First thing Tuesday, 8/30 *

   • The L.A. Conservancy threw in the towel on the fight to save the Ambassador Hotel from demolition. The school board votes today on a plan to donate $4.9-million toward conserving historic school buildings. "We will always believe that the Ambassador Hotel represents a tragic missed opportunity," said conservancy Executive Director Linda Dishman. "But having fought the good fight and lost, we decided to create something lasting."
   • Here are 3.1 billion reasons why a toll highway over Angeles Crest to Palmdale won't be built anytime soon.
   • Chief Bratton met with an aide of Nation of Islam leader Rev. Louis Farrakhan to defuse tensions over the arrest of Minister Tony Muhammad, but the LAPD expects a volatile crowd at today's police commission meeting.
   • Mayor Villaraigosa's campaign to get us all riding transit rates a segment on tonight's Life and Times, 6:30 p.m. on KCET. The mayor's press schedule in Sacramento today includes photo ops with the Guv and the Speaker.
   • One of the neighborhood councils in Northridge designated its chairman "the grand poobah" and the treasurer "bean counter." Seems the city is not amused, since they also don't get anyone to their meetings.
   • Joe Scott blogs on the "short happy political life of Arnold Schwarzenegger" turning decidedly unhappy.
   • The new Variety Entertainment News Service, launching Sept. 26, will offer stories from Variety publications to newspapers via Tribune Media Service.

And also...

Chris Ayres, a former Hollywood correspondent for the Times of London, has a book out about covering Iraq called War Reporting for Cowards. Michiko Kakutani calls it hysterical in today's New York Times: "Reads as though Larry David had rewritten "MASH" and Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop" as a comic television episode." * He's still here: Ayres has an LA Notebook in today about introducing his future wife to the English sandwich and having lunch with Ashley James, new executive chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. He also has a separate piece about caviar facials at the Four Seasons.