Morning Buzz: Monday 5.18.09

• Former Speaker Willie Brown says Sacramento is in "total panic" believing the tax props will lose on Tuesday's ballot, and he blames years of bad decisions by the governor and Legislature for creating the fix. SF Chronicle
• Woody Allen settles his suit against American Apparel for using an doctored clip from Annie Hall, says he gets $5 million. AP
• Last night's quake probably occurred along the potentially dangerous Newport-Inglewood fault, source of the deadly 1933 Long Beach quake. LAT
  And:Looks like Fox 11 was the first TV station to post quake news on the web. RichDeMuro
• David Geffen remains seriously interested in buying a sizable piece of the New York Times or taking it over completely, according to "people who are very familiar with his thinking," say two of the NYT's top media reporters. NYT
• There may be a new richest man in L.A. now that Eli Broad has lost a bunch of money, and Mark Lacter parses the annual LABJ guess list. LA Biz Observed
• Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have been given the discretion to negotiate lighter sentences in crack cocaine cases, following a directive from the Obama administration to reform the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine. LA Daily Journal
• Before Kelly Candaele resigned from the the board of the City Employees' Retirement System, he may have violated ethics laws by taking a $1,000 campaign contribution from Dan Weinstein, managing director of Wetherly Capital Group, after voting twice to invest in a Wetherly client. LAT
• City Hall's declaration of a "fiscal emergency" has no actual standing in the law, say aids to the mayor and others. Rick Orlov/Tipoffs
• MTA patrons have been improperly detained, pushed, choked and struck by guards at least 11 times the past two years, says the Times. LAT
• Inglewood police shot and killed Marcus Smith, 31, at a party and say he pointed a gun at officers, but there are questions. An officer was wounded in the leg. LAT, Breeze wires
• Michael Balter, contributing correspondent at Science, covers the lawsuit against UCLA scholar Jared Diamond and the New Yorker by two tribesmen from Papua New Guinea. Science
• Mayor Villaraigosa appointed USC vice president for government and community relations Thomas Sayles to the DWP board.
• NYT columnist Maureen Dowd admits lifting a paragraph from Joshua Marshall at Talking Points Memo, but blames it on a friend. TPM
• Journalist Julia Scott is blogging her week at USC Annenberg's news entrepreneur boot camp. Bargain Babe
• The city and county of Los Angeles are better trained for disaster response than many areas, says former deputy assistant secretary of state Stephen T. Ganyard. NYT Op-Ed
• Blogging from Tavis Smiley's guest house in Hancock Park. Leimert Park Beat
• Former LAT staff writer Emily Green started a website and blog about water issues in the West. Chance of Rain
• The Lakers open the Western Conference Finals at home against Denver on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
• Freelancer Scott Timberg discovers the charms of San Luis Obispo for the New York Times' Escapes section. NYT
• Guidelines for how to act if you're a book club member who hasn't read the book. The New Yorker
• Nice photojournalism blog I just noticed at the New York Times website. Lens
• Si Frumkin, founder of the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews, died at age 78. LAT

LA Biz Observed headlines