Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
Tookie Williams has asked for a stay of execution by the state Supreme Court. No word yet. (* Also: Gov. Schwarzenegger won't divulge his ruling on clemency until Monday, his office said Sunday afternoon.) Meanwhile, Dan Morain detailed the meticulous execution procedures in the Times (here's an earlier piece I wrote about San Quentin rituals) and ABC's Brian Rooney writes about his selection to be a witness if the execution moves forward Monday night: "The last few days, I've been dancing with my nine-year-old daughter in the annual 'Nutcracker' ballet at her school. It's incredibly sweet. I've been thinking how I will never know Tookie Williams and his world, and he will never know mine."
The Times led Sunday with another revelation on the WMD front, reporting that the French foreign service reportedly told the CIA numerous times there was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa.
A story on Mayor Villaraiogosa's LAUSD takeover strategy by Naush Boghossian and Rick Orlov led Sunday's Daily News and Daily Breeze. The Breeze also has upgraded its website, keeping stories free for longer and (yay) adding the publication date on each story.
The cover story in Sunday's LAT Magazine is about the Chocolate Mountains gunnery range in the lower desert, but you'd never it from the Times website. LATimes.com billboards an inside piece on Eon McKai and alt-porn. Also, John Amato, the West L.A. musician who runs the liberal blog Crooks and Liars, gets a front-of-the-book feature in Sunday's LAT Magazine.
Click to continue: Affleck and Garner, Current's Sunday lineup, Laurie Pike, Reggie Bush, Grady Little and more...
Sunday's New York Times runs a feature on the SoCal driving phenomenon of rear-window decals honoring dead friends and relatives.
Brentwood report: O.J. Simpson's old Rockingham lot—with a new home on it—sold for $12.9 million to Zachary Horowitz, president and CEO of Universal Music Group, according to Ruth Ryon's Hot Property column. She also has the news that Ben Affleck sold his B'wood pad (the one he bought from Melissa Etheridge) to consolidate in Jennifer Garner's 90049 home.
Contributors in Sunday's Current: Kotkin, Prager, Seipp, Liebau and David DeVoss plus regulars Rodriguez and Chait. Seipp's entry is an Outside the Tent rewrite of a blog rant about the LAT's recent blogging story. Also, Times staffer Samantha Bonar calls for restrictions on Rottweilers like the one that attacked her Newfoundland and left her with $4,000 in vet bills.
Laurie Pike, editor of LA.com, has started contributing to the Daily News' Red Carpet blog. Pike also is quoted in a feature in Saturday's Times about Paper magazine. She was an early staffer in a New York period in her life.
Saturday's Daily News fronted a story on the city's interest in seeing that the Times' soon-to-close Chatsworth plant be sold for industrial use.
Motivated by Barbara Streisand's defense of Robert Scheer, Mickey Kaus ferrets out that she was the subject of a long-ago Scheer interview.
USC's Reggie Bush wins college football's Heisman trophy. His down-and-out biological father was profiled in the San Diego Union-Tribune (pointer from The Wizard of Odds.)
Dodgers notes: A FOX Sports commentator says of Grady Little when he managed the Red Sox, "...the only manager I've ever seen for whom the glacial pace of baseball moved too fast. Every situation caught him by surprise." Also, the Dodgers go back to Massachussets and hire Gov. Mitt Romney's son and campaign manager as Chief Marketing Officer. And they apparently sign ancient, injury-scarred, no throw-no-hit Sandy Alomar Jr. as the backup catcher.