Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — A Los Angeles judge on Thursday ended Lindsay Lohan’s long-running probation in a 2007 drunkendriving case after a stringof violations, jail sentences and rehab stints. The 25-year-old actress will remain on informal probation for taking a necklace without permission last year, but will no longer have a probation officer or face travel restrictions and weekly shifts cleaning up at the morgue. Lohan, wearing a powder-blue suit and black blouse, let out a sigh of relief as she left Judge Stephanie Sautner’s courtroom, possibly for the last time. “I just want to say thank you for being fair,” Lohan told the judge. “It’s really opened a lot of doors for me.” The judge said she wasn’t going to lecture the actress, but gave her some parting advice. “You need to live your life in a more mature way, stop the nightclubbing and focus on your work,” Sautner said. She reminded Lohan that she will remain on informal probation until May 2014 in the necklace case and could face up to 245 days in jail if she gets into trouble again. Lohan is now free to focus on her career for the first timesince May 2010, when she missed a court appearance and was later jailed for failing to complete the terms of her sentence. The Mean Girls star has struggled with the case and her career since the two drunken-driving arrests in 2007.

Five years ago, just off a bout with cancer, Bob Schieffer was set to retire from CBS’ Face the Nation. That never stuck, and now he’s doubling his workload. Starting Sunday, the public affairsprogram expands to an hour. Vice President Joe Biden, whom Schieffer interviewed Thursday in Milwaukee, is the featured guest. Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are also booked. Schieffer, who turned 75 in February, had long planned to retire shortly after he turned 70 in 2007. He even announced it publicly. But he was persuaded to stay for the 2008 election, and retirement never happened.