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Geez, you try to skate by for a few hours and stuff starts to pile up in the in-box...
• Former Burbank mayor and current city councilwoman Stacey Jo Murphy was arrested today on suspicion of cocaine possession and child endangerment. The juicy part: she was nabbed by the multi-agency gang task force that swooped down on the Vineland Boyz criminal gang last month. Her longtime male companion was also arrested for federal firearms and narcotic violations.
• Gov. Schwarzenegger's take from his deal to promote American Media's fitness magazines is either $5 million (Sacramento Bee) or $8 million (L.A. Times, in a four-column lede headline). Both stories link to the original documents. In the October 2004 issue of Los Angeles magazine, Ann Louise Bardach had a terrific piece on the background of the deal and its role in neutralizing the bad press Schwarzenegger used to get in American Media's tabloids. Today's coverage focuses on the conflict of interest angle, since he vetoed regulations on nutrition supplements that could have hurt the advertisers who pay his contract.
• Alex Frangos of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Frank Gehry was selected to design the Grand Avenue development downtown. The story is posted at Archinect. It made it into the L.A. Times today.
• AEG's new $75 ticket for VIPs to get in to see the King Tut show at LACMA without waiting in line has people clucking, the Times says. The story doesn't name a single buyer.
• Deanne Stillman responds to Rush Limbaugh in a new entry at the Huffington Post: "You're right about one thing. I do have a tight ass. And I appreciate the thoughtful lecture on capitalism 101. Now that I know how it works, where's my cut?"
• The Log Cabin Republicans have launched a blog, and we'd have been disappointed if they didn't go for the name Blogcabin California. They peg the timing to a gathering of conservative bloggers at this weekend's Bear Flag League conference.
• Filmstew blogger J. Sperling Reich parses the opinion piece on Hollywood in last weekend's LAT Current section with a post he calls "the murky arguments of Govindini Murty."
• Deb Vankin is leaving the LA Weekly (she is a Lifestyles Features Editor) to be a senior editor at VLife...David Gershwin, who switched from communications deputy for Councilman Alex Padilla to vice president at the MWW Group just in February, is leaving to be Director of Government Relations for the Jewish Community Relations Committee of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles...Claudia Peschiutta, formerly of KFWB and the L.A. Business Journal, has moved to Bundy Drive as the L.A. correspondent for Fox News Radio.
• California Connected is billing Friday's show on KCET as a one-of-a-kind look inside a juvenile detention facility that specializes in treating mental health.
• Tribune Co. reports a glimmer of up financial news.
• This blog and blogger are profiled by Mary Frances Gurton in this week's L.A. Independent. There are many great L.A. blogs she could have mentioned but didn't. Dozens of them are linked over on the left—so don't blame me!