Archive by Date
October 31, 2006
Tonight's West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval isn't all slutty Dorothys and Totos, fabulous six-foot-tall Marie Antoinettes and assless chaps. These guys brought a bit of social commentary to Santa Monica Boulevard,...
The LA Observed contributors have been building up to Halloween in their own ways. TJ Sullivan gave himself a tour of the hidden cemetery in Westwood he calls "the final...
Rob Reiner's California Children and Families Commission, also known as the First 5 Commission, is the target of a stinging state audit. The commission "failed to properly award millions of...
The Los Angeles Times will start using newsprint purchased from China in December or January, says the Financial Times. Test runs have begun at the Tribune company's Orlando Sentinel....
Paparazzi agency X-17 is making plans to go after celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton for profiting from the company's photos. Radar Online says the agency is talking to other creators...
Koreatown on edge Crime has people scared. Worth noting Missed it last week, but former State Sen. Joe Dunn, a Democrat and a trial attorney by profession, has switched...
A source outside the Los Angeles Newspaper Group who has been reliable before says the Daily News suffered a scarier circulation plunge than even the drop at the Times: down...
A story in today's Wall Street Journal leads with the anecdote of an American woman in Beijing who has become a fan of Warren Olney and KCRW via iTunes. [She]...
October 30, 2006
Which says more about the culture of Los Angeles: that Lakers owner Jerry Buss gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or that Paris Hilton gets a place...
Live Free or Die Hard received the permits it wanted and will be disrupting traffic in El Segundo and the south side of LAX starting Thursday. And not just a...
Publisher Tracy Rafter (as rumored) is one of the 21 positions to be eliminated, along with three department heads and four editorial employees. They're calling it part of a restructuring...
The unraveling of the Santa Barbara News-Press continues. The paper has fired 21-year veteran reporter Melinda Burns, one of the few journalists to stay on after the Wendy McCaw meltdown,...
Emilia Wright and Michael Wright, the daughter and son-in-law of Democratic Assembly member Karen Bass, died when their car went out of control on the southbound 405 freeway at La...
Sheigh Crabtree has left The Hollywood Reporter's entertainment technology beat to try her hand at other things, one of them being the new How'd They Do That column in the...
Among big-city newspapers, only the Miami Herald (8.8%) lost a bigger percentage of its daily readers than the Los Angeles Times (8%) in today's new numbers. The Times, of course,...
Writing over at Native Intelligence, New York Observer columnist (and LA Observed regular from Hancock Park) Bruce Feirstein says the Los Angeles Times is losing the war for the hearts...
California Community Foundation gets $200 million! Even Joan Palevsky's daughter had no idea the size of her mother's fortune, or where it would end up. The foundation will announce...
October 29, 2006
First, let me say that I want West magazine to flourish. I think it should be, and on some Sundays is, an important home for California-oriented journalism. Just today the...
Here are some of the most talked-about LA Observed items from the past week... LA Weekly on the death of Miguel Contreras and LA Observed's scoops on the reaction by...
Glitches at the server end have been plaguing LA Observed all weekend. They are close to being worked out, I think, and posting should resume soon. I'm not aware of...
October 27, 2006
If I had the power, I would fly Martin Schall to Los Angeles and present him a key to the city. Herr Schall, as LA Observed long-timers know, is the...
Like most everyone else who has toured the newly expanded Griffith Observatory, Orange County Register science editor Gary Robbins was impressed by the aesthetics. "You'll want to hug the army...
Lots of political items after the jump: Admiral Brewer meets (some of) the press and goes after teachers, Mayor Villaraigosa's salary shoots past the governor and VP, Barack Obama day...
Reading between the lines, I'd guess that New York Times bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer's most painful culture shock about moving to Los Angeles this year has been parking tickets. Her...
Occidental College professor Peter Dreier, a leader of L.A.'s progressive political sphere, calls David Zahniser's story on the Miguel Contreras death cover-up "irresponsible, gutter, tabloid journalism, with no redeeming value"...
October 26, 2006
This was the day that fans of the ABC soap "General Hospital" have looked forward to for a long time: the return of the female half of Luke and Laura....
