LA Observed archive
for February 2006

If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.

McDougal on Otis *

Dennis McDougal, author of Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the LA Times Dynasty, gave a lecture on his subject and former publisher at the Los...

A cry for less bureaucracy

Sam Lanni, the owner of Safari Sam's, has gone public with a rant about City Hall bleeding him dry before he can open his long-awaited club on Sunset Boulevard in...

A two-memo editor

Alice Short, editor of the daily Calendar and Thursday Weekend Calendar sections at the Los Angeles Times, is moving off the features floor and upstairs to the third floor newsroom....

Blame the Zamboni

Channels 2 and 9 are out with a discovery by David Goldstein that carbon monoxide levels are high at several Southern California ice rinks. Propane-powered ice resurfacers—some made by the...

Morning email *

People care about this stuff and write in. Today several readers noticed that the Times got two names wrong in the Eddie Nalbandian obituary in this morning's paper. The early...

Variety style moves

Variety has hired Monica Corcoran away from In Style's Los Angeles bureau to replace Ginny Chien as style editor, today's Women's Wear Daily says. Corcoran becomes part of the lifestyle...

First thing Tuesday, 2.28.06

Why the Los Angeles Times may be getting some new window blinds, blog reaction to the death of Otis Chandler, Channel 5's anchors accept a free night at a swanky...

Afternoon shorts *

⇒ USC Annenberg awarded the Selden Ring investigative reporting prize to the Washington Post for stories on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Copley News Service reporters Marcus A. Stern and Jerry...

Obits mania

What is it the last couple of days? Add actor Dennis Weaver to the list of newly passed. Also, John Rabe did a piece today on KPCC about Eddie (Zachary...

13,500 words on Chandler

Tomorrow's printed Los Angeles Times obituary on Otis Chandler will run over five to six pages and be one of the longest the paper has published. It is now online...

Eye on Corina

Channel 5 is promoing up close and personal time with Corina Villaraigosa on tonight's Prime News at 10 pm. They call it the first prolonged TV interview she has given...

Storm Watch 2006

OK the hed's kind of a joke, but it is supposed to rain hard starting today. Channel 4's website links to the NWS flood and high-wind watches. Two to four...

Metrolink mess

A suspicious backpack or duffel bag in the parking lot at the El Monte station has closed down that leg of Metrolink. A bomb squad robot is poking at the...

Otis Chandler *

The last family publisher of the Los Angeles Times died this morning at home in Ojai at age 78. Otis Chandler had suffered from a degenerative condition known as Lewy...

First thing Monday, 2.27.06

Going to New York to evaluate the mayor's school takeover plan, popping the algebra question, Hollywood Hell Week begins, Stacey Snider makes the downward leap—plus The Ointment, tweaking the Trojans,...

Miss anything?

Last week was a good one for LA Observed scoops. Here are some talked-about posts from the past seven days: Ensign Eric Garcetti, U.S. Naval Reserve Times and UFW go...

Octavia E. Butler, writer was 58

Author Steven Barnes is reporting on his blog (picked up by Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow calls the news confirmed) that Octavia Butler has died in Seattle following a fall...

Eddie

Eagle-eyed reader Doug Thomson spotted the paid obituary in Saturday's Los Angeles Times for Edward G. Nalbandian, better known as Eddie in TV commercials for his clothing store Zachary All....

Don Knotts, actor was 81 *

The longtime comic actor, who lived here in West Los Angeles, died of lung cancer yesterday at UCLA. Knotts was best known as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith...

Weekend shorts *

Fed all weekend, with new ones at the bottom... ⇒ Layoffs at the Los Angeles offices of Clear Channel, reports Franklin Avenue. ⇒ West magazine's fourth week is its first...

Times and UFW exchange fire

The war of words between the United Farm Workers union and the Los Angeles Times continues. To catch you up, the Times in January ran an investigative series on the...

Pasadena officer dies

Kyle Ballard was jogging with other Pasadena PD officers at the Rose Bowl Friday morning when he collapsed. The Pasadena Weekly has posted a web story saying that paramedics on...

