Morning Buzz: Friday 3.2.07

Armando Bustamante Miranda was sentenced to 90 days in county, plus three years probation and a ban on entering MTA facilities, for spilling that vial of mercury in a Red Line subway station. LAT

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is here tonight for a fundraising dinner at the home of Haim Saban. John Edwards brings his presidential aspirations to town Monday for a $2,300/per VIP reception, or a discount $1,000/per fundraiser to follow, at the Beverly Hills home of Trina and Adam Venit. Armyan Bernstein, Skip Paul and Rob Vinson are the other hosts. (I've seen at least one offer of two-for-$500 so I guess tix aren't moving so fast.) Rudy Giuliani is also here Monday to raise some bucks. Variety

Before he can help the high schooler who tagged his bus in South L.A., Mayor Villaraigosa must fill out an application, undergo a tuberculosis test and submit to fingerprinting and an interview by the school's principal. LAT

Times has a charticle on which candidates are getting what from whom. LAT

Battle of the slates. LAT

The PBS website has posted transcripts of the "News War" interviews with Times publisher David Hiller, former editor Dean Baquet and current editor Jim O'Shea. None of his made this week's broadcast. There's also the interview with Ariel Capital Management vice-chairman Charles Bobrinskoy, whose remarks caused O'Shea to issue a written retort.

Two items: Staff writer Dave Wielenga is the latest to give his notice at the OC Weekly, and the transformation of VVM into New Times is evaluated in the Boston Phoenix: "It’s no surprise that the ex–New Times brass who now lead VVM...want the Voice and its fellow papers to conform to their standardized, apolitical, SunBelt–baked vision of what alternative journalism should be. What is striking, though, is how quickly and decisively defenders of the old left-leaning, decentralized VVM ethos have been routed. The battle just began — and it’s already over." The story runs with this photo of the chain's top editor, Mike Lacey.

Reports of many layoffs and the end of graphic and original programming.

There was the LA Weekly, last August.

Why Paris Hilton stays on the media radar, by Neal Broverman in The Advocate.

The anti-Keith website OlbermannWatch.com has given up the fight.

Britney Spears, Dennis Prager, rabbis and Arabs kissing. You get the idea.

Curbed LA is running a contest.

Five Yorkshire terriers were taken at gunpoint from a Koreatown home. A surveillance video shows the perps.LAT

Expensive snow boarding trip. LAT