Franklin Avenue's Mike and Maria turn up on HGTV's "What is My House Worth?" LAist wants Lakers and Clippers bloggers. Dawn at Griffith Observatory. Crazy Wendy at the Santa...
By popular demand, KCRW is moving the replay of Left, Right & Center back to Friday evenings at 7 pm. The politics talk show starring Matt Miller, Robert Scheer, Arianna...
The number of college graduates who read the L.A. Times is closer to the 42% that Times columnist Tim Rutten claimed in his churlish snappish response, not the 19% that...
Times editor Dean Baquet spoke to the gathered Associated Press managing editors in his hometown of New Orleans today and urged newspaper editors not to passively accept whatever cuts the...
The timing of Mayor Villaraigosa's October trip to Asia caused some tongues to wag that he was dodging the unpleasant chore of campaigning for Phil Angelides. Maybe so, since it's...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has made a bunch of senior personnel moves, including appointment of his first "special counsel to the City Council." That sensitive hand-holding job goes to Senior...
In most election years, the Los Angeles Times Poll would be out in the field this week with a final look at the governor's race and the other statewide offices...
LA Weekly news editor Alan Mittelstaedt was mentioned only obliquely in departed columnist Harold Meyerson's email blast last night. Mittelstaedt writes the new L.A. Sniper column, which Meyerson called a...
The biggest story of the morning actually broke last night: David Zahniser's scoop on where Miguel Contreras really died, and perhaps with who, followed by ex-editor Harold Meyerson's disgust at...
October 25, 2006
I didn't set out to post two Harold Meyerson items in a row, or three LA Weekly items. News is unpredictable, though, and they are all related. Meyerson, the newly...
Harold Meyerson sets up his final Powerlines column in the LA Weekly as a look "back and forward about the city I’ve reported on and marveled at and hectored and...
Another David Zahniser headline grabber in tomorrow's LA Weekly: When labor leader Miguel Contreras collapsed of a heart attack last year, he wasn't in his car as the quasi-official line...
Look who's sleeping at David Geffen's house. Nikki Finke has her take on why it might mean something for the LAT. Former USC quarterback Matt Leinart had his baby....
Beyond today's early News & Chatter on MTA bus service and peeking inside the mayor's private office, there's good stuff to be found across the vast LA Observed network: South...
U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter ruled today that a ten-year-old legal agreement with the Bus Riders Union that prodded the MTA to spend $1.3 billion to improve service for the...
Mayor Villaraigosa met the school board's admiral today, and both came out saying the right things. "We have the same vision….This is going to be a great partnership," LAUSD superintendent-to-be...
Sure it's not the Westside stench, or even the Long Beach reek, but sensitive noses have again come through. An American Airlines 757 headed for Miami returned to LAX about...
TMZ says that a camera crew working for E! Entertainment Television entered an open gate at Brad Pitt's Hollywood Hills compound on Oct. 19 and was caught on videotape. The...
Admiral Villaraigosa and Mayor Brewer — or maybe it's the other way around — finally meet today. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as we told you yesterday, is also in L.A. for...
October 24, 2006
Invited guests streamed up to the Getty last night for the debut of "Where We Live: Photographs of America," a milestone exhibition of contemporary images donated by Village Roadshow Pictures...
A powdery substance found this evening sent everyone down to the lobby. A Los Angeles Police Department Hazardous Materials team is on the scene along with the health department. *...
LA Observed likes a good magazine cover. The New Yorker's February 27 "Watch Your Back Mountain" front today won the ASME award for the year's best news cover. The overall...
John Andrews is leaving as West Coast editor and bureau chief here of The Economist. He's heading home after a career with the magazine that has taken him to posts...
The worst is over on the southbound San Diego Freeway between Sunset Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway. After more than a year of orange cones and restricted flow that...
Dan Baum goes along for the ride with L.A.'s star Spanish-language radio deejay, Renán Almendárez Coello, for last week's New Yorker (with audio at the magazine's website.) Almendárez’s morning show,...
An LA Observed reader emails that KNX 1070 was off the air for about ten minutes this morning, starting at 7:15. Technical difficulties was the explanation when the station came...
Jerry Blaz says he'll soon close his BOOKie Joint on Reseda Boulevard. His post at ValleyNews.com (via The Valley Observed) talks about the book biz and some of the clientele...
