Driving

The most ballyhooed name change of the year became official Friday morning when a Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner approved the former Ron Artest's request to become Metta World Peace. Amid labor discord that threatens to delay, if not wipe out, the NBA season, there is World Peace. Photos: Famous name-changers He is 6 feet 7, wears No. 15 for the Lakers and once participated in the infamous "Palace brawl. " Anyone now making his acquaintance will be meeting Metta World Peace.

Amazon began rolling out a mobile version of its Appstore's Test Drive feature, which lets users try apps before they buy them. The beta version of the new feature became available to certain types of Android phones Tuesday, the company announced on a blog. Test Drive will let users try out more than 5,000 Android apps before deciding whether or not they'd like to purchase them right from their phone.

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

BOSTON — A new generation of consumers who have little regard for historical distribution systems will be what drives media companies to rethink their role as gatekeepers to content. "It always seems to be about the kids," said filmmaker Ed Burns who has taken to releasing his movies on non-theatrical platforms, including Apple's iTunes, and on video-on-demand. Speaking at the National Cable Telecommunications Assn.

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

You look fat in that. Of course I'll be late. Your baby reminds me of Gollum's uncle. This is what the 2013 Subaru BRZ might say if it could talk. The all-new, rear-wheel-drive sports car starts at $26,265, and boy is it honest - perhaps more so than any other car on the market today, save for its mechanical twin, the Scion FR-S. The two were jointly developed by Subaru and Scion's parent company, Toyota, with both assembled by Subaru in Japan. The question about the BRZ is, can you handle the honesty?

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

PHOENIX — Those were quite the exciting games Tuesday, two rowdy Arizona crowds on the edge of their seats and at the top of their lungs in creating a hostile environment for the visiting team from Los Angeles. Beat L.A.? Maybe another year. The NHL's Coyotes? Done, thanks to the Kings. The Diamondbacks? They might be just about done, thanks to the Dodgers, and to an increasingly unlikely cast of characters. "I've got to go clean my hair now," Ivan De Jesus said.

A bill that would allow self-driving cars on California's roads has passed the California Senate. The bill, SB1298, sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), establishes guidelines for "autonomous vehicles" to be tested and operated in California. The bill now goes to the Assembly for consideration next month. Tech giant Google Inc., Caltech and other organizations have been working to develop such vehicles, which use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate roads and stay safe in traffic without human assistance.

A suspect has been detained in the fatal shooting of a Metro bus driver Sunday morning in West Hollywood, authorities said. Shortly after 9 a.m. the 51-year old bus driver on Route 105 was leaving an MTA layover area near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and West Knoll Drive when the shooting occurred, said MTA spokesman Rick Jager. The driver was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and died at 9:30 a.m. The name of the driver, a five-year veteran of the agency, has not been released.

The effect of Sunday's solar eclipse was slightly evident at Dodger Stadium in the fifth and sixth innings, the day's fading sunlight growing even dimmer across the ballpark's right-field corner. Then matters suddenly brightened for the Dodgers when rookie Scott Van Slyke slugged a pinch-hit, three-run home run that erased a St. Louis Cardinals lead and led the Dodgers to a 6-5 victory and a sweep of their three-game series. Van Slyke homered in only his ninth big league at-bat and after getting the green light from Manager Don Mattingly to swing at a 3-and-0 pitch from reliever Marc Rzepczynski.

The growing number of electric vehicle drivers in Los Angeles are behaving differently from the national norm. Not only are EV drivers in L.A. traveling farther than those in other cities, but they charge their vehicles more often at public locations and are more likely to charge at night to obtain less expensive electricity rates, according to Ecotality in San Francisco. Ecotality oversees the EV Project, a $230-million deployment of electric-vehicle charging infrastructure funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy to aid the rollout of electric vehicles and conduct research.

The combination of Martin Hanzal's first offense in terms of NHL law and order and Dustin Brown's (apparent) lack of injury led league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan on Wednesday to suspend Hanzal one game. Thus, the Coyotes forward will miss Game 3 of the Western Conference finals between the Kings and Coyotes on Thursday night at Staples Center. He received the supplementary discipline for his hit on the Kings' captainat 11:01 of the third period Tuesday, a five-minute major for boarding and automatic game misconduct.

Bob Brickman spent months fighting a ticket he got last fall from a red-light traffic camera at Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards in West Los Angeles. The 61-year-old from Playa Vista eventually decided to give up the fight and fork over the $476 fine. Now he's regretting paying every penny. City officials this week spotlighted a surprising revelation involving red-light camera tickets: Authorities cannot force violators who simply don't respond to pay them. For a variety of reasons, including the way the law was written, Los Angeles officials say the fines for ticketed motorists are essentially "voluntary" and there are virtually no tangible consequences for those who refuse to pay. The disclosure comes as the city is considering whether to drop the controversial photo enforcement program, with the City Council scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday.

I grew up thinking that California drivers were the best in the world. We may not have been very polite, especially in heavy traffic. But back in the glory days we California natives were savvy drivers. We were practically born behind a steering wheel, so it came easy to us. I learned the ins and outs of "defensive driving" before I learned my multiplication tables. My classroom was the back seat of a Volkswagen and my teacher was my father, who imparted instruction as he drove up and down the Hollywood Freeway.

The way Louie Pérez remembers it, there was nothing more all-American than growing up Mexican American in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Yes, there were serious economic and social roadblocks to Latinos joining the middle-class mainstream. But Pérez and his friends danced to the same music as their non-Latino peers, wore the same clothes - Sonny and Cher furry vests, anyone? - and tuned in and turned on to the same groovy counterculture experiments. They stood shoulder to shoulder for the same social causes, and many of them died fighting in the same southeast Asian war. "The Chicanos in the '60s didn't live in a vacuum," Pérez, principal lyricist and multi-instrumentalist of the legendary East L.A. rock band Los Lobos, said recently.

ARLINGTON, Texas — This wasn't what slugger Mark Trumbo meant Saturday when he said the Angels need to "come out a little angry" and play with a "figurative chip on our shoulder. " Ace Jered Weaver took that suggestion to the extreme Sunday night, flying into a rage upon returning to the dugout after giving up a third-inning grand slam to Nelson Cruz, which helped power the Texas Rangers to a 13-6 romp of the Angels at the Ballpark in Arlington. "We had a chance to win the series, and I let the team down," said Weaver, who fell to 5-1 with a 2.83 earned-run average but is 2-7 with a 5.21 ERA in 14 career starts in the Rangers' hitter-friendly park.