First thing Monday, 1.9.06

♦ Gov. Schwarzenegger and his twelve-year-old son Patrick suffered cuts and bruises in a Sunday afternoon motorcycle accident on Mandeville Canyon Road, near their Brentwood home. The governor's Harley-Davidson hit a car that backed out of a driveway. Schwarzenegger took fifteen stitches in his lip [editorial comment: oww!] at the St. John's ER in Santa Monica, his second time there for a motorcycle mishap. In 2001 he broke six ribs after dumping his bike in Santa Monica. Margita Thompson says the governor's work schedule won't be affected.

♦ Part two of the Times' UFW series: Using the Chavez name to bring $20 to $30 million a year in tax-exempt income, and some rich real estate deals.

♦ Steve Hymon in the Times advances Eric Garcetti's Wednesday debut as president of the city council. Howard Fine also chats with Garcetti in the L.A. Business Journal.

♦ General Electric is thinking about selling off 150 acres of the Universal Studios backlot. Anyone who drives Barham Boulevard should be real unhappy to learn that GE execs envision a thousand condos. Ay caramba¡

♦ Sheriff Baca: "Frankly, we don't know for sure" why homicides are soaring in Compton.

♦ Controller Laura Chick will unveil her final audit of the Department of Recreation and Parks at 10 am at Holmby Park. Reporters should note it's a time change, says director of communications Rob Wilcox.

♦ Long interview in the L.A. Business Journal with Kenneth Wong, the ex-Disney exec who is in charge of remaking our shopping malls into Westfield's. He explains why they dropped the awful "Shoppingtown" label and plans to spend $2 billion upgrading.

♦ Reader Phil Johnston saw the post on our record-setting January warmth and emailed the London report: "Yesterday morning I played football (soccer) on the coldest Saturday I've played in years. Sleet, cold icy wind, I wore a pullover, a t-shirt, and a woolly hat, and still never took anything off, despite the running around that was going on. But at least, we'll NEVER experience an earthquake."

♦ Also, Bruce Bridges is with the Peace Crops in frigid Ukraine and writes: "In response to your bragging about the weather there, last week I was talking on the phone with a friend in LA. She was preparing for her New Year's party and mentioned that there might be a low turnout of people because "It's raining, the weather sucks!" There was a slight pause between us before she started apologizing profusely for what sounded so ridiculous to somebody with a hard freeze outside and inadequate heating inside. I can't wait to get back to LA so I can endure those hard winters again."

♦ Sanora Babb, the author and long-ago Associated Press reporter who also was the widow of cinematographer James Wong Howe and a former communist, died at age 98.

♦ Lesley Devine, the former mayor of Calabasas and longtime Democratic Party figure in L.A., died of cancer at age 63.