Rafat Ali's Santa Monica-based news operation — a success story among the many local web startups — has completely redesigned and shifted to a new content management system. PaidContent.org originally...
Click below to see what's up here at the start of the day: more shouting over the Measure R mailers, another Daily News blog and a correction o' the day...
October 23, 2006
Mayor Villaraigosa returned to City Hall today almost giddy from his fortnight in Asia. Flanked by twenty fellow travelers, the mayor met the media this morning and talked about the...
John Shallman, the campaign consultant for Measure R on the Los Angeles ballot, will soon be receiving a letter from City Controller Laura Chick, if he hasn't aready. She opposes...
The Hollywood Reporter has joined the website redesign parade, giving the site a thorough remake. Flackage: New features include site-wide integration of The Reporter’s database, streamlined video, easier navigation and...
Kurt Andersen is a New Yorker, but as the onetime editor-in-chief of a couple of decent magazines (Spy, New York), columnist at others (The New Yorker, Time) and co-founder of...
Ross Becker's "fluid format" half-hour news show "The Local Story" ran most of the summer on KNBC, then dropped back into a new life as a web-only production. Well, after...
New campaign ads for the billion-dollar housing bond on the Los Angeles ballot debut tomorrow, on cable and broadcast TV. Here's a sneak peek on YouTube. They were shot by...
Is La Opinión spinning its coverage of the scare letter sent to Orange County Latinos by Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen? Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly raises the question...
I'm not sure that ambushing your customers with an unfamiliar product and giving the perception of less content — four front page stories instead of the usual six or seven...
There's a big Monday helping of Buzz after the jump, nicely hidden away where you don't have to see it if you don't want. But there's lots of good stuff,...
The three-year veteran was killed Sunday morning during a routine traffic accident investigation at Riverside Drive and Hyperion Avenue. He was in the street when struck by a car traveling...
October 22, 2006
Daily News columnist Mariel Garza offers newly chosen L.A. Unified superintendent David L. Brewer some sage tips on how politics works in Los Angeles. Abridged: In L.A., it's all about...
Otis Chandler's classic car collection brought more than $36 million at Saturday's auction. Video screens showed bids in dollars, British pounds, euros, Swiss francs and Japanese yen. The Screen...
October 21, 2006
Authors, publishers and good bookstore people — revelers all — partied tonight in the Gold Room at the Biltmore downtown for the 2006 Southern California Booksellers Association awards. Carolyn See,...
In town from England for the press sit-downs to promote The Prestige, actor Michael Caine sounded morose about what's become of the city he knew two decades ago. Before talking...
It was a good week across all the LA Observed blogs. Here is an editor's dozen of notable news, scoops and observations: David Zahniser is the best reporter at City...
After an internal redesign process that has gone on for years, Sunday's Los Angeles Times will unveil a busy new look on the front page and announce a major shift...
October 20, 2006
George Weller is the Santa Monica driver who killed ten people at the Santa Monica farmers market in 2003. The jury has been deliberating since Oct. 6. We'll let you...
Well yeehaw, Saul Levine is bringing country music back to the Los Angeles airwaves. The last indie L.A. broadcaster of any note has switched AM 540 from standards to the...
Remember the amazing news that newlywed James Woodson died from a bullet that came out of the air and struck him in the back while he gardened in Sherman Oaks?...
Light version today... NBC drops 8 pm sitcoms The 8-9 hour of prime time will be for games shows and other inexpensive fare. LAT, Variety What Rocky said The Times...
Los Angeles magazine's RJ Smith takes notice of David Zahniser's run of noteworthy stories in the LA Weekly (and previously in the Daily Breeze) and pronounces him the top beat...
October 19, 2006
As I thought in today's Morning Buzz, the Z File is a new column label in the LA Weekly for David Zahniser. Also new in today's issue is L.A. Sniper,...
Agents from the FBI's foreign counterintelligence unit have searched the Valley Village home of Abraham Lesnik, a senior scientist on anti-missile systems, looking for evidence that high-security information in his...
Cops and others who work the streets downtown call the boils, abscesses and infections they see all the time Skid Row staph — a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It's...
