Placement

In a Feb. 3 episode of "Bones," Brennan demonstrates her Toyota's adaptive cruise control to Booth. A few days later, on "Glee," Santana shows Puck a jewelry box, and tells him it contains a ring from Jared jewelers. A Nielsen study will later find these are two of the 10 most-remembered product placements on TV dramas and sitcoms in the month of February, joining a list that includes Ugg boots, Apple computers and Vicodin. Product placement — the practice of inserting merchandise into entertainment for publicity value — is not only alive and well, but thanks to innovations such as DVR technology, which allows viewers to skip traditional commercials altogether, it's a bigger business than ever.

What do Leon Panetta, Marc Morial and Corinthian Colleges have in common? Good question. Panetta and Morial are among our most distinguished public servants. Panetta earlier this year concluded a stint as secretary of Defense, one of a string of high-level government posts under Presidents Obama and Clinton, preceded by 16 years as a California congressman. Morial served two terms as mayor of New Orleans and is now chief executive of the National Urban League, a leading civil rights organization.

Re "Class Disparity: Uneven Distribution of Advanced Placement Courses Hinders Hundreds of Students," Oct. 31. As a 1999 graduate of Hueneme High School, I attended every one of Hueneme's six advanced placement courses. Unfortunately, I feel that I was robbed of my potential to excel due to the limited AP courses offered. What really upset me most was the lack of teacher encouragement for their students to take AP tests that could aid in their college future. In contrast to the current honors course system, AP classes offer that little added "college experience" (which has been drained from the languid college-prep courses)

These are heady days for the online on-demand entertainment service Netflix. The company's stock recently surged 22% after a strong earnings report and news that it signed up 2 million new subscribers in the first quarter of the year. The company's success has largely been credited to its move into original content -- particularly its political drama “House of Cards.” With David Fincher on the creative team, the show follows the political trials and travails of mercenary Democratic House whip Frank Underwood and his equally mercenary wife Claire.

If you've seen Steve Carell drink a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee on "The Office," Zach Galifianakis strap on a Baby Bjorn in "The Hangover," Mike Myers take a swig of Heineken in the "Austin Powers" movies or Lea Michele whip off Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses on "Glee," you may have wondered: Why did that product have to be there? If you're Norm Marshall, you've watched that same film or TV show and congratulated yourself on a job well done. Marshall has one of the most unusual -- and polarizing -- jobs in Hollywood.

Re "FasTrak computer may not be so swift," Column, March 5 Modern digital systems and their associated sensors can be troublesome occasionally. The automated toll collector FasTrak is such a system. I have been a FasTrak user since it was initiated on the 91 Express Lane between Orange and Riverside counties. After I bought a new car, I started getting violation notices. I called the Orange County Transportation Authority to resolve the problem, which turned out to be the result of an old transponder, the sensors on my car and the placement of the transponder in my car. The violations were removed from my record, I paid no fines and I've sorted out the transponder placement.

As a former administrator for the Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions, I decry the present situation created by laws, legislators and judges which prevent placement of children for adoption. Los Angeles County was a model adoption agency in the United States and around the world. In three years with new legislation and reorganization, the placement of children faces gridlock. The recent laws need to be reviewed and amended or rescinded and placement of children returned to the social work professionals who know best how to place the children.

Based on the relegated placement of the Sports section on Thanksgiving, The Times has made abundantly clear what most of us knew already. Sports really is a business. Dave Martz Torrance

UC Irvine's $15-million Donald Bren Events Center has topped out, with placement atop the structural frame of the remaining steel trusses, each weighing about 137 tons.

The pro and con arguments about casual workers loitering in Glendale's commercial zones are difficult to mesh. It is the difference between freedom and restriction. These approaches should be considered: Set up a placement booth at which the workers would check in and register; Have employers contact the placement personnel to hire their required casual people; Locate the placement booth on city property, say, in the parking lot at City Hall. The registration requirement should help assure various payroll taxes are paid, and the City Hall location should rid the commercial zones of the loitering complaints.

