Sawyer

'ABC World News With Diane Sawyer' Where: ABC When: 6:30 p.m. weekdays Rating: Not rated

Call it film's last gasp. Birns & Sawyer, the oldest movie camera rental shop in Hollywood, made history last week when it auctioned off its entire remaining inventory of 16- and 35-millimeter film cameras. Owner and cinematographer Bill Meurer said he didn't want to part with the cameras but had little choice as the entertainment industry has largely gone digital. "People aren't renting out film cameras in sufficient numbers to justify retaining them," Meurer said in an interview at his North Hollywood warehouse, where he rents out cameras, lenses, lighting equipment and grip trucks.

How ironic that one of the few acts of journalistic responsibility in recent memory would come under fire from other "journalists" such as your Elizabeth Jensen, and that your newspaper would seek to add fuel to this fire ("Sawyer's Absence Debated," July 30). The last thing the public needs is another journalist's personal views or recollections thrust upon it. During the sad events of the past weeks surrounding the death of JFK Jr., the media, once again caught short of hard news but knowing they had a ratings bonanza at hand, had no problem finding people to fling themselves at the cameras in order to insinuate themselves into the event.

I'll be honest, in the spirit of the honestly shameless heartwarmer "Dolphin Tale. " I saw it in a somewhat distracted, agitated state. Forty-five seconds into the opening credits, I'm watching ocean-dwelling dolphins nosing around all sorts of potential dangers (a rusty fishing tackle box, a fateful metal crab trap), and the film's in 3-D, so the dangers loom with exceptional emphasis, and the picture's premise depends on putting the eventually tail-less protagonist — a real-life dolphin named Winter — through all sorts of adversity alongside its human protectors.

Quietly taking over as anchor from Charles Gibson at " ABC World News" at the end of last year, Diane Sawyer brought with her not only an impressive résumé, an excellent name-recognition rating and some pretty cool new graphics, but also a remarkably counterintuitive manner. In a world dominated by YouTube moments and professional hysterics, Sawyer exudes an alarming level of elegance. From the moment she opened her show -- "Good evening, and it is so good to be here with you tonight" -- it was clear that she was not going to so much report the news as preside over a series of conversations about the news, conversations she simply must share with you, her personally invited viewer.

When she took over anchoring ABC's evening newscast last month after 11 years of rising before dawn to host "Good Morning America," Diane Sawyer thought she would finally get to catch up on her sleep. Charles Gibson, Sawyer's predecessor on "World News" and her former co-host on "GMA," had promised her, "Oh, you won't believe the difference," she recalled. So much for that. Sawyer kicked off her tenure by traveling to Copenhagen to confront Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about his nuclear ambitions.

Diane Sawyer will anchor ABC's "World News" from Afghanistan tonight and Tuesday, her second trip abroad since taking the helm of the evening newscast less than a month ago. In her fifth trip to the country, which she last visited in April 2007, Sawyer will report on the status of the war effort as part of ABC's "Afghanistan: Where Things Stand" series. Her coverage will include an interview with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. "Good Morning America Weekend" anchor Bill Weir, embedded with U.S. forces, also will report.

Thursday night, retiring ABC anchor Charles Gibson was feted by colleagues in a Lincoln Center reception hall overlooking the Hudson River. Among the hundreds on hand, one person was conspicuously absent: Diane Sawyer, who succeeds him tonight on the network's flagship evening newscast, "World News." She was already on assignment, headed to Copenhagen to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an exclusive interview to kick off her tenure. It was a move that speaks volumes about her ambitions for "World News" -- a post she has long sought.

I'll be honest, in the spirit of the honestly shameless heartwarmer "Dolphin Tale. " I saw it in a somewhat distracted, agitated state. Forty-five seconds into the opening credits, I'm watching ocean-dwelling dolphins nosing around all sorts of potential dangers (a rusty fishing tackle box, a fateful metal crab trap), and the film's in 3-D, so the dangers loom with exceptional emphasis, and the picture's premise depends on putting the eventually tail-less protagonist — a real-life dolphin named Winter — through all sorts of adversity alongside its human protectors.

"Nothing's irreversible," says Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) to John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) in the second hour of the first episode of "Lost's" final season, and on top of the obvious and tantalizing T-shirt possibilities of this statement, one can't help but imagine it engraved in stone on the archway leading into the show's writers' room. Possibly in hieroglyphics of their own creation. Not since the last few episodes of "The Sopranos" has a show's finale been so breathlessly anticipated.

