Friday shorts

♦ L.A. Alternative covers the internal split over Monday's two immigration rallies.
♦ Daily News managing editor Melissa Lalum gave birth yesterday to a baby boy, Kelly Daniel Quinn.
♦ Mark Platte, a former L.A. Times reporter, is the new editor of the Honolulu Advertiser.
♦ Phil Hendrie is giving it up after sixteen years of making fun of the people who listen to AM radio talk shows.
♦ Jeff Jarvis blogs a lengthy response to John Carroll's complaint about newspaper owners and journalism.
♦ LAVoice.org visits in the LAFD dispatch center under City Hall East with the blogging department PIO Brian Humphrey.
♦ Former Dodgers pitcher Steve Howe died Friday when his pickup truck rolled over out in Coachella. He was 48.
♦ Coldwater Canyon will be closed Saturday for road repairs. Also, the Olympic Boulevard off-ramp on the southbound 405 in West L.A. will be closed for eight months as part of the carpool-lane work that is tearing up that freeway stretch.