Kate is great. Just ask her *

A piece in today's LAT Calendar asks why author Kate Braverman isn't more famous in Los Angeles, her hometown. She is more than happy to fill in Anne-Marie O'Connor on...

Daring LAFD rescue

This could have come right out of a script for "Emergency!"— or "Rescue 8," the 1950s show starring Jim Davis that gave birth to a TV genre. Yesterday at a...

First thing Friday, 2.24.06

Full plate for a Friday morning: Plaschke rips the silver from Sasha Cohen's neck, Steve Cooley's least favorite Mexican fugitive is nabbed, the Writers Guild invites Cheryl Rhoden to stay...

Dodgers clubhouse gets quiet *

New manager Grady Little doesn't have many rules for the Dodgers, but he does have one. In a multi-lingual, multi-cultural clubhouse where cliques have been a problem in the past,...

Brad pleads guilty

Skid Row's most recognizable recent drug bustee pleaded guilty this morning to "attempted possession of heroin." Actor Brad Renfro will get three years probation and must complete rehab. He was...

Penthouse Channel settling in Glendale

Xbiz reports that Penthouse is building a 50,000-square-foot production studio in Glendale to help launch its new cable channel. . CEO Marc Bell Bell "wouldn’t elaborate on why Penthouse chose...

Times grabs a Register star

Orange County Register investigative editor Mark Katches emailed his staff yesterday about losing one of his prized reporters to the Los Angeles Times: "As staff departures go, this one is...

First thing Thursday, 2.23.06

Maria Elena Durazo watch begins, the Z Man appears in the LA Weekly, "Ask a Mexican" cracks Column One, questions about Ed Boks—all this and an old murder in Alhambra...

Cardinal connection

One of the new cardinals of the Roman Catholic church named today by Pope Benedict XVI has a Los Angeles past. Archbishop William J. Levada, the pope's successor as head...

New look at LATimes.com

The Times website is rolling out some design tweaks today—press Ctrl-F5 on a PC to reload the new stylesheet if the pages look screwy at first. They have shrunk and...

Tribune execs rewarded

Tribune stock has lost 27% in value since the start of 2005 and most of its newspapers went through layoffs and are losing readers and advertisers, but the company yesterday...

The Envelope redux *

In case you didn't catch enough premature Oscar buzz the first time around, the LAT is publishing the best of The Envelope and other Times coverage as a special tab...

Sgt. Quipster

Malibu Sheriff's sergeant Philip Brooks dished out an amusing dose of skepticism about the story given by Swedish millionaire Stefan Eriksson to explain yesterday's crash of his Ferrari Enzo on...

First thing Wednesday, 2.22.06

Another near-miss at LAX, Vin Scully signs on for three more years (but that's probably it), chiding Erin Aubry Kaplan on race, the editor of the LAT's Home section moves...

If you plan to see the QM2 arrive...

You better be getting up early. Plans call for the world's largest cruise ship to appear at the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles around 4:45 a.m. on Wednesday....

Afternoon shorts

⇒ Terry Christensen appeared in federal court to plead not guilty to charges implicating him in illegal wiretapping of Kirk Kerkorian's wife by Anthony Pellicano. Christensen also resigned from the...

NYC publishing reporter for LAT

Josh Getlin, New York bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, is moving over to the Calendar staff to cover the publishing beat. He will remain bureau chief, while mixing...

Ludlow chooses resignation *

After taking the weekend to ponder his future, County Fed executive secretary-treasurer Martin Ludlow quit today and says he is cooperating with the federal investigation into violations of campaign laws...

First thing Tuesday, 2.21.06

Would you believe Jackie Goldberg for school superintendent? Rampant talk of that, plus good press for Alan Rothenberg, the mystery ooze of Olive Street takes a toll, a fresh crop...

Bar tabs

Starting this morning, more than 5,000 would-be lawyers begin taking the three-day California Bar Exam. Many will see their career hopes crash and burn. If you must gawk, the locals...