"Esperanza Rising" Pam Munoz Ryan In 1924 Mexico, a girl named Esperanza lived with her parents on a big ranch. She was soon to be a young woman. Then bandits stole all their crops. Her father dies trying to get his crops back and then there is a drought. So Esperanza and her family move to America. I recommend this book because it is an inspiring story. Reviewed by Franky, 5th grade Vena Magnet Arleta "Pecos Bill and Other Tales" Irwin Shapiro Once upon a time, there was a cowboy named Pecos Bill.

As 14-year-old Jaycee Dugard struggled in a crude backyard shed to deliver her baby daughter, the serial predator who had abducted and raped her stepped in to unwrap the umbilical cord that trapped the infant. "She was beautiful," Dugard said of the child she birthed three years into her captivity in Northern California. "I felt like I wasn't alone anymore. I knew I could never let anything happen to her. " In an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer broadcast Sunday on ABC, Dugard, displaying remarkable poise and smiling often, provided chilling details about the 18-year ordeal she endured at the hands of her captors, an increasingly deranged parolee named Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, who aided the abduction and condoned his rapes.

Kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard says she didn't know she was pregnant when she gave birth to her first child. Dugard had been abducted by Phillip and Nancy Garrido when she was 11 years old, handcuffed, raped and imprisoned for 18 years. Now 31, she is telling her story in the memoir "A Stolen Life" and in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer. Watch a clip below. "Now I can walk in the next room and see my mom," Dugard said in her first interview. "Wow. I can decide to jump in the car and go to the beach with the girls.

  2009 Verdad Albariño, Sawyer 'Lindquist Vineyard' Albariño isn't a grape that's much grown in California, but winemaker Louisa Sawyer fell in love with the Spanish white and planted some in the cool-climate Edna Valley vineyard she owns with husband Bob Lindquist of Qupé. The grapes are certified biodynamic. Her 2009 Verdad Albariño is palest gold and has a delicately floral aroma. Crisp and minerally, it has more body than some Spanish Albariños, plus a lovely finish.

ESSENTIAL "The Innocents Abroad" "Roughing It" "Life on the Mississippi" "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" "The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson" These are the jewels in Twain's crown, the center of his reputation and his vision of American life. Spanning much of his career, they highlight his skills as a journalist and travel writer ("The Innocents Abroad" and "Roughing It"), his eye as an autobiographer and social observer ("Life on the Mississippi") and his groundbreaking work in the novel ("Huckleberry Finn" and "Pudd'nhead Wilson")

The Rev. Paul Sawyer, a Unitarian Universalist minister and peace and social justice activist whose landmark, onion-shaped former sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley was the site of one of the Merry Pranksters' famous "Acid Test" gatherings in the 1960s, has died. He was 75. Sawyer, who most recently was minister of Throop Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, died June 23 at his home in Pasadena after a four-month battle with pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Susan.

With continued admiration for the always-first-rate "60 Minutes," it is a joy to welcome friends on a Sunday evening and unitedly deliberate on the current events as scrutinized and excellently presented by the brilliant journalists Wallace, Safer, Reasoner, Bradley and Sawyer. It's no wonder that this news magazine has endured many years in the ratings war. Our thanks to CBS and the spearheading genius of Don Hewitt. Doneley Meris, Downey

Mike Nichols, whose work I have always admired, attended the Private Waldschule Kaliski, a Jewish school in Berlin, with me in the mid-1930s. I am 69. If Mike is only 62, he would have been 3 years old then. Precocious genius he may be, but the school didn't take anyone under 6. Come on Mike, tell Diane ("The PrimeTime of Ms. Diane Sawyer," Aug. 7) how old you really are. She won't stop loving you. FRED BAUMAN Riverside

For months, the rafts that ferry Disneyland guests across the waterway to Tom Sawyer Island have been idle. No children have explored the island's caves, scaled its climbing rocks or run across its bridges. But the island won't be lonely much longer. Park employees will refill the Rivers of America, drained in January for maintenance, this week. The draining took almost a week, at the end of which this question was answered: What do you find at the bottom of an amusement park basin after seven years?