Did Lu Parker go along, as she implied she would in that first public glimpsing of the couple at Chevalier's bookstore a month ago? Mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo isn't saying. Phil Willon at the Times:

The mayor's office released a statement Thursday afternoon saying only that the mayor will be out of the state from July 2 to July 10.

A source familiar with the trip said the mayor will attend a summit in Cape Town and Johannesburg sponsored by the Academy of Achievement. The event will assemble graduate students from around the world who are considered "the greatest thinkers and achievers of the age," according to the group's website.

City Council President Eric Garcetti is also out of the country, says Willon, so newly gaveled President Pro Tem Jan Perry will perform the barely existent duties of acting mayor until Garcetti's return on Tuesday.

Yesterday on LA Observed:
Lu Parker attends Villaraigosa's ceremony

Cynthia Littleton at Variety reports that Brennan, a longtime reporter and editor for The Hollywood Reporter, died today at Cedars-Sinai after a yearlong struggle with cancer. "He was my friend, and I will miss him so much," Littleton blogs.

Steve was an incredibly colorful character, a sharp wit, a fantastic and accomplished writer. He realized a longtime dream in 2007 with the release of his book, "Emeralds in Tinseltown: The Irish in Hollywood."

Steve worked for THR, in his last years as international editor, for more than two decades. He started out as freelancer filing stories (he liked to tell of how he managed to sell stories on every permutation of the Irish entertainment biz) and then after he moved to L.A., he charmed his way into a full-time gig covering syndication and international TV.

She didn't have his age.

Eater LA, through a post signed by Curbed creator Lockhart Steele, says its post earlier this week leveling blind charges at downtown wine bar The Must "didn't rise to our standards, and we shouldn't have published it." Steele also agreed to post an unedited retort from the bar's owners, who say in part:

Eater LA did not make any effort to contact us, which leads us to believe that both Eater LA and Kat Odell lack in basic journalistic ethics and codes of conduct. Elina Shatkin [of the L.A. Times] called us after hearing about the Eater LA post and, with us, reviewed the allegations, one at a time, asking us which, if any, were true. Here is the link to the LA Times blog providing our side of the story. As previously stated, we are APPALLED at Eater LA for such a posting and would like nothing more to do with them or any affiliated sites.

We love our customers and know that anyone who has actually been to our establishment would know the genuine labor of love that The Must is for our entire staff and us. We are quite busy right now, sitting on deck, sipping on our house made sangria, nibbling on Humboldt Fog and enjoying the beauty of all these amazing ice caps.

Copyright and media lawyer Ben Sheffner surveys the wreckage after the jump.

Veronique de Turenne drops off a load, posts some pictures at Here in Malibu: "Kind of freaks me out, but it's also fascinating, this other world where tons of junk is tended to, ministered to, by workers who know you and me by the things we leave behind...."

Newsroom groups are being informed right now that John Arthur is out as Los Angeles Times executive editor — that's number two on the paper's masthead. Sports editor Randy Harvey and obituaries editor Jon Thurber are reportedly getting expanded duties. Titles and details to come.

Now posted at LATimes.com: "John and I did not agree on the need for the just-announced masthead changes, and we differ on the best approach to reaching our goals," Editor Russ Stanton says in a memo.

* Also: Harvey becomes Associate Editor, effective immediately. "In this role, Randy will take on a host of broad and important responsibilities that currently keep me from spending more time in the newsroom." Thurber becomes Managing Editor, Print, with "primary responsibility for coordinating and carrying out the content plans for the newspaper and other print products produced by our newsroom, including overseeing the front page and the A1 desk." Meredith Artley, currently executive editor of the website, becomes Managing Editor, Online.

More after the jump.

LA Observed will begin observing the first holiday weekend of summer by switching early to infrequent posting mode. Enjoy the weekend!

In this issue of Los Angeles Magazine and on the website, Steve Oney revisits the summer of 1969 when Hollywood figures, and then much of the city, were terrified by the murders carried out by followers of Charles Manson. It's probably hard for newcomers to appreciate just how big of a deal it was in Los Angeles when pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others were found tortured and slaughtered in Benedict Canyon, with the word PIG written in her blood on the front door. Then Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the next night in Los Feliz, and finally to have the mystery tied to a creepy tribe of young women from the suburbs and their master who squatted at the Spahn Ranch in Santa Susana Pass when they weren't hanging with the Beach Boys. Oney talks to many of the players, including former Manson followers and prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

Also in the magazines: Orange Coast has a nice feature on the Orange County final days of Philip K. Dick.

Steve Greenberg is traveling this week to the annual convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. While he's gone, we'll post some previously unpublished work. This one was inspired a few months ago when Pico Rivera became the first local city to burst through the 10% sales tax barrier. As of July 1, we're all within sight of that level.

More in the LA Sketchbook by Steve Greenberg

An elected San Francisco supervisor has been agitating up there for details on the cost of Mayor Gavin Newsom's security detail, without much luck. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, however, easily tracked down a number for the cost of assigning two LAPD officers fulltime to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during the day and one at night. About $450,000 a year, he was told, per the Chronicle's Matier and Ross.

Steve Hymon, who covered the City Hall beat (and later transportation as the Bottleneck blogger) for the Los Angeles Times, is back again, at least virtually. This time, he's doing some contract work for Councilman Richard Alarcon, who told me today that Hymon will help edit into shape a draft of the Master Plan to End Poverty in Los Angeles. The City Council agenda for yesterday asked approval for a personal services contract covering the period June 22 to Sept. 15 for an amount not to exceed $10,000, using available funds in the Council Office Budget.

Emanuel Pleitez is the 26-year-old who may have played a bit of a spoiler role in the 32nd congressional district by taking votes from Gil Cedillo in the Democratic primary won by Judy Chu. Pleitez talks to The Eastsider LA about running for office, raising more than $200,000, and what happens now. Excerpt:

Q: Did the Cedillo campaign ad featuring some of your Facebook photos make you think twice about participating in politics?

A: No it didn't. If one wants to run for a high stakes office, one has to be ready for any opposition effort.

Cedillo, remember, ran ads portraying Pleitez and his friends — including the daughter of LAT columnist Sandy Banks — as partiers and slackers.

Dov Charney's L.A. firm today was "fingered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for employing some 1,600 workers at its Los Angeles factories whose eligibility documentation is 'suspect and not valid,'" Brad Greenberg reports at the Jewish Journal's God Blog. "Another 200 workers had documentation that could not be verified. That spells trouble for about a third of American Apparel’s employees." Charney has been a prominent advocate for immigration reform, putting “Legalize L.A.“ on a t-shirt and in ads.