Bit of in-house news

LA Observed is the first blog to have its content licensed by NewsBank, which provides libraries and schools with material from newspapers, TV and radio news, newswires, periodicals, business journals,...

Baquet family saga

Today's New York Times has a piece on the post-Katrina travails of LAT editor Dean Baquet's New Orleans family, some of which is still transplanted in Conyers, Georgia. Conyers is...

New era at blogging.la

Blogging.la and the rest of the Metroblogging empire this afternoon unveiled a thorough redesign. Gray shades, bigger pictures and bolder text are among the visual changes, plus there are new...

He lasted seven weeks in PR

Ray Richmond quit his Hollywood Reporter column in December to jump to E! Entertainment Television as director of corporate and trade publicity. Tomorrow he jumps back to THR. He 'splains...

Ken Starr takes to the air

On the eve of the scheduled San Quentin execution of convicted killer Michael Morales, his lawyer Kenneth Starr talks about the case with Warren Olney on Which Way, L.A.?. Tonight...

President's Day notes

Murder sprees in Venice (maybe) and the gangland of Panorama City-North Hills...How Darry Sragow came to hire former Roy Romer advisor Glenn Gritzner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal is the...

Ensign Garcetti

I have a piece on Council President Eric Garcetti in the March issue of Los Angeles, out but not online. It talks about his rising national profile—from involvement in the...

Did you miss anything?

Slow morning for the holiday. Here are some highlights from the past week at LA Observed: Terry Christensen indicted in Pellicano case New York Times sends new wife-and-husband team to...

Hot blogs

Dave Sifry of Technorati tracks what bloggers link to and notes in his latest report that the New York Times receives by far the most inbound links—and that mainstream media...

Weekend shorts *

* Newest shorts at the bottom... ⇒ More subplots in the Anthony Pellicano affair, a thirteenth defendant and Leslie Abramson joins the case. Also, the Times says anonymous witness 'Johnny...

L.A. blogs sampler

Mimosa and Cafe Beaujolais L.A. Ritz Sunshine in a basket LAPD Wife Lebowski Fest West 2006 Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule Official Skunks Document Dump Skunks of Los...

Stodder rates a story

Today's Daily Journal (no link) features a front-page piece on John Stodder, the indicted former Fleishman-Hillard executive turned blogger who I began telling you about last month. Erin Park reports:...

Is blogging so over?

Trevor Butterworth argues in the Financial Times that, as a business model, blogs never were here. Blogging will no doubt always have a place as an underground medium in closed...

NYT switching up L.A. bureau

John Broder is returning to the Washington bureau of the New York Times, and will be replaced as Los Angeles bureau chief this summer by Jennifer Steinhauer. "One of the...

First thing Friday, 2.17.06

Martin Ludlow's possible political demise is what the clued-in class will be chattering about this morning, but there's also a Republican move to break up the school district ahead of...

Ludlow gossip turns into something *

Rumors about Villaraigosa intimate Martin Ludlow swept California political circles all week and finally make it into print in Friday's LAT: Sources say the former city councilman may take a...

New in The Planning Report

The February issue of TPR talks to Corbin Smith, project manager of the Getty Villa transformation, and also with Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller and Playa Vista president Steve Soboroff....

Derby lives another day

The city Cultural Heritage Commission overruled the staff and decided to hear a nomination for historic-cultural monument status for The Derby in Los Feliz. It will come up at some...

Mayor's homeland security advisors *

Mayor Villaraigosa's press conference du jour was to announce the members of his newly created panel on homeland security. Councilman Jack Weiss co-chairs with Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security and...

LAT homeless show

Will Campbell at blogging.la (last night), Carolyn Kellogg at LAist and Brady Westwater (this morning) blogged about last evening's forum on homelessness at the Times building. Publisher Jeff Johnson stumbled...

