Youth

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.

CANNES, France - Walter Salles carefully raises the fingers of his right hand and gently strokes the back of his left. "These are characters," he says, explaining the gesture, "who experience things not vicariously but on the flesh. Men and women in a quest for something they couldn't define yet, who are trying to amplify their knowledge of the world. " More than half a century after "On the Road" was published, 30-plus years since Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights in 1978, and nearly a decade after Salles began working on the film, Jack Kerouac's peerless anthem to the romance of youthful freedom and experience has finally made it to the screen with its virtues and spirit intact.

It could be the rhinestone stud in her cheek, her thin resume, or her unwillingness to interview before noon, lest job-seeking disrupt her gym routine or interrupt her beauty sleep. Or it could be that this is the weakest job market for teenagers looking for summer work in more than half a century. But two weeks of pounding the pavement -- or at least occasionally scrolling through "help wanted" ads on Craigslist -- have produced not a single employment offer for my 17-year-old daughter . . .

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The blueprint was not original ... well maybe to the Kings, who spent too many seasons chasing success with a checkbook and patchwork trades. But General Manager Dean Lombardi followed a plan that was almost as old as the game, and had been successful during his time as the San Jose Sharks general manager. "You walk a fine line between getting younger and getting better," Lombardi said. The Kings have done both this season and are two victories from reaching the Stanley Cup finals after a 4-0 victory Tuesday over the Phoenix Coyotes in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.

There's so much to praise in the blissful Broadway revival of "Follies," which opened Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre on the heels of its numerous Tony nominations, but let's pay homage first to the sheer sophistication of the show itself. After experiencing "Follies" again - an adult entertainment if ever there was one - I flat-out refuse to accept any more jukebox substitutes. One doesn't often talk about architecture when writing about musicals, but the most impressive thing about "Follies," beyond Stephen Sondheim's bejeweled score, is the ingenious way it is constructed.

On the surface, "To Save a Life" doesn't sound that different from a host of indie films -- a drama involving a teen coping with the aftermath of a student's suicide who finds solace in a group of outsiders. The film, which opens Friday, deals with myriad real-life issues facing teens such as drugs, sex and social acceptance. The plot focuses on star athlete Jake Taylor, who seemingly has it all; he has a basketball scholarship, good looks, a cheerleader girlfriend and hangs with the in-crowd.

Teenagers looking for summer work will have a better chance of finding it this year, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The improving job market, the firm said, has eased competition for the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that traditionally go to teens on school break. The employment environment for high-schoolers and other young folks has made a dramatic recovery since falling to record lows in 2010, when the number of 16- to 19-year-olds working during the summer months was at its slimmest level since 1949.

Under the blazing sun, kids wearing fatigues stagger into an empty dirt lot, gasping for air after a punishing run in the hills. They would rather be doing cannonballs into a pool, shopping at the mall or catching a Dodgers game. Yet here they are--reluctantly--wanting a drink of water and a break. Sweating profusely and hunched over, 10-year-old Damien has only one thought: "I hate this."

The kids are angry. "I've never seen such rage," said Sue, the mother of a 15-year-old boy. "I remember being mad at my parents, thinking I hated them, but not every day, not every minute." The parents are fed up. "He calls our house a hellhole and says he can't wait to get out," Sue went on. "Some days I can't wait for him to get out, either." For teenagers and the adults they live with, these are confusing--even critical--times, and they are receiving precious little help getting through it.

Remember the days when acquiring fake ID meant scissors, glue and a good typewriter? These days fake IDs have gone high-tech. And the stakes are high as well. Gone is the time of the lumpy driver's license with a 17-year-old's face pasted to a 28-year-old's driving vitae. The state made things harder in 1991 by adding holograms and magnetic strips to licenses. But enterprising teen-agers eager for beer are never far behind.

