Ranges

Call it retirement anxiety, or maybe recession obsession. For all of their married life, Patrick Webster, 63, and Susie Martin, 54, have been extremely frugal. Webster and Martin, who both work at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, have been stashing away their combined income at an enviable rate - more than 25% - for retirement. Together they have more than $1 million in investments and no debt. But rather than feeling reasonably secure about their financial future, they dread a return of hard times.

In a flurry of letters late last year, Southern California Edison and the manufacturer that designed the steam generators at the now-dark San Onofre nuclear power plant appeared to be at odds over a long-term plan to repair the troubled facility. In the exchange, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries proposed a repair plan that it said could have the plant back online at full power in about a year and also suggested a far more aggressive and expensive repair job that would take more than five years to complete.

About 200,000 select Frigidaire and Kenmore Elite smooth-top electric ranges are being recalled because the heating elements are not properly controlled by the switches and settings, causing ranges to turn on spontaneously, fail to turn off and fail to heat to the specified temperature. The company has received 126 reports of incidents, including four reports of minor burns and two reports of minor property damage. The ranges were sold by national chains including Sears and independent stores around the country from June 2001 to August 2009.

BEIJING - North Korea fired three short-range missiles off its east coast Saturday, following through on months of threats to conduct a missile launch. The South Korean Defense Ministry reported that it detected two launches in the morning and another in the afternoon. Its initial assessment was that the missiles were short-range surface-to-ship or surface-to-surface missiles capable of traveling up to 72 miles, rather than the new medium-range Musudan missile that analysts fear could threaten U.S. troops in Guam or Okinawa, Japan.

Can a New Yorker help an Angelo navigate the maze of local home service providers? Elizabeth Franklin thinks so, having taken on the challenge with her latest Franklin Report, a Zagat-like guide for home improvement services. Two years ago, the former investment banker launched her first guide for New York after having experienced firsthand the difficulty of finding the right people to renovate her family's Manhattan residence. Last year, Franklin and her staff did another for Chicago.

Most of the signs for visitors to the Medicine Bow National Forest in southeast Wyoming are like those greeting people at most forests, with the requisite rules about camping, fires and vehicle use. But on a section of Medicine Bow between Cheyenne and Laramie, visitors see an additional sign -- warning them not to pick up metal objects that could be unexploded military ordnance. From 1879 until 1961, when the U.S.

The American military, the third-largest landowner in the United States, is looking for a few more good acres--and a few less bases. It is no simple contradiction. As they prepare to close or scale back some 70 military bases, Pentagon officials also say more open land is needed for realistic training with weapons that travel faster and see farther. The net result? Little change in the number of military acres, but a subtle shift away from population centers to large military reservations tucked away from the rest of America.

The L.A. County Fair runs through Oct. 3 at the Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. Admission ranges from $6 to $17 depending on your age and the day of the week. Parking ranges from $10 (general) to $25 (valet). Information: (909) 865-4298 or (909) 623-3111, http://www.lacountyfair.com .

Gap stock price: An article in Sunday's Image section on the Gap's new head of design, Patrick Robinson, said that Gap Inc.'s stock price was down more than 50% last week, to $18.17. In fact, that 50% drop in the price ranges from early 2000 to Feb. 5, 2008.

Your article, "The High Cost of Housing" (Oct. 1), properly identified the high cost of land as the culprit. That answer, however, merely raises another question: Why does land cost so much here? Land prices reflect supply and demand. Limits on the supply side of the relationship distinguish Southern California from other areas and explain much of the differential. Because of traffic congestion, commuting ranges--the distances that one can travel in a given time during rush hours--rank among the lowest anywhere.

On the day Frank McCourt surrendered the keys to Dodger Stadium and cashed out, the Dodgers had the best record in the National League. In the year since Mark Walter flashed his cash and Magic Johnson flashed his smile - from May 1 of last year through May 1 of this year - the Dodgers were 83-83. Money can't buy you love, at least in the standings. The Dodgers might be looking up at three teams in the National League West, but "looking up" just might be the best way to describe the state of the franchise.

Construction is set to begin on the first phase of a massive housing development that is part of the city of Irvine's long-awaited Great Park project. A total of 726 single-family homes and detached condominium units are planned for Pavilion Park, which will be the first part of the Great Park Neighborhoods development. This week, eight major home builders bought land in this first offering from master developer FivePoint Communities Inc. Construction of the new homes, priced from the high $600,000 range to $1.2 million, is expected to begin this month.

Edward A. Frieman, a leading figure in American science for decades as a researcher with wide-ranging interests, a top-level governmental advisor on defense and energy issues, and director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has died. He was 87. Frieman died April 11 at UCSD's Thornton Hospital in La Jolla of a respiratory illness, the university announced. His legacy extends to leadership posts in academia, government and private industry. There are "not many like him, and he will be sorely missed," said John Deutch, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CIA director and deputy secretary of Defense.

When Michael Bay goes small, "Pain & Gain" happens. Humans handle the bone-crunching. The gore becomes gorier. The dialogue increases substantially too. Metal things may not transform, but they still make a world of hurt delivered by "Pain & Gain's" iron-pumping bodybuilders. The suddenly budget-conscious Bay shot the movie in and around his Miami mansion, so maybe that reference to "Mickey D's fries" wasn't a joke. And yet he still can't wrap up the action in less than two hours.

The newly formed group of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep barreled up rugged Olancha Peak last month, the 10 females and four males becoming the first new herd of the endangered animals reintroduced in California in 25 years. Once abundant throughout the region's alpine areas, the state's population of Sierra Nevada bighorn had dwindled to two herds by the 1970s. Their numbers have been devastated by disease spread by contact with domestic sheep and goats and unregulated commercial hunting.

The heaviest place to be at Coachella 2013, from a sound perspective, wasn't in the sweet spot of the Main Stage rig while Phoenix was preparing for the arrival of R. Kelly, or at the heart of the Sahara stage during Baauer's big, dumb, joyous set of beat music, heavy on the synth riffs and dirty beats. It was nestled away near the food court in the Yuma tent, where four bass cabinets the size of Jeeps were parked in each corner of the room. The tent is the sixth and newest venue at the festival, and because it's fully enclosed, the bass can't escape.

I am saddened when I hear so many people say they don't like poetry, but I understand ("A Poet's Paradise, for Better or for Verse," by Rick Wartzman, From First and Spring, Aug. 27). If the public were exposed to less complicated poems, many people might develop an appreciation for truly great poetry. I find it strange that music ranges from opera to country and that prose ranges from great literature to comics, but most poetry--if it is to rate publication--must be so "deep" that it is opaque to the average person.

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that North Korea has the capability to develop nuclear warheads small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, a congressman disclosed Thursday. Although U.S. experts believe that North Korea cannot hit the U.S. mainland with its missiles, a significant improvement in Pyongyang's weapons technology would be deeply disconcerting for U.S. policymakers. It would also help explain American measures -- including an emphasis on the U.S. ability to respond with nuclear weapons -- after weeks of warlike rhetoric from Pyongyang.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that North Korea has the capability to develop nuclear warheads small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, a congressman disclosed Thursday. Although U.S. experts believe North Korea cannot hit the U.S. mainland with its missiles, a significant improvement in Pyongyang's weapons technology would be deeply disconcerting for U.S. policymakers. It would also help explain American measures - including an emphasis on the U.S. ability to respond with nuclear weapons - after weeks of warlike rhetoric from Pyongyang.