Names

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.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee filed suit Wednesday against the University of California Board of Regents, demanding the release of police officers' names removed from a critical report on the controversial pepper spraying of UC Davis students. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, contends that when university officials agreed in a court settlement last month to redact all but two names, they "failed to represent the interests of the press and public," leaving the newspapers with "no choice but to bring this petition to protect the public's right of access to this important information.

The street date of Scotty Bowers' "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars," written with Lionel Friedberg, is Valentine's Day, but the eagerly anticipated memoir has been generating buzz for several weeks, and will most likely encounter a firestorm of criticism from some segments of the Hollywood set. It offers the former Marine paratrooper, pump jockey and bartender's accounts of three decades of having...

Top 10 lists are standard fodder for media: the 10 best dressed, the 10 best-looking, the 10 most wanted, etc. But the International Institute for Species Exploration, headquartered at Arizona State University, has a new take on such lists. For the last five years, the institute has been issuing a top 10 list of the quirkiest, most bizarre and just plain interesting new species discovered the previous year.

'Life is short. Have an affair." That's the slogan of the Ashley Madison dating service, a website for people who want to cheat on their partners. That's right, unlike traditional Internet dating sites -- where you're expected to say you're unattached no matter what the truth is -- Ashley Madison is honest about its duplicity. Unlike match.

Emily again topped the list of most popular baby girl names last year, registering as No. 1 for the 12th straight time. Jacob led among names for boys for the ninth year in a row. New parents didn't stray far from past habits in 2007 when naming their babies. Only one name, Elizabeth, is new to the top 10 list, returning after a two-year absence. Samantha, which previously ranked 10th, dropped to No. 12, according to the new list from the Social Security Administration. Besides Jacob, other top picks for boys were Michael, Joshua and Matthew.

For patients with high levels of so-called bad cholesterol, doctors routinely reach for two remedies: cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and a diet that cuts out foods high in saturated fat, such as ice cream, red meat and butter. But new research has found that when it comes to lowering artery-clogging cholesterol, what you eat may be more important than what you don't eat. Released online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., the study found that incorporating several cholesterol-lowering foods — such as soy protein and nuts — into a diet can reduce bad cholesterol far more effectively than a diet low in saturated fat. In fact, the authors assert, levels of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, can drop to half that seen by many patients who take statins, sold under such names as Lipitor, Crestor or Zocor.

A diamond-encrusted lining is emerging in Southern California's cloudy real estate market. At least a half-dozen Westside mega-estates have sold for more than $20 million so far this year — creating a deafening buzz in local realty circles. Only a few home sales in other Southland counties have surpassed the $20-million mark. On the horizon is the close of Candy Spelling's larger-than-White-House-sized "Manor," which has reigned supreme from its $150-million listing price perch in Holmby Hills for more than two years and is expected to eclipse last year's record $50-million Bel-Air sale by a wide margin.

A three-letter word for the latest schoolyard rage has landed at the center of a high-stakes legal battle that is being played out in an Orange County courtroom. The word is pog . And the issue that will likely be settled during a jury trial this fall is who can legally market the name for the colorful, coin-sized discs that look like milk-bottle caps. Universal Pogs Assn. Inc. is suing the World Pog Federation, disputing the federation's claims of exclusive rights to the name.

When Van Nuys First Baptist Church acquired land two years ago for a new building in Chatsworth, the congregation also decided that it needed a new name. After surveying people in movie lines, ballparks and shopping malls, members settled on Shepherd of the Hills Church. "We're interested in the people who don't go to church and may have an aversion to church," said Pastor Jess Moody.

WASHINGTON - The CIA on Tuesday disclosed the names of 15 of its operatives killed in the line of duty over the last 30 years, the result of a new effort to honor fallen officers whose sacrifices had long gone unrecognized by all but a few. Fourteen of the dead already had a star inscribed in their memory on the CIA's wall of honor in the lobby of the old headquarters building on the agency's Langley, Va., campus. But their names had been withheld. In a closed agency ceremony Monday their names were added to the Book of Honor, which accompanies the stars.

The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat Thomas McNamee Free Press, 339 pp., $27 Ask your average Food Network viewer or Yelp poster about Craig Claiborne and you're likely to be met with a blank look and a "Who?" How fleeting is fame in the food world. Claiborne is one of the giants of this modern age, even if today - less than 20 years after his passing - he is largely forgotten. People remember James Beard because of the foundation that keeps his name alive. Julia Child lives on in television reruns (even if some fans now believe she looked just like Meryl Streep)

SAN DIEGO - The $1.3-billion ship is billed as the most technologically advanced of any in its class in the U.S. Navy, with stealth capability and a state-of-the-art communications system. But the commissioning ceremony Saturday that made the San Diego an official ship of the fleet was drawn from rituals more than two centuries old - from the days of John Paul Jones, when the Navy's first commissioned ship was a captured British schooner. And so with the classic order, "Man our ship and bring her to life," sailors and Marines sprinted aboard the 684-foot amphibious transport dock ship.

Their internationally recognized names sell music and movie tickets. They promote perfumes and presidents. But when it comes to selling their own houses, celebrities often find that their cachet doesn't pull in the cash. Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell haven't found a buyer for their Malibu beach house, which comes with a raft of celeb-friendly amenities including a covered outdoor living room, a spa-like bath retreat and a meditation room. So the couple have nipped $3.5 million from last year's price, listing the Balinese-influenced oceanfront spread at $11.2 million.

WASHINGTON - Brian McNamee, the chief accuser of former pitching star Roger Clemens, was left with his credibility hanging in the balance Friday after the latest of four grueling sessions of cross-examination by the defense at Clemens' perjury trial. McNamee, a former trainer, claims he repeatedly injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone between 1998 and 2001. In testimony to Congress in 2008 Clemens denied using the drugs, which prosecutors argue was a lie. Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin worked carefully through the physical evidence of Clemens' alleged drug use that McNamee provided.

U.S. National Water Polo Coach Adam Krikorian named his 13-woman roster for this summer's London Games on Thursday, and not surprisingly he selected a group heavy on Olympic experience. Attackers Brenda Villa and Heather Petri will be taking part in their fourth Olympics in London while five others will be playing in the Summer Games for the second time. The U.S. is the only country to have medaled in all three previous women's Olympic tournaments, winning two silvers and a bronze.

Is Tom Lasorda fried mozzarella, escarole and beans, chopped liver or a baseball manager? It depends on whether you're seated in a Beverly Hills diner, an elegant Westwood eatery, a Century City deli or the home team dugout at Dodger Stadium. In Los Angeles, a city where celebrity ranks next to godliness, fame is often measured by the length of one's limousine.

President Hamid Karzai named officials on Saturday to oversee a parliamentary election, sealing a compromise with the United Nations and ending a damaging standoff with the West. Karzai's quarrel with Western donors over rules for September's vote led to a diplomatic shouting match with Washington this month that brought relations between the wartime allies to a new low. In Saturday's announcement, Karzai put a former judge and legal scholar in charge of the election commission, and also named an Iraqi and a South African to a separate election fraud panel, satisfying international pressure to include foreigners.

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.

WASHINGTON — Brian McNamee, the key prosecution witness in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, said he had never made up details about the pitcher's drug use, but that some of his memories of it had become clearer over time. During cross-examination Wednesday, McNamee, a former strength trainer, described a conversation with Clemens in early 2004 in which the pitcher asked whether McNamee still had a source to obtain steroids. According to McNamee, Clemens told him, "I want to get really huge, I want to get strong.