Big guns for Garcia

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Speaker Fabian Núñez plan to campaign on the Eastside tomorrow for Mónica García, their anointed candidate for the open school board seat to replace José Huizar....

Lacey drops some clues

Village Voice Media maximum editor Michael Lacey talked to Boston's The Phoenix about what the New Times takeover will mean at the Village Voice—and, I guess, by extension what he'll...

First thing Thursday, 2.16.06

Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register See/ReadStar-News Read Variety ReadHwd Reporter ReadLa Opinión Read Slate: Today's Papers Terry Christensen wasn't...

BH Lawyer indicted in Pellicano spying *

A federal grand jury charges that Terry Christensen, 65, paid private eye Anthony Pellicano at least $100,000 to wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the wife of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, during...

Ocean Park Cafe regrets to inform *

The tiny Santa Monica breakfast and lunch spot has a sign in the window saying it will close in March. I guess having Catherine Keener and family drop in on...

Remembering the Long Beach Pike

Inspired by yesterday's long-lost amusement parks post, Susan at 2020 Hindsight spools out her Pike stories....

L.A. vs. the Valley

Jim Bursch at West L.A. Online is peeved at the Daily News for some language in today's news story about the jaw-dropping cost of extending the Red Line all the...

Smarter traffic signals *

Those left-turn arrows going in at 160 new Los Angeles intersections will mostly be of the kind that switch to a full green light—"green ball" to traffic engineers—rather than a...

Kinsley still not editor of Atlantic

Michael Kinsley was dismissed as editor material for The Atlantic last summer, and he acknowledges in today's New York Observer that he has never been offered the job. But the...

Gary Leonard has a website

Maybe it's been around awhile, I just didn't know of takemypicture.com. Not much information about the photographer— well none really—but Leonard's gallery of Los Angeles photos dates back to the...

This is just a drill

From the Los Angeles Fire Department news blog: This morning, more than a dozen public agencies in the Greater Los Angeles area will be participating in "Operation Safe Passage", a...

In honor of spring training *

As of today, new names eligible for election to The Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals include the creator of Strat-o-Matic, a one-eyed umpire, the Hobo Roy Hobbs and the...

First thing Wednesday, 2.15.06

Today's front pagesNew York Times See/Read Washington Post See/ReadLA Times See/ReadDaily News See/ReadDaily Breeze See/ReadPress-Telegram See/Read Register See/ReadStar-News Read Variety ReadHwd Reporter ReadLa Opinión Read Ovitz and Pellicano, ugly details...

Another Episcopal church bolts

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles informed members today of another defection by an unhappy congregation. He doesn't mention the Episcopal Church's decison to ordain a gay...

Rites of spring

Jon Weisman notes at Dodger Thoughts that the real spring training has begun. The baseball beat writers have winged their way to Florida and Arizona and begun to file features...

$3.5 billion man

Quick, name the highest-grossing actor of all time.... Turn the page for the answer:...

Wilshire Theatre's future *

Front pager in the L.A. Business Journal mentions that the circa-1930 Wilshire Theatre, designed by S. Charles Lee as the Fox Beverly Hills, will be getting a $20 million makeover...

See old L.A. amusement parks

There seem to be a lot of Angelenos who fondly remember the old pony rides and amusement park that Beverly Center displaced. Re-creations of it and other long-gone amusements show...

First thing Tuesday, 2.14.06 *

Loyalty to Jill Murphy may have finally been Barry Munitz's undoing, the police commission waffles, going after Deaton, bomb on the 210 and another batch of morning media notes—all after...

Mayor offers his aid to Baca

At a news conference out in the Valley this afternoon, Mayor Villaraigosa said he made an offer yesterday to Sheriff Lee Baca to help out on the jail rioting mess....

He dared not

Sheriff Lee Baca has postponed his interview on Talk of the City for at least a day. As I sort of suspected he would this morning. Supposedly he'll make it...

Send The Hulk into the jails

Maybe he can help with the riots. From Channel 4's website: Lou Ferrigno, the former Mr. Universe and star of "The Incredible Hulk" television series, will be sworn in Monday...