Marc Groff, the principal at Ventura St. Bonaventure, will soon learn what it's like trying to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. He's facing a challenge that will require him to stay calm, take lots of deep breaths and perhaps pray for divine intervention when things get tough. His assignment on March 20 is to persuade members of the Southern Section Executive Committee to reverse a decision that would force St. Bonaventure's sports teams to start traveling hours away from their campus for athletic contests.

Re "FasTrak computer may not be so swift," Column, March 5 Modern digital systems and their associated sensors can be troublesome occasionally. The automated toll collector FasTrak is such a system. I have been a FasTrak user since it was initiated on the 91 Express Lane between Orange and Riverside counties. After I bought a new car, I started getting violation notices. I called the Orange County Transportation Authority to resolve the problem, which turned out to be the result of an old transponder, the sensors on my car and the placement of the transponder in my car. The violations were removed from my record, I paid no fines and I've sorted out the transponder placement.

More students in the Los Angeles Unified School District took and passed an Advanced Placement exam last year, reflecting a rise in success on the college-level tests in California and nationwide. A record number of students took AP exams in 2012 - nearly one-third of high school graduates nationwide took at least one of the tests and nearly one in five had passing scores, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board, the New York nonprofit that administers the exams.

LONDON - In this age of deep austerity cuts, plenty of Brits face an uncertain future. But many Londoners are now wondering whether the past is about to get the chop as well. As any visitor to this teeming capital quickly discovers, history haunts virtually every street corner. Helping to make that palpable are the hundreds of round blue plaques on building fronts informing passersby that some noble or noteworthy person once slept or worked there, or both. 87 Jermyn St., near Piccadilly Circus?

The ceremony bestowing the Grammys of Britain, the Brit awards, is still a month off, but artist Damien Hirst has revealed his design for the statuettes that will be handed out: same shape, but it will have spots. Are we surprised? In early 2012, Hirst and Gagosian put on exhibitions at all 11 of its galleries around the world, including the one in Beverly Hills,  of his "Spot" paintings, in which grids of dots are painted in various colors and sizes. For five weeks, 300 of the more than 1,500 existing spot paintings were shown.

When Eli Broad holds a public event, he seldom does it without the company of local politicians, cultural leaders and throngs of media professionals to underscore the influence that the Los Angeles billionaire and philanthropist exerts on the city's arts landscape. Broad presided over just such a ceremony Tuesday to mark a milestone in the construction of his namesake contemporary art museum, to be called the Broad, that is being built on Grand Avenue. It will feature works from the Broads' private art collection and will serve as headquarters of the Broad Art Foundation.

While I enjoyed Dutka's article, she failed to mention the one star who still holds the record for consecutive placement in the top 10 exhibitors' poll--Betty Grable (1942 through 1951). STANLEY GOODRICH, Laguna Niguel

"Ready, Willing, Unable" (Nov. 2) depicts Toyota as one of several companies which has played a less than satisfactory role of providing job training for inner-city residents. The Los Angeles Urban League Automotive Training Center is a partnership between the L.A. Urban League and Toyota Motor Sales. It opened in April with Toyota's commitment of $3 million to a cooperative education program to provide entry-level job-training and job-placement assistance for inner-city residents in automotive service-related jobs.

A federal jury has ordered a Los Angeles recruiting firm and its owner to pay $4.5 million to 350 teachers who said they were lured from the Philippines for teaching jobs in Louisiana but ended up being exploited. The verdict, handed down Monday at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, followed a two-week trial in which lawyers for the teachers argued that Universal Placement International Inc. and its president, Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro, charged excessive fees that saddled the teachers with debt.

Integrating products into plots of television shows is nothing new, but some series are taking it to levels that aren't always pretty and could alienate viewers. That was the case with last week's "New Girl" on Fox. In the episode, Jess (Zooey Deschanel) agrees to fill in for her model friend Cece (Hannah Simone), who is too hung over to properly ogle a new Ford. Jess, who is more of an earthy girl, gets made up and puts on some sky-high heels to prance around in.  She struggles with that, of course, and hilarity is supposed to ensue.