Missing

In an odd yet understandable marketing strategy, the folks behind E!'s new reality show "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" have spent a lot of pre-premiere publicity time explaining what the show isn't. Which is to say, Clint Eastwood. The legendary actor and director will appear in but a few episodes and then only briefly. He will not, for instance, be slamming doors or engaging in filmed therapy sessions with his wife, Dina, around whom the show revolves (see title.) That doesn't mean the show is not about Clint Eastwood; it is. If the principal characters -- Dina, her 15-year-old daughter Morgan and 19-year old stepdaughter Francesca -- were not related to him, there would be Absolutely No Reason to watch this, which, by reality show standards, promises to be tame to the point of sedation.

Investigators don't know where 15-year-old Sierra LaMar is, but they are almost certain she is dead. For more than two months, the high school cheerleader's family has been holding out hope. They have organized repeated searches of the Northern California neighborhood where she disappeared and made numerous public appeals for help. On Tuesday, even as authorities announced the arrest of a 21-year-old suspect on suspicion of murder, Marlene LaMar vowed not to stop looking for her daughter.

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.

AT MINNESOTA When: 5 PDT. Where: Target Center, Minneapolis. On the air: WNBA.com. Records: Sparks 2-0, Lynx 2-0. Record vs. Lynx (2011): 1-4. Update: Sparks guard Sharnee Zoll sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee during Monday's practice and is expected to miss the remainder of the season. Zoll, who played in Europe the last four seasons before the Sparks signed her in February, averaged seven assists in the team's two exhibition games but did not play in the team's season opener Friday.

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.

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

In ABC's new thriller "Missing," a former CIA agent whose child has been kidnapped springs out of retirement with guns, martial-arts skills and primal parental passion blazing. If that sounds familiar, well, it was also the plot of the 2008 film "Taken," which had Liam Neeson tearing through Paris to extricate his daughter from the clutches of a sex-trafficking ring. In "Missing," the gender roles are reversed. When Michael (Nick Eversman), a student studying abroad in Rome, goes missing, his mother, Becca Winstone (Ashley Judd)

If you buy something from online auctioneer Property Room, you don't have to wonder if it was stolen. That's because it probably was. Property Room, started by a former police detective, gets its items from law enforcement property rooms nationwide. Most of its inventory of jewelry, bicycles, computers, furniture, tools, car stereos, cameras, sports equipment, portable music players and things that could best be categorized under miscellaneous -- or bizarre -- was seized from crooks.

Hollywood High School keeps its doors open 12 months a year to ease overcrowding. The year-round schedule allows the campus to run hundreds more students through its cramped classrooms. It also chips away at their education. Teachers skip pages of material, assign less homework and give fewer tests because their school year has been slashed by 17 days. Hundreds of pupils take the Stanford 9 exam shortly after returning from an eight-week vacation.

Re: "Removal of Uterus Still Common" (March 18): Let's say you are a woman past your childbearing years and your uterus is causing you more problems than it is worth. You may be experiencing pain, dysfunctional bleeding or have a uterine prolapse (probably because of a vaginal delivery). You are missing days at work and quality time with your family. A sex life is a remote memory. I would expect many women would logically choose a hysterectomy, and with good reason. Is a woman not thinking clearly because she wants to end the problems with one definitive procedure?

VS. SAN JOSE When: 7:30. Where: Home Depot Center. On the air: TV: KDOC, KWHY; Radio: 1330. Records: Galaxy 3-6-2, San Jose 7-2-3. Record vs. Earthquakes: First meeting. Update: Yes, that really is the Galaxy in last place in the Western Conference, looking for its first win since April 14. And the defending MLS champions will be doing that without two of their highly paid designated players, because captain Landon Donovan and striker Robbie Keane will miss at least the next three weeks because of international duty, Donovan with the U.S. and Keane with Ireland.

Nobody has yet used the "c" word — cheating — to describe the imbroglio that has scrambled the testing schedule at Chatsworth High this month. But another "c" word — confusion — has forestalled end-of-the-year revelry for dozens of hardworking students, who will have to retake or reschedule a series of Advanced Placement exams. The official statement from Los Angeles Unified about the testing problems blames "an irregular pattern in conducting" an AP psychology exam last week.