Dying on the freeway

Last week it was a naked pedestrian on the 710, last night it was a woman on the 210 who got out of her car to exchange information after an...

Hollywood revival's loser: WeHo

West Hollywood is thinking about adding its own late-night trolley shuttle and taking other steps to recapture nightlife business heading Hollywood's way, the L.A. Independent says. A WeHo city report...

Wall Street not happy about LAT

Tough talk in Crain's Chicago Business about the L.A. Times being a serious drag on the Tribune Company—and charging way more for ads than the waning circulation numbers justify. Here...

First thing Monday, 2.13.06

Three lead items out of the largest local bureaucracy in the nation, none of them good news...plus Hiltzik lashes Keith Brackpool, no retraction for the UFW, the best and worst...

Blog discovery of the day

Tony Mora in North Hollywood posts photos of the wall murals he finds at carnicerias, mariscos emporiums and taco stands. The Valley is his usual canvas, but he has been...

Weekend reads *

New ones are added to the tail end through the weekend.... ⇒ Robert Parry, who frequently contributed when LA Observed took comments, returned last month from Iraq duty as a...

Kwan coming home

Michelle Kwan woke up Sunday morning, realized that it's over at age 25, and announced her withdrawal from the Turin games. She fell in practice yesterday and tweaked her leg,...

Rivers of light

Theresa at The Wit of the Staircase points to a Quicktime video that glides silently over downtown at night, letting you watch the light patterns formed by traffic moving onto...

Romer wants out

LAUSD superintendent Roy Romer has told the school board that he wants to leave by September, nine months before his contract expires, the Jewish Journal just reported on its website....

Blogging in the biz

You know it's been a tough location shoot when you get stabbed in the forehead on set and the producers get in a brawl. Second item under Studio City Tales....

Ministry of Unknown Science cancels

By all accounts they are funny and profane, but what the Ministry of Unknown Science comedy troupe lacked was permits. So they won't be staging any more "experiments" at The...

Weekend media look-ahead

A sampling of what will be in print and on the air... West magazine: Cover story on the saga of a Stradivarius violin found beside an L.A. freeway almost forty...

'Babe Ruth of porn'

Rodger Jacobs has a profile in Xbiz of Eric Edwards, said to have acted in adult films from the 1960s to the 1990s and recently both homeless with a thirteen-year-old...

More Ambassador demolition

Staffers at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles—in the office building at 3424 Wilshire—just heard a loud crash outside. They ran to the window and saw that a crane had torn...

Postscript: Chopper chick

When last we spoke of Desiree Horton, the former Channel 5 pilot who blogs at The Adventures of Chopper Chick!, she had requested that fans send Hooters t-shirts to her...

First thing Friday, 2.10.06

An exclusive on the new boss at "California Connected," a $15 million payday for three LAPD cops, Rocky's legal memo to the police commission and more Barry Munitz farewells—plus the...

Willie Campbell, Democratic mentor was 90

I had not heard of Willie Grace Campbell until Karen Wada profiled her in Los Angeles Magazine in 2004, writing that she "has changed American politics, one cup of tea...

America to Grammys: Click

Claude Brodesser at Fishbowl LA has the stats: Almost twice as many people watched "American Idol" (28.3 million) than saw the Grammy Awards (15.1 million) last night....

Munitz out at Getty *

East Coast blogger Tyler Green seems to have it first, with the email from Getty chairman John Biggs: To all Getty Staff: I wanted to let you know before we...

L.A. Angels it is

The baseball team in Orange County won the right to call itself the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. A jury voted 9-3 against Anaheim's claim that they wuz robbed....

Mayor's statement on Library Tower

Finger pointing aside, it sounds like President Bush's morning disclosure of more details about the four-year-old Al Qaeda plot to bomb Library Tower (he called it 'Liberty Tower') did catch...

Shrinking world

Chris Ayres, who interprets Los Angeles for the Brits back home as the correspondent here for the Times of London, now blogs about it on the paper's website. So L.A....