NBC cuts come today NBC Universal Television Group head Jeff Zucker will detail cost cuts at a town hall meeting at NBC’s headquarters. Layoffs are expected. MSNBC in particular...
October 18, 2006
Jacob Soboroff just got a new HD video camera and went over to the Cornfield state park downtown yesterday to try it out. Walking the grounds he saw Huell Howser,...
Editor & Publisher, the newspaper trade mag, likes L.A. Times Cairo bureau chief Megan Stack. A profile posted today says that Stack, then the Houston bureau chief, happened to be...
Former L.A. Times reporter Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson has been reporting on Sacramento and politics for the Orange County Register for the last little while, but she may need to pick...
The L.A. Times is really embracing this whole solicit free advice idea. In addition to the Manhattan Project and asking readers to share tips at the Opinion blog, the paper...
Going after Bert Fields Prosecutors engaged in a "last-ditch effort" to tie the Hollywood superlawyer to the Anthony Pellicano case have summoned ten members of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman...
The troubled county hospital in Willowbrook will become part of Harbor-UCLA medical center and get a new name: Harbor-Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital. Under the plan approved by the...
October 17, 2006
Michael Crichton is joining the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with Yahoo chairman and CEO Terry Semel and philanthropist and tech entrepreneur David Bohnett. Crichton,...
LA Biz Observed had it early this morning: the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, Debra Yang, is resigning to join Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and co-chair the firm's crisis management...
Today's San Francisco Chronicle editorial page wishes David Brewer luck but finds his selection to run L.A. Unified — and everything about the new governance here — rather curious. While...
On last Friday's LA Observed Neon Cruise, spontaneous applause broke out on the bus when we sighted the newly lit Griffith Observatory. That was cool. Will Campbell of Blogging.la has...
Breeze chatter gets louder Buzz within at least one L.A. Newspaper Group newsroom is that their boss Dean Singleton will announce soon that he has purchased the Daily Breeze...
October 16, 2006
The best Los Angeles story in Sunday's New York Times was a magazine piece about the fight against urban pigeons — and the people who feed them — by neighborhood...
Is the ex-New York Daily News gossip columnist about to pop up as the long-awaited in-house gossip for the L.A. Times? I don't know, but intriguing stars are aligned. Grove...
With the demise of the Los Angeles Alternative in print form, Allison Margolin needed a new place to advertise her services as L.A.'s Dopest Attorney. She found one. Ads for...
ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" demolished the Redondo Beach home of paralyzed LAPD officer Kristina Ripatti last week — and now needs construction workers to finish the rebuild before she...
No News & Chatter until this evening. But go ahead and check out new posts on the other LA Observed pages: LA Biz Observed Native Intelligence SoCal Sports Observed Email...
Weekend clouds obscure the view across Santa Monica Bay, but the cloud pillars orient the geography. Veronique de Turenne has the coordinates at Here in Malibu....
LA Observed contributor Victor Merina checks in from Nashville: Here in Music City, much of the conversation around town and on sports talk shows this past week revolved around a...
October 13, 2006
Jessica Coen is posting her final Gawker items today after two years at the blog. On the way out, she's telling a few (blind-item) tales and maybe holding a match...
Mayor Villaraigosa's office has issued a second statement on the selection of Vice Admiral Brewer to head the Los Angeles Unified School District. It's considerably more let's-get-along than yesterday's "deeply...
Admiral David Brewer, the newly designated superintendent of L.A. schools, will kick off this afternoon's Patt Morrison show at 2 pm on KPCC. He apparently will address working with Mayor...
Rep. Jane Harman isn't just wealthy, she is the most wealthy member of the House of Representatives, according to a database at the Center for Responsive Politics. Today's Daily Breeze...
Before he was a city ethics commissioner, Bill Boyarsky was city editor of the Los Angeles Times, chief of the paper's city-county bureau and a political writer for the paper....
Bill Marimow had been the editor of the Baltimore Sun and in 2004 was brought in to head National Public Radio's news operation, with the idea that he would give...
I've gotten some more details on the Los Angeles Times' sudden new quest to journalistically investigate how it can reengage with readers, an effort unfortunately dubbed the Manhattan Project (more...
Meet the Vice Admiral David L. Brewer III, the retired Navy officer hired to run the LAUSD, ran the Military Sealift Command but has never been an educator. His...
