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First glance at the news is down below the fold, along with a look back at the weekend.
News
Let the derby begin
Gov. Schwarzenegger has 14 days to set a special election to fill the vacant seat opened by the death Sunday of Rep. Millender-McDonald. With loose residence requirements and a solid Democratic majority, it should prove appealing to many aspiring congresspersons.
Downtown's tallest tower
Park Fifth, proposed for the parking lot north of Pershing Square, would soar 70 or 76 stories and house 750 condos. Downtown News
O'Shea confirms today's LAT cuts
Times editor Jim O'Shea tells the NYT that "The whole industry is going through this." Here's our post last week that buyouts would likely be offered starting today.
McCaw knew child porn story untrue, says Roberts
The Santa Barbara News-Press published Sunday's story alleging that there was child porn on his work computer "in full knowledge that it was untrue," ex-editor Jerry Roberts told the New York Times. NYT Plus video of his press conference yesterday at Santa Barbara Newsroom.
Chocano's column
Variety's Anne Thompson likes "LAT film writer Carina Chocano's weekly columns better than her film reviews. (She's been taken off film critic duty, but having a score of fill-ins isn't better than having several reliable staff voices. It's a cost-saving measure that doesn't deliver value to readers."
Monday politics columns
Orlov/DN: TV wants to accompany the mayor to Latin America, LAP overtime.
Hymon/LAT: Dodger Stadium's lack of buses, plans for a Council retreat and Councilman Rosendahl on spay and neuter law: "What does it do to the dog when you take away its natural energies?"
Hymon/LAT: Dodger Stadium's lack of buses, plans for a Council retreat and Councilman Rosendahl on spay and neuter law: "What does it do to the dog when you take away its natural energies?"
Neighborhood council popularity waning
That's what turned up in a survey of city residents by the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount. DN
Rim shot
When Council President Eric Garcetti was introduced at last week's CORO dinner as having dated a CORO fellow in the past, he quipped into the mike, "guess everyone now knows about Alex [Padilla] and me...."
Noted
The Lunch Wars
CAA and ICM in Century City's food court hell. LAT
To practitioners of a business built around power lunches, no hardship has been more disagreeable than Century City's restaurant anemia. "It's atrocious," one agent said of the local culinary portfolio, which includes the blandly named Gulfstream, Breeze, Harper's and Houston's.
Their previous temples were insulated from the indignities of the life of the average Angeleno, whether you were snuggled into a red banquette at the Grill — the gold standard for power lunching — or schmoozing with A-listers at Mr. Chow, Ago or Morton's.
Curbed LA drops in on LAT Opinion
The site's Josh Williams and Dakota Smith explain their ugliest building contest in a Sunday piece. Also, D.J. Waldie puts the politics of downtown in good perspective and Nick Confalone tells the story behind his HottestHollywoodAssistants.com.
Somebody wins
The spat over John Edwards' $400 haircut has helped business at Torrenueva Hair Designs on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. LABJ
Harvey Weinstein's letter to Patrick Goldstein
Hollywood Wiretap parses the story from Saturday's Times.
Chicago Tribune moves its book review to Saturday
The LAT talked its way out of that curse. Here's why Chicago did it. CT, Chicago Reader
Last week's Editor's Dozen
Covered over the weekend