Who MWD did pick

The Breeze has a follow on the Metropolitan Water District not hiring Mayor Villaraigosa's preferred candidate, Richard Katz. The agency offered the top job to its attorney Jeffrey Kightlinger. Says...

Caruso link *

Real Estate Journal has a free link to yesterday's WSJ story about developer Rick Caruso. * Also: I added the link I meant to include this morning to the LA...

What, another commission?

Mayor Villaraigosa has filled out the city's Board of Transportation Commissioners with the daughter of State Sen. Richard Alarcon, a former deputy to Nate Holden and a former senior cop,...

Rethinking a post

LAVoice has taken down a long anonymous entry accusing a Hollywood strip club of various crimes. Mack Reed explains why. He also notes his site's 1,500th post....

Bush gives new details on L.A. attack *

Updated below: Villaraigosa feels blindsided by Bush's remarks In a speech in Washington this morning, President Bush offered more evidence that an Al Qaeda plot to take down the...

At least we agree on the date *

It was thiry-five years ago today that the bedrock buckled beneath the San Gabriel Mountains, unleashing what became the Sylmar earthquake. In all that time, people still can't agree on...

Flashes of color in the sky

The tale of L.A.'s wild parrots gets an update from Emily Green in the Times, focusing on the large flock of the red-crowned variety that roosts in Arcadia and Temple...

First thing Thursday, 2.9.06 *

Jack Weiss steps in on the police commission ruling, more jail riots, the gang war rages in Watts, girls behind bars, more left-turn arrows—it's a busy morning here at the...

Nervous about SEIU probe

The LA Weekly website posted a (perhaps final?) Rob Greene story saying that the multi-agency investigation of SEIU Local 99's help for Martin Ludlow's City Council campaign has uncovered widespread...

Marc Cooper to UFW: Aw shaddup

The LA Weekly editor has posted a defiant response to the United Farm Workers demand for a retraction of an earlier column he wrote lauding the Times series and chastising...

Perenchio declares victory

Los Angeles billionaire A. Jerrold Perenchio is apparently ready to put Univision Communications up for sale and cash out, the New York Times reports based on unnamed sources. Perenchio is...

'Johnnie Cochran Drive'

City Council members Herb Wesson and Bernard Parks want to rename 17th Street (between Norton and Bronson avenues) for the late attorney. The Board of Education OK'd Johnnie L. Cochran...

Wowed by Getty Villa, not by VF *

Tom Teicholz is impressed by the museum on PCH. Meanwhile, Tyler Green gets a look at the Getty piece in today's Vanity Fair and blogs: 'Summation of Los Angeles Times...

Fire day

Not much wind, but fire crews have already doused a small flare-up along the Reagan Freeway in Santa Susana Pass and are doing battle with flames in Malibu. School officials...

Way back before Paris

John Stodder blogs about a time when Elliot Mintz flacked for John and Yoko, not Paris, and was one of the hip voices on the late, still-missed FM station KPPC....

New mag and website to launch

BiZBash covers the live events trade and will begin an L.A. version of the magazine later in the year. The website goes up Feb. 15, followed by biweekly electronic newsletters....

NPR names a news head

Bill Marimow, the former editor of the Baltimore Sun and a protege of departed L.A. Times editor John Carroll, got the nod today as Vice President for News at National...

Long Beach pol quits over story

City Councilman Dan Baker resigned dramatically in front of TV cameras during Tuesday's council meeting, blaming a press "witch hunt" about his business dealings. Before leaving the room he wrote...

First thing Wednesday, 2.8.06

Richard Katz reportedly doesn't get the MWD gig, friends of Cesar Chavez turn their legal guns on Marc Cooper, everybody it seems is investigating the SEIU's outpouring for Martin Ludlow,...

Fashion police *

While the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim have proven they are the fast, tough, relentless local hockey team with young stars on the rise, the Los Angeles Kings are in freefall....