Item #1: The Tribune Company has finally decided the time is right to sell off Chicago's corporate jet. No details were divulged on what the plane was worth or what...
October 12, 2006
While the mayor is away in China, the L.A. school board — in its last gasp as an important elected body? — today announced it will give the superintendent job...
PEN Center USA, based here, announced its annual awards for books, journalism, poetry and drama by writers living in the West. In addition to the winners below, the finalists in...
James Mee, the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in Malibu who booked Mel Gibson in July, had his home computer confiscated and other records seized last month, TMZ reported this...
Gail Collins vacates to finish a sequel to her 2003 book America's Women, then will write an Op-Ed column. The new top editor for opinion at the New York Times...
Brent Hopkins at the Daily News union blog says there was another meeting yesterday between editor Ron Kaye and executives at the parent Los Angeles News Group. While productive, he...
Three investigative reporters and a half-dozen editors have been assigned to identify ideas that get readers excited about the newspaper again. Editor Dean Baquet is holding a meeting today to...
OK, sexy it's not. But the map is cool and the issue is important and even wonkishly interesting. As everybody knows, most of the rain that falls on Los Angeles...
California flavor Five finalists for the National Book Awards are from here, including Mark Z. Danielewski, whose nonlinear novel Only Revolutions is called in today's LAT "perhaps the most...
October 11, 2006
Los Angeles' biggest spending art collector was in London today and picked up Jeff Koons' stainless-steel sculpture "Cracked Egg (Blue)" for about $3.5 million. Broad has been collecting the artist's...
One of those kinda newsy days... Adam Gadahn, SoCal's man in Al Qaeda, became the first American since the 1940s to be indicted for treason. Actual treason, not the Ann...
In an annual ritual of local politics and media, the new public affairs fellows at Coro Southern California have begun their nine-month climb into positions of influence. Coro alumni include...
The L.A. Times' investigative reporters on the Getty story, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, didn't get the Pulitzer but they did get a book contract. Chasing Aphrodite was billed as...
Two more superintendent finalists named The Times adds ex-LAUSD official Maria Ott and retired Navy admiral David L. Brewer III to the list of known candidates to replace Roy...
October 10, 2006
Former Fox 11 reporter and KFI talk host Rod Bernsen appeared in federal court today and was ordered released on $850,000 bail. He has a November 13 court date for...
Catherine Elsworth, the Daily Telegraph's woman in L.A., has relocated to New York for a few weeks in part to "remind myself what proper city living is all about." She...
The Board of Education was joined by Rep. Diane Watson (a former board member), the League of Women Voters, the California School Boards Association and the PTA in today's lawsuit...
A newsroom source says the staff will be gathered shortly to be told that The Hollywood Reporter publisher Tony Uphoff is out and will be replaced by someone from Billboard....
Those billionaires interested in buying the Los Angeles Times should put their money into creating a new web-based news venture, says Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review at...
Dr. Phil house shut down Had been terrorizing mid-Wilshire neighborhood. Women dress better when they are ovulating Turns out there are visual cues to when women are at their...
October 09, 2006
Former Fox 11 reporter and KFI fill-in host (as well as retired LAPD sergeant) Rod Bernsen will be charged in federal court Tuesday in connection with "an investigation into alleged...
Doing its part to mark the 225th birthday of Los Angeles, IN Los Angeles asked author Stuart Timmons to come up with a whopper of a list: 225 places of...
George Clooney's photo spread in the November issue of Vanity Fair was shot in the garden of the late newspaper matriarch Dorothy Chandler's home, Los Tiempos, at Fifth and Lorraine...
Starting on Oct. 29, the two confusingly organized sections of Sunday Calendar in the Times will have more clearly delineated content. One will focus on movies, TV and web entertainment,...
If Los Angeles has a media gulch it's the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard from the old Carnation headquarters — where the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard are located — west into...
Author and former Los Angeles cop Joseph Wambaugh, writing on the Times op-ed page, calls Rossmore Avenue his favorite L.A. street and only partly because James Ellroy lives on it....
City Hall beat reporter Duke Helfand is on the mayor's trade trip to China and blogging about it for the Times website. In the first post we learn that Villaraigosa...
