Morning Buzz: Tuesday 1.23.07

They will be everywhere, but here are some link shortcuts:
The Envelope
Movie City News
Variety
Hollywood Reporter

A pack of coyotes roaming near the Fairfax district — with as many as thirty sightings — has residents more than a little spooked. The area bounded by La Brea, Melrose, Gardner and 3rd Street is a long way from any brush of consequence. LAT

He'll attend the State of the Union speech and tomorrow address the National Press Club. He stays in Washington until Thursday for meetings of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Michael Cieply will no longer edit the entertainment coverage from the Los Angeles bureau. Instead, he'll become a Hollywood reporter and Lorne Manly, who is in NYC, will take over editing chores, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports.

This is the day that Times columnist Joel Stein sits for the LAT opinion section's first-ever online chat. He's on from 2 to 3 pm.

Joe Francis' sentence for not keeping the legally required records on girls he videotaped includes a $500,000 fine and a requirement that he get court permission before traveling anywhere for pleasure, apparently for two years. He also must perform 200 hours of community service. "Of course I've been unfairly targeted by the government," Francis said outside court. LAT

Two of the victims in the Long Beach race attack held a news conference to say they think the defendants on trial are guilty, even though the women could not identify their attackers and did not testify. The judge says he hopes to have verdicts by Friday afternoon. P-T, LAT

An appeals court injected a little sanity and ruled that the Palmdale Pony League player who hit a much-larger (by 100 pounds) bully twice with a baseball bat should not have been convicted of murder. Instead, the court said the boy clearly acted out of passion of the moment and that voluntary manslaughter would be the appropriate charge. LAT, DN

Flashback and Psyclone, a replica of Coney Island's famous Cyclone, have already been pulled from the website and are likely to be razed this year for park expansion now that Magic Mountain will remain open. Theme Park Insider.

JPL's website has a piece explaining how the move of the official downtown Los Angeles weather station has screwed up historical stats and may have been why the winter of 2004-2005 did not set a rainfall record. The new location at USC is lower in elevation and closer to the coast, and on average receives an inch less of rain per year than the old location on the DWP building on Bunker Hill. It's also cooler, so the official downtown Los Angeles temperatures have seemed lower. Hat tip to Susan Kitchens at 2020 Hindsight.

Marie Condron, a former Hahn Administration deputy and creator of New Downtown.com, is leaving as director of marketing and communications at the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce. She's moving to Bank of America as West Coast Communications Vice President.

Jonathan Kirsch hosts owner Doug Dutton, Dustin Hoffman and other guests talking about the store's plight on "The Politics of Culture," 2:30 pm on KCRW.

Life & Times is pre-empted on KCET.