John Shea

Four-year-olds may be able to start kindergarten in Pasadena next fall through a privately financed program tentatively approved Tuesday by the city's school board. School officials said the "early intervention" program for disadvantaged youngsters would provide an educational boost to children, who must now wait until age 5 to begin kindergarten.

Forget Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez, there were only three soccer players that mattered at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, and none of them were Portuguese, English or Argentine. The first was John O'Shea, the Irish international defender who turns 28 today. It was his thunderous goal in the 17th minute that earned Manchester United a 1-0 victory in the first leg of its European Champions League semifinal against Arsenal.

John Martin Shea, longtime arts activist and collector, has been named chairman of the Newport Harbor Art Museum's board of trustees and the museum's chief executive officer. Shea, who is board chairman of Beacon Bay Enterprises Inc., served as the museum's board president from 1978 to 1981 and as head of the permanent-collection committee. The board's new second-in-command is John Dwan II, who was elected board president and chief operating officer.

Four-year-olds may be able to start kindergarten in Pasadena next fall through a privately financed program tentatively approved Tuesday by the city's school board. School officials said the "early intervention" program for disadvantaged youngsters would provide an educational boost to children, who must now wait until age 5 to begin kindergarten.

One of Orange County's pioneer developers of planned communities, the Mission Viejo Co., will be sold to J.F. Shea Co., an expanding Southern California building firm, it was announced Friday. The deal is expected to fetch more than $400 million, although terms were not disclosed by Philip Morris Cos. Inc., which has owned the Mission Viejo Co. since 1972. Shea will acquire about 900 acres of undeveloped land in Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo, and 3,600 acres in Colorado.

A 40,000-year-old figurine of a voluptuous woman carved from mammoth ivory and excavated from a cave in southwestern Germany is the oldest known example of three-dimensional or figurative representation of humans and sheds new light on the origins of art, researchers reported Wednesday. The intricately carved headless figure is at least 5,000 years older than previous examples and dates from shortly after the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

Forget Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez, there were only three soccer players that mattered at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, and none of them were Portuguese, English or Argentine. The first was John O'Shea, the Irish international defender who turns 28 today. It was his thunderous goal in the 17th minute that earned Manchester United a 1-0 victory in the first leg of its European Champions League semifinal against Arsenal.

As an actress, Lea Thompson considers herself a "long-distance runner" - someone who keeps up a steady pace instead of a sprint. "I always felt like my best years would be from 50 to 65 years old," Thompson said. "I don't know why. It was a feeling I had even when I was really young. My kids are kind of all grown up now and I can be in a difference space where I can put everything into it. " Just a few months shy of her 51st birthday, the gamine former ballerina could easily pass as a 30-something.

ABC's making a TV movie based on the "Baby M" surrogate parenting case and shooting is under way at various Los Angeles locations. "Poltergeist" veteran JoBeth Williams is playing surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead-Gould in the two-part movie, to air at an undetermined date this spring. The movie will also feature John Shea, Dabney Coleman and Bruce Weitz, an ABC spokeswoman said.

John Martin Shea, longtime arts activist and collector, has been named chairman of the Newport Harbor Art Museum's board of trustees and the museum's chief executive officer. Shea, who is board chairman of Beacon Bay Enterprises Inc., served as the museum's board president from 1978 to 1981 and as head of the permanent-collection committee. The board's new second-in-command is John Dwan II, who was elected board president and chief operating officer.

It's the return of Web links … Normally I prefer to disagree with The Times' Bill Plaschke. Spent half my professional career arguing with him, because where's the fun in just simply sharing the same point of view? But I thought he was right on in his column on the Dodgers' hiring Mark McGwire as their new hitting coach. It's one thing to not honor him by an admission into the Hall of Fame because of his steroid use, which McGwire seems to understand, and something else to deny him employment.

A judge granted a mistrial after jurors unanimously agreed that a defendant was guilty of drunk driving, but the foreman mistakenly wrote down "not guilty" on the verdict slip. Judge Ann Gibbons of Hampshire District Court set a second trial for April 11 for Richard L. Powers Jr., 31, of Westhampton. The foreman, Karen L. Borowski of Northampton, had inadvertently marked "not guilty" instead of "guilty" on the slip she handed Friday to the judge.