"La Boheme" is back. So too is Los Angeles Opera's enduring 1993 Herb Ross production. Of course, Puccini's endearing Bohemians are never ones to worry about wearing out their universal welcome. And Ross' warmly cinematic staging, which gets trotted out every few years, has long proved impervious to passing opera-production fashion, at least as an audience attraction. No, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion wasn't full when the curtain went up Saturday night on Act 1. But the hall was full by the time the curtain went up on Act 2. Blame an accident on the Santa Monica Freeway that added an hour to the drive from the Westside.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Score one for youth. And speed. And rest. And fun. The Oklahoma City Thunder couldn't have looked much better than it did during the 119-90 bruising it applied to the Lakers on Monday night at Chesapeake Energy Arena. It was the opener of the Western Conference semifinals and the series could close quickly. PHOTOS: Lakers vs. Thunder, Game 1 Most people picked the Lakers to lose Game1. Few picked them to be embarrassed. They trailed by 35 in the third quarter, were blanked in fastbreak points (13-0)

Baseball has made the pitch. But should Griffith Park make the catch? That's the situation at the eastern edge of the 4,310-acre recreation area where supporters of youth sports teams want the city of Los Angeles to build two Little League-size ball fields. But opponents say that's a bad idea because the fields would gobble up two acres of lawn, eliminate a popular group picnic area and require the removal of numerous trees. The dispute has been brewing for years and at times has turned nasty, with warnings by opponents that "screaming kids" using the fields will scare horses on a nearby equestrian trail and endanger riders.

The number of baby boomers dying from a "silent epidemic" of hepatitis C infections is increasing so rapidly that federal officials are planning a new nationwide push for widespread testing. Three in four of the estimated 3.2 million people who have chronic hepatitis C - and a similar proportion of those who die from the disease - are baby boomers. Deaths from the virus nearly doubled between 1999 and 2007 to more than 15,000, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

On a recent Sunday morning, at an hour when many a teenager is still prone in bed, Adam Bernstein, 15, and Eli Gruska, 13, were lying face down on the floor of a Los Angeles ballet studio. Both boys would soon be heading to New York City for the biggest ballet competition in the country. They and the others in this all-boys class were awaiting instructions from Marat Daukayev, former principal dancer withRussia'sfamed Kirov Ballet (now the ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre). Daukayev begins his boys' class with sets of push-ups, not pliés.

As they do on many Saturday afternoons, the teenagers from across Los Angeles county descended on the nondescript Fairfax district office building. It was time for the weekly editorial meeting at L.A.Youth the newspaper by teens for teens. The latest issue had just hit the hallways of L.A. schools, and the deadline for the next one was fast approaching. As more than a dozen students sat around a square of folding tables, Amanda Riddle, one of the adult editors, kicked things off with a question: What did they know about Trayvon Martin?

Ashley Nacole Webb of Oxnard wanted to spend her summer earning money. Instead, the 17-year-old spent more than half her vacation just looking for work. "It has been frustrating," said Ashley, who may have finally landed a job at a Boys & Girls Club that could start in two weeks. "Summer is almost over." It's been a tough summer for job-seeking teenagers.

A 17-year-old Santa Ana Valley High School student drowned Thursday afternoon after a rip current pulled him more than 250 yards from the shore near Newport Pier, authorities said. Two other swimmers who were with him barely managed to swim back to shore, said Randy Scheerer, a battalion chief for the Newport Beach Fire Department. Hours later, another water tragedy occurred when a 6-year-old boy drowned in an apartment complex swimming pool in Anaheim.

ALBUQUERQUE - How many of these could you answer? What is conserved in an inelastic collision? (Momentum.) Where were the Boer wars fought? (Modern-day South Africa.) What compositional technique did the 19th century French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz create? ( Idée fixe.) And what is the difference between the surface areas of two spheres with radii of four and six? (80 pi) The Granada Hills Charter High School students here for the national Academic Decathlon competition have spent months studying the guides those questions came from.

Teenagers looking for summer work will have a better chance of finding it this year, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The improving job market, the firm said, has eased competition for the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that traditionally go to teens on school break. The employment environment for high-schoolers and other young folks has made a dramatic recovery since falling to record lows in 2010, when the number of 16- to 19-year-olds working during the summer months was at its slimmest level since 1949.