Michelle Reiter lost $4,000 in cash, a 32-inch TV and a laptop computer when her Glendale home was burglarized. But also stolen that day was something far more valuable — her 11-year-old teacup Yorkshire terrier, Sophie. Since that time, she has been frantically searching for Sophie, not only because the dog is her greatest love, but because Sophie needs periodic medication for her bowels. Sophie was reported stolen after burglars entered Reiter's home on May 7 in the 600 block of Beulah Street through a rear bathroom window and ransacked the inside, according to Glendale Police Department reports.

It takes a while for first-time writer-director Brian Crano to show the caring storyteller behind the glib jokester in "A Bag of Hammers. " At first his thin, neatly folded, paper-airplane of a movie threatens to nose dive into tweeville as it depicts the carefree lives of best-bud scam artists Alan (Jake Sandvig, who co-wrote the screenplay) and Ben (Jason Ritter), who steal cars at funerals by operating as fake valets. The forced charm grates - cutesy valet outfits, jerky banter, teasing Alan's waitress sister (Rebecca Hall)

The allure of stardom brings model-handsome wannabe Adam (Matthew Ludwinski) to Hollywood - and down some dubious moneymaking side roads into gay pornography and escorting - in writer-director Casper Andreas' cautionary showbiz tale "Going Down in La-La Land," which is based on a novel by Andy Zeffer. But its Andreas' own attraction to the easy spotlight of warmed-over bitchy humor (courtesy Adam's gal pal roomie, played by Allison Lane), familiar plotting and by-the-numbers characterization that sinks this earnest, gay-contoured take on the evergreen making-it-big melodrama.

The California attorney general's office announced Thursday that it would take no further action in response to a request by Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich to investigate what he called "suspicious political activity" in the district attorney's office. Trutanich asked for an investigation last week after a Times story noted that his district attorney's personnel file from his days as a young county prosecutor during the 1980s was missing. "Our office has reviewed this matter and determined that no further action is warranted at this time," Atty.

Lola, the African gray parrot whose Silver Lake owner put up billboards when she went missing, has been returned home safe and sound. She was discovered two miles away, on the balcony of a house in East Hollywood. Margaret Starr, the home's owner, spotted her perched in a pot of geraniums after she attracted the attention of Starr's cats. Starr, 71, slipped on a pair of oven mitts and picked the bird up, putting an end to Lola's 24-day adventure in the wilds of Los Angeles.

Question: I am the new treasurer of our homeowner association board. I've discovered that during the last four years more than $100,000 has been removed from the association's reserve account to pay for things other than reserve-related items. At the last meeting I informed the board about Civil Code Section 1365.5 and made a motion to repay the $100,000 to the reserves from our operating account. None of the other board directors would second my motion. I've also learned that some board directors have been building up operating account funds for capital improvements without having a special assessment.

In an odd yet understandable marketing strategy, the folks behind E!'s new reality show "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" have spent a lot of pre-premiere publicity time explaining what the show isn't. Which is to say, Clint Eastwood. The legendary actor and director will appear in but a few episodes and then only briefly. He will not, for instance, be slamming doors or engaging in filmed therapy sessions with his wife, Dina, around whom the show revolves (see title.) That doesn't mean the show is not about Clint Eastwood; it is. If the principal characters -- Dina, her 15-year-old daughter Morgan and 19-year old stepdaughter Francesca -- were not related to him, there would be Absolutely No Reason to watch this, which, by reality show standards, promises to be tame to the point of sedation.

WASHINGTON — Rusty Hardin, lead attorney for Roger Clemens, got the former pitcher's chief accuser to admit to a series of lies in a day of aggressive cross examination, but did not undermine his credibility with a single grand stroke. Clemens is on trial for perjury, accused of lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Brian McNamee, a former trainer who worked closely with Clemens, admitted that in 2007 he lied to federal agent Jeff Novitzky and the Mitchell Commission, which was investigating performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.