Columbus Day schedule No mail or courts, but most schools are in session and L.A. trash will be picked up. MTA service and Metrolink carry on as usual. City,...
October 08, 2006
Highlights from the busy past week at News & Chatter: Publisher out, publisher in, staff insurrection, Baquet t-shirts: exclusive insider coverage of the mess at the L.A. Times. Another scoop:...
The deposed LAT publisher tells Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal that he knew his job was on the line as soon as he went public telling the bosses at Tribune...
Forget local. Merge the best of the Tribune papers into an LAT-dominated national brand that competes on foreign and Washington news and owns coverage of entertainment and celebrity culture, Michael...
In Sunday's LAT, West magazine staff writer Lynell George revisits the large swath of traditional Los Angeles neighborhoods that came to be lumped together as South-Central after they turned African...
October 07, 2006
Going into the weekend here is some follow through on the Times and Daily News situations: LAT petition: In an email to the newsroom, Times investigations editor Vernon Loeb says...
October 06, 2006
Going out of business sales begin tomorrow at all Tower Records outlets, Mark Lacter says. It was fun while it lasted....
Actually I don't know where you get them, but Los Angeles Times foreign correspondents have donned t-shirts with editor Dean Baquet's image in solidarity with the newsroom petition. (Nope, actually...
Nikki Finke and John Amato at Crooks and Liars have posted lengthy pieces on the past right-wing connections of new L.A. Times publisher David Hiller. He was an assistant to...
At the same time that Dean Singleton's MediaNews is said to be one of two potential buyers closing in on Copley's South Bay Daily Breeze, the Los Angeles Newspaper Group...
The mayor and his LAPD detail were heading out to Canoga Park for a dedication of the renovated Westfield Plaza shopping mall (formerly Topanga Plaza) when they observed a three-car...
Times newsroom staffers are circulating another petition expressing support for editor Dean Baquet and their unhappiness at the ouster of publisher Jeff Johnson. The call for signatures is below: From:...
On the left, last week's Pasadena Weekly Best Of cover. On the right, this week's LA Weekly Best Of cover. Some see at least a stylistic resemblance. * Update: The...
Why yes, it is. On the cover of her new book, Democratic campaign steerer-turned-columnist and USC law professor Susan Estrich strikes an Ann Coulter pose. The pic, in fact, mimics...
It just gets worse. Besides the major sporting events that will overlap, officials are warning that the LA Weekly's Detour Festival in the Civic Center and the Grand Avenue Festival...
An abbreviated Buzz today, due to press of other deadlines. Nuclear meltdown caused hundreds of cancers, study says It's been 47 years since a nuclear reactor went haywire at Rocketdyne's...
October 05, 2006
Newsroom sources at the Los Angeles Times are angry that today's axe fell on ex-publisher Jeff Johnson at a personally difficult time. According to the sources, a family member this...
Saturday's game 3 of the Dodgers-Mets series will start at 4:35 pm at the stadium and be televised on Fox. Sunday's game, if it's needed, is now set to begin...
LA Observed contributor Bob Baker is a former Los Angeles Times city desk editor, reporter and writing coach. He posts at Native Intelligence that today goes down in Times lore...
The Fairfax 3 at Beverly and Fairfax is a discount house again, like it was before Laemmle took over. Every seat $3, says Regency. Previously: Fairfax 3, R.I.P....
Times editor Dean Baquet told an editors meeting at 11:30 that he can work with new publisher David Hiller. Baquet had coffee with Hiller this morning and apparently was told...
Brendan Huffman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, was one of the community leaders who signed last month's letter urging the Tribune company to reconsider cuts at the...
Updated at the bottom as new info comes in... * It's breaking this morning. Editor Dean Baquet is said to be in meetings with Tribune this morning. * The Times...
Two new editorial writers, an online editor and an articles editor for op-ed in on the second floor at the L.A. Times, and some other names headed out. Plus the...
In order to shoot scenes for Live Free or Die Hard with Bruce Willis, 20th Century Fox wants to close Imperial Highway beside LAX — and some lanes of the...
School board takes hard line President Marlene Canter says Mayor Villaraigosa will not get to interview candidates or take part in selection of the new superintendent. The mayor makes...