In the magazines

Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue out Tuesday has more than Scarlett and Keira nude on the cover (though that's a pretty decent jump-start on newsstand sales.) There's a Vicki Ward piece...

Paris Hilton cracks the case, sorta

A guy named Darnell Riley was sentenced today to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to robbing "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis in his Bel Air home. What...

L.A. headline o' the day

Naked Man Killed While Walking on 710 Freeway This after he first tried to get out of the moving car he was riding in. The driver that struck and killed...

Mayor agrees with police commission

Mayor Villaraigosa voiced his support today for the commission's decision to no longer release names of LAPD officers involved in shootings. But he isn't too happy that the commission''s executive...

First thing Tuesday, 2.7.06

Doug Dowie scores some points but not a knockdown, the police commission mums up, "Today" takes the Chino shooting story, a new Nina Zero review and paying tribute to the...

Late start

I'm otherwise occupied this morning. Back soon....

Afternoon observed

⇒ Truthdig.com's Blair Golson contends that Times editor Dean Baquet would not meet with representatives of the United Farm Workers union to hear their challenges to the paper's recent investigative...

Can't we all just get along?

Dateline: Hollywood's spoof of the week headlines the news that "automobile fatalities in Los Angeles are up 85% in the past month as residents seeking meaning in their lives intentionally...

Bloggy coincidence

I just came from a session where this year's Coro Foundation fellows interviewed me about blogs and the media. Asked to name my favorite L.A. blogs, I mentioned Theresa Duncan's...

Ed Sanders joins Westly

State Controller Steve Westly has hired Ed Sanders as his Director of Public Affairs in Southern California. Sanders used to be chief of staff for then-councilman Martin Ludlow. Westly also...

Rev. Chip Murray, producer

The Rev. Cecil Murray, who stepped down in 2004 as pastor at First AME Church, is co-producer on Color of the Cross, a new film that will feature a black...

Did Pellicano spy on Stallone, Weinraub and others?

The Smoking Gun has posted sixty pages of government allegations that private investigator Anthony Pellicano "illegally recorded Sylvester Stallone's telephone calls and accessed confidential law enforcement records pertaining to other...

Camel in San Pedro *

This photograph that the owner says shows the Quartermaster's Depot at San Pedro circa 1863 recently sold on eBay for $4,569. Visible in the scene are Union soldiers and...

Wasserman helps out an ex-colleague

Former LAT book editor Steve Wasserman, now in New York as Managing Director at the compound-named agency Kneerim and Williams at Fish and Richardson, has gotten a preempt deal for...

Pressure on MWD

Mayor Villaraigosa is lobbying hard to install his campaign advisor and former Assembly colleague Richard Katz at the head of the Metropolitan Water District—and MWD board members feeling the pressure...

First thing Monday, 2.6.06

Eyewitness News goes hi-def, James Frey has a few words for the LAT, the Downtown News loses patience with Villaraigosa and a former mayor goes in for a tuneup—plus a...

Weekend shorts

⇒ Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez writes that the Democrats would have reached more Latino voters had Antonio Villaraigosa given the English-language State of the Union response: "the ethnic politics behind...

Wartzman on 'West'

Rick Wartzman's editor's note (labeled "From First and Spring") in Sunday's debut issue of West magazine fesses up to a strong belief in the Carey McWiliams school of California reportage...

Ulin on non-non-fiction

LAT book editor David Ulin responds to the James Frey controversy in Sunday's Book Review with an essay that argues the line is fuzzy between literary truth and lie. Ten...

Pellicano "re-arrested" *

Former PI to the stars Anthony Pellicano was released today from the Taft Correctional Institution near Bakersfield, immediately taken into federal custody and moved to San Bernardino County's jail pending...

Friday afternoon shorts

⇒ The LAT explains why it's not running the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons: "Our newsroom and op-ed page editors, independently of each other, determined that the caricatures could be deemed...

What's in 'West'

Here's the story lineup for the first issue of West, the Los Angeles Times Magazine replacement that debuts in the Sunday paper. Cover story: "The Valley's Not So Civil War"...

