Weekly archive
September 14 - September 20, 2008
Friday, Sep. 19
I guess Jim Newton really didn't want to leave the Los Angeles Times to write his book about Dwight Eisenhower — and that Publisher David Hiller was the main reason...
Last night was the second anniversary of the game where Dodgers Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson hit consecutive home runs in the ninth inning to tie...
Budget deal reached in Sacramento. Bee, LAT, SFC A Blue Line train collided with a Metro bus near near Washington Boulevard and Griffith Avenue this morning, causing 13 minor...
Veolia, the French multinational company that provided Metrolink with engineer Robert Sanchez, is already facing trial in Los Angeles federal court on suits alleging the firm routinely denied workers' rest...
Thursday, Sep. 18
Remember last year when I posted on the million-dollar wedding of real estate mogul Jeffrey Greene and New York real-estate executive Mei Sze Chan, at the groom's 27-acre Beverly Hills...
Why yes, I believe they did. Terry Christensen's law firm sent out a press release today (via Sitrick & Co.) that says he'll be "withdrawing" from the practice of law...
She's getting $50,000 to make nice and sit in the KTLA Rose Parade booth with Bob Eubanks again, says columnist Frank Mickadeit at the Register. A couple of weeks ago,...
USC student stabbed to death on a street near campus this morning. LAT Hundreds of LAPD officers are attending the funeral downtown for Spree Desha right now. No live...
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo put up an entry this morning at the Huffington Post titled "Protecting families from McCain's broken health care plan." Sample: In the name of "choice," the...
Three calls to 911 are up on the LAFD news blog: one from a passenger on the Metrolink train, one from the adjacent school and another from up on the...
The son of Councilman Herb Wesson has left the building at the Bernard Parks for Supervisor campaign, where he was field director or campaign manager, depending on who's talking. And...
Wednesday, Sep. 17
Sam Zell responded to yesterday's class-action lawsuit by Los Angeles Times employees — which was first reported here — in a Dear Partners note to the company. He calls the...
Brad Pitt announced today that he will donate $100,000 to oppose Proposition 8, the November initiative that seeks to re-eliminate same-sex marriage in California. "Because no one has the right...
USC Annenberg mothballed the original Online Journalism Review in June. But Geneva Overholser, the new director of the Annenberg School of Journalism, announced today that OJR is coming back under...
Chuck Peck's cell phone called family members 35 times on Friday night and Saturday during the hours while they waited to hear whether he had survived the Metrolink train crash...
Sam Zell's Channel 5 may be trying to distance its news from the Hal Fishman legacy, but the station announced yesterday that it's going back to the future with Rose...
Steve Lopez visits in today's column with Dorothy Green, the longtime water activist and founder of Heal the Bay who is in hospice care for metastasized cancer. She is 79,...
Tribune has no response yet to Times staffers' class-action lawsuit. LAT (The suit also made the Daily Journal front page) Mayor Villaraigosa said he is satisfied by the May...
OK, here's a last report (I think) from Tuesday night's Obama funder in Beverly Hills. On his way in to the event, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan — a...
Only four seconds elapsed from the time the two engineers could have seen each other around the curve in Chatsworth where the Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight...
Here's what the pool reporters filed from Beverly Hills for the traveling national media and the locals. Pool Report – No. 1 Sept. 16, 2008 Beverly Hills, Calif. No News....
Tuesday, Sep. 16
An LA Observed source who is at tonight's Barack Obama fundraiser (the cheaper one at the Beverly Wilshire, not the $28,500 shindig at the Greystone Mansion) messaged that it was...
Remember last year when Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein was billed as a guest instructor on oral sex at Babeland, then dropped out after we and others wrote about...
Andre Ethier, the food-blogging Dodger, showed up at Pizzeria Mozza between lunch and dinner, got a seat right away, and enjoyed himself. "Love at first bite," he writes as a...
Signs have begun going up in Downtown advising commuters. A funeral procession for Officer Spree Desha will begin at Parker Center at 8:45 am Thursday and move to the Cathedral...
The LAPD has apparently decided to convene Board of Rights hearings for some of the officers who abused media and protesters in MacArthur Park on May 1, 2007. I know...
A few minutes ago I added the names of the Los Angeles Times columnist and former reporters who sued Sam Zell in federal court today, alleging he messed with the...
The film in which Robert Downey Jr. portrays LAT columnist Steve Lopez, and Jamie Foxx plays downtown street musician Nathaniel Ayers, must be getting close. The trailer runs 2:31 on...
"Giant Eddie Murphy Head Spotted On The 405" is irresistible. He was right. Courtesy of TheJay.com: That's the San Diego Freeway in Sepulveda Pass, headed in from the San Fernando...
I'm told that lawyers representing current and former Los Angeles Times newsroom staffers are filing a class-action federal lawsuit against Sam Zell and Tribune this morning in Los Angeles, alleging...
The Annenberg Space for Photography is scheduled to open next spring on the former site of the Shubert Theater in Century City. The release says it "will be a 10,000...
The Legislature finally passed a state budget, throwing the political hot potato into the hands of Gov. Schwarzenegger, who is threatening veto. LAT, Dan Walters Times columnist Sandy Banks...
Gregory Lintner walked away from the deadly 2005 Metrolink crash in Glendale &mdash and was hailed as a hero — but died in last week's head-on accident in Chatsworth. Two...
Monday, Sep. 15
KCRW (89.9 FM) will devote this week's "Politics of Culture" to the death and literary legacy of David Foster Wallace, who killed himself last week at home in Claremont. "Bookworm"...
The man in his 50s died today at County-USC Medical Center. His name has not yet been released. The Los Angeles County coroner's office today also formally identified the engineer...
State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner made official Monday what's been expected for months: He's formally exploring a run for governor in 2010. From the Sacramento Bee: The state's only Republican...
Exciting and fairly big news in the world of Los Angeles blogs. Eric Richardson announced today that his blogdowntown has been accepted into an incubator program at Community Partners and...
Former Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell, who resigned overnight when the agency's board did not back up her statements about the engineer's culpability in the Chatsworth train crash, just talked to...
New York-based publishing writer Josh Getlin signed out over the weekend with an email to his colleagues. His job was eliminated in the July cutbacks. From: Getlin, Josh Sent: Sunday,...
Mark Lacter is keeping tabs on the morning's fast-moving stock market and financial world developments over at LA Biz Observed....
Atlantic magazine and its writer Jeffrey Goldberg are unhappy that Los Angeles photographer Jill Greenberg turned in manipulated photos of John McCain for a story, then announced that she had...
Labor unions that already put up more $4.5 million to elect Mark Ridley-Thomas to the county Board of Supervisors plan to spend millions more, says Garrett Therolf in the Times....
Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell, who had said publicly on Saturday that the agency's engineer ran a red light and caused the Chatsworth train crash, resigned after the agency's board released...
Sunday, Sep. 14
With officials concerned that commuters will abandon Metrolink, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to meet the buses arriving at Chatsworth station from Ventura County at 6 am. He will then ride...
A Metrolink dispatcher reportedly called train 111 to alert the engineer that a freight train was ahead, but reached the conductor too late. LAT Two more names of the...
My KCRW commentary on Friday talked about the Sarah Palin Effect with an eye toward the media and blogs, in particular here at LA Observed and the UCLA faculty blog...