October 04, 2006
A memo shooting around the Los Angeles Times today introduces Nancy Sullivan, most recently SVP of Music & Digital Entertainment at Rogers & Cowan. Her job will be to tell...
The Dodgers just had two base runners thrown at home on the same single to the right field wall. Yes, a double play at the plate on a ball hit...
Corporate executives at Disney are close to deciding whether to abandon Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland and replace it with another Pirates of the Caribbean-themed attraction — timed to next...
Joe Beimel's hand wound, reportedly suffered when a glass broke in in his hotel room, means that the Dodgers will have only one lefthander in their bullpen against the Mets....
From three Craigslist jobs categories: writing/editing, customer service and tv/film/video/radio. All caps is theirs, emphasis at the end mine: Client Services/Office Assistant General office duties including phones, filing, runner, and...
LA Observed regulars may remember last year when Will Beall, a homicide investigator for the LAPD in 77th Street Division, sold a novel called L.A. Rex to Riverhead and the...
NBC 4 was first to go with the story last night, but today's Times and Daily News have many more details on the Grand Jury testimony alleging sexual favors paid...
King-Drew save The Board of Supervisors gave the conditional go-ahead to a plan to keep the emergency room open at King-Drew, shut down most other services and put the...
October 03, 2006
In an essay that ran in the Los Angeles Review, novelist Tara Ison writes about her six-month relationship with an actor who has worked enough to be familiar — and...
Nikki Finke adds some meat to Monday's Allan Mayer-exits-Sitrick stories, saying that Mayer wanted to move from crisis PR into "a more strategic kind of communications." She reports the split...
Channel 4 got pretty excited tonight about an Ana Garcia investigative report that Troy Edwards, a deputy mayor under Jim Hahn, ran up $18,000 in bills for massages and sex...
UCLA has revised the traffic alert for this afternoon that I called unhelpfully vague yesterday. They still won't say that the president is the reason that Westside traffic will bite...
She's back and she looks marvelous. Closed since Jan. 6, 2002, the restored and tastefully enlarged Griffith Observatory reopens on Nov. 3. Mayor Villaraigosa announced the date before almost a...
King-Drew proposal The ER would remain, employees would be sent to other county hospitals and Harbor-UCLA would take over under the recommendation sent to the Board of Supervisors. U.S....
October 02, 2006
Allan Mayer, who developed the entertainment practice for Sitrick and Company after writing a book with the boss, is leaving to start his own firm, Anne Thompson reports at her...
The president of these here United States is going to be on the Westside again tomorrow for a Republican fundraiser. UCLA has given its folks a day's notice, in an...
In today's story about Republican congressman Mark Foley's suggestive emails to congressional pages of the underage male variety, The Hollywood Reporter grabbed the wrong photo. After an urgent call for...
State AG Bill Lockyer's investigation of the Getty is out today and concludes Barry Munitz "violated his legal duty when he used Trust employees to run his personal errands" and...
As of yesterday, the city of Santa Monica is seeking out people who overpaid on parking tickets to give them refunds. The city has collected and quietly held on to...
"Being a TV host is the least of what I do," the Crenshaw district-based media force tells Patrick Goldstein in Sunday's LAT Calendar. The smooth-talking 42-year-old journalist and social activist...
W.W. Norton picked up the world publishing rights to The Joy of Opera by Placido Domingo, general director of the Los Angeles Opera. Steve Wasserman, the former LAT book editor...
FTVLive cites inside sources at KNBC saying layoffs are to follow a merger of assignment desks at the NBC newsroom in Burbank. Sources say that the NBC suits in New...
Shortly after Michael Ovitz launched his post-Disney comeback through Artists Management Group, the agency began amassing a noteworthy photography collection. Of course, comebacks don't always live up to their advance...
The new Observatory order You'll need a timed reservation to get into the expanded Griffith Observatory when it reopens this fall, there will be no general parking at the...
October 01, 2006
There's a flurry of new jobs and ex-jobs the last couple of days. (See Friday.) The latest involve a couple of alums of the Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau....
After taking a year off, the Dodgers slipped back into the playoffs with a win at San Francisco. Greg Maddux scattered three hits in giving them seven innings, and ends...
