living room features an original 15-foot-tall arched window. French doors in the dining room open onto a courtyard.

If you're lazily inclined to define Diane Keaton by the crossword-puzzle-sized word "actor," you need to get out more. Add to that her work as director and producer, photographer, restorer of venerable houses, board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy and, perhaps above all, as a daughter -- as revealed by her daughter-mother memoir "Then Again. " Little Diane once sat in a neighborhood theater on North Figueroa and watched her mother being crowned Mrs. Highland Park, and wished it were her up on stage instead.

MUSIC Sting The erstwhile Police frontman is no stranger to earnest solo recordings, and on this intimate Back to Bass tour he rediscovers his old stalwart instrument for a march through his long catalog of grand, reggae-inflected pop. Wiltern, 8 p.m. Today-Wed. $46.50-$151.50. wiltern.com. Allen Ruppersberg and Terry Allen In 1971, Terry Allen delivered a stunning live performance on opening night at Allen Ruppersberg's Al's Grand Hotel. Though the performance was recorded, the tapes were lost until recently.

Compiled by Grace Krilanovich SUNDAY Glenda Bailey: The editor of Harper's Bazaar will discuss and sign "Harper's Bazaar: Greatest Hits. " Book Soup, 8818 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 4 p.m. Free. (310) 659-3110. Gerald Nicosia: The author of "One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road" will discuss and sign his new biography of Beat paramour Lu Anne Henderson, the 15-year-old girl who went on the road with Kerouac and Cassady. Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice.

It was always the fragile balance of opposing forces that made Diane Keaton's face so remarkable - those tilted melancholy eyes above that frequent and infectious smile. She seemed in a perpetual state of emotional contradiction, which is one of the things that made her such a perfect match, at least on film, for Woody Allen, who as history's most hopeful pessimist is a master juggler himself. So it's not surprising that Keaton's memoir, "Then Again," is also an elusive sort of work, part autobiography, part daughterly paean, part love letter to her own children, a book in which portions of her mother's journals and details of her parents' travails in old age far outnumber the on-set anecdotes and glamour shots.

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl move into a state-subsidized artists' co-op. Boy loses girl. Steve Tesich's "Square One," at the Hudson Theatre, is not just another romantic comedy. It's set in a society that's under the shadow of some vaguely defined "Reconstruction." The play is an intriguing blend of the creepy and the witty, with occasional dollops of the sweet. Though the evening is a bit too long in Toby Yates' staging, the ingredients are well-balanced.

Mike Nichols, whose work I have always admired, attended the Private Waldschule Kaliski, a Jewish school in Berlin, with me in the mid-1930s. I am 69. If Mike is only 62, he would have been 3 years old then. Precocious genius he may be, but the school didn't take anyone under 6. Come on Mike, tell Diane ("The PrimeTime of Ms. Diane Sawyer," Aug. 7) how old you really are. She won't stop loving you. FRED BAUMAN Riverside

Mikey Welsh Former bass player with rock band Weezer Mikey Welsh, 40, the former bass player for the alternative rock band Weezer, was found dead in a Chicago hotel room Saturday, police said. Chicago police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak said employees of the Raffaello Hotel found Welsh unconscious and not breathing when they entered his room after he failed to check out. Kubiak said no signs of foul play were evident. Autopsy results are pending. Welsh, of Burlington, Vt., performed with Weezer from 1998 to 2001 and played on the bestselling "Green Album.

Tom Garvin, a jazz pianist and composer-arranger who was best known as an exceptional accompanist, died July 31 at an assisted living facility in Encino. He was 67. The cause was cancer, which diagnosed three years ago, said Tom Mitchell, a close friend. A fixture on the Los Angeles jazz scene, Garvin was "one of our town's better jazz pianists," The Times said in 1990. His specialty was accompaniment, and he did it "with a flair not often engendered by other pianists," John Gilbert wrote in 2003 in the online magazine jazzreview.com . Photos: Notable deaths of 2011: Music The many artists Garvin performed with include noted jazz vocalists Carmen McRae, Peggy Lee, Lou Rawls and Diane Schuur.