LACMA makes it official

The museum board formally named Michael Govan as the new director and CEO. Here are this morning's Suzanne Muchnic story in the LAT and my link yesterday to the stories...

8-year-old shot by another on school bus *

The victim is expected to survive. The South L.A. kids were apparently showing off a handgun on the bus to school when the accidental shooting occured, the Times says. *...

First thing Friday, 2.3.06

Jack Weiss makes his ambition more or less official, Anthony Pellicano comes back to town, the Ambassador gets a proper send-off, Channel 13 News adds a comic, more bad news...

Joel Grover on the case *

Ohhh, now I think I know why the county Department of Health Services suddenly switched gears and yesterday released the name of the popular Olvera Street restaurant where fifteen diners...

Chick: Millions sit idle

City Controller Laura Chick's latest audit dings the Department of Transportation for letting $5 million collected from developers as "traffic mitigation funds" go unused. "There is something very wrong with...

USC business dean quits abruptly *

Yash Gupta, dean of USC's Marshall School of Business just since July 2004, will remain on campus as a professor of information and operations management, the LAT website reports. Not...

End-of-month SSP

I was interviewed at the fabulous old HMS Bounty on Wilshire this afternoon by John Rabe of KPCC News. His piece, about the loss of the Ambassador Hotel, supposedly will...

Zahniser to Weekly

David Zahniser, the Copley News Service reporter in City Hall whose work appears mostly in the Daily Breeze, is jumping to the LA Weekly. He presumably fills the spot opened...

Santa Monica cop shot *

Officer Walter Ramirez was wounded in the wrist and is recovering. He was shot while undercover this morning on 17th Street near Pico; two suspects were later arrested. Traffic on...

Pierce O'Donnell pleads *

Prominent attorney Pierce O'Donnell admitted pleaded no contest to charges of laundering campaign funds to then-City Attorney Jim Hahn's first campaign for mayor in 2001. The Times originally reported that...

First thing Thursday, 2.2.06

Looks like there's finally a new head of LACMA, Tom LaBonge finally makes it in Column One, County Health finally comes clean about the hepatitis A outbreak, Nikki Finke finally...

'West' campaign observed *

Rip Rense has some thoughts about the marketing campaign for the LAT's new West magazine, coming soon to a Sunday paper near you. Whatever the new West will be, or...

Pajama party posted

That Los Angeles Magazine piece by RJ Smith on Pajamas Media is now online, along with Smith's cover story on George Clooney ("The sexiest man Bill O'Reilly loves to hate...

Amsterdam explained

Brian Flemming gives a good argument for why a bunch of bloggers taking a freebie to Amsterdam is not a big deal. (Scott Olin Schmidt, writing at Spot-On, views it...

More on the KTLA video

Franklin Avenue has further details, including that KTLA paid $5,000 for the video of that Chino shooting by a sheriff's deputy and managed to get some of the footage on...

Going Oscar wild

The first eight pages of this morning's Calendar section in the Times—including six full opens plus most of the cover—are devoted to coverage of the Oscar nominations. The State of...

Media matters *

Updated with new entries at the bottom ⇒ Copies of the first West magazine issue were seen at the Times' Travel Show over the weekend. The cover piece in the...

First thing Wednesday, 2.1.06

In the news this morning, the FBI looks at that videotaped shooting by a deputy in Chino...misreading Los Angeles...quitting James Frey...buying off Stuckey...and Hollywood's gay thing analyzed from a couple...
Clinton fundraises in LA
kermit-la-brea-closer.jpg Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
porter-ranch-sign.jpgThe natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Wet coyote
wet-coyote-vdt.jpgSpotted between the storms at Here in Malibu.
Performing arts with cheer
guys-dolls-kevin-parry.jpgDonna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
Junkyard down
upick-firetruck-560.jpgAfter 53 years, Sun Valley's Aadlen Brothers and U-Pick Parts cleans out. Photos