Weekly archive
January 31 - February 6, 2010
Saturday, Feb. 6
From this morning in La Cañada Flintridge, via Channel 7.
Sunday at midnight is the final closing for Equator Books on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. The owners sent a note to customers and friends saying, "We ask that you come by...
The heavier-than-expected rain that fell overnight has challenged debris basis and runoff channels across the front of the San Gabriels, especially in drainages where the Station Fire burned.
After several years as an afterthought in the sports world, the Los Angeles Kings have just won their franchise-record 9th game in a row. They did it the hard way this afternoon, falling behind 3-0 to an older, more talented team — the Detroit Red Wings — but came back to win 4-3 and send another sell-out crowd out onto the streets of Downtown raucous and happy.
Friday, Feb. 5
Chief Deputy City Attorney contends in a memo apparently making its way around City Hall that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's order to lay off 1,000 city employees has no teeth under the city charter
The surprising L.A. Times headline today that Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services would "no longer strive to reunite families" proved to be a bit too surprising....
Video from the KCRW studios at Santa Monica College, showing the station in its pledge drive mode. My weekly Friday segment doesn't air today so the pledge drive can continue....
Up in Santa Barbara, finally, some justice in the saga of News-Press owner Wendy McCaw. She forced out editor Jerry Roberts and most of his staff, tried to ruin his...
The 9th district City Council member walked in to the office of Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman and made it clear that she's running in the 2013 race for mayor.
In Meg Whitman's first TV ad, the original verbiage about her three decades of living in California has been quietly changed to "many years."
“My goal is to get things noticed,” Republican media consultant Fred Davis tells Mark Z. Barabak of the L.A. Times, discussing his instant cult classic ad for Carly Fiorina's Senate...
Ethical issues seem to be a recurring theme for Channel 5, and today the Times' James Rainey takes on the paper's sister station over a three-part puff series on the "dramatic turnaround" at Ford Motor Co.
Sure glad there's nothing suspicious about the latest Charlie Sheen news...plus more amusing reaction to the Carly Fiorina demon sheep ad, doubts about the mayor's pledge to find jobs for 360 city workers, and the Expo Line to Santa Monica passes a big hurdle.
John Edwards is certainly doing his part to sell books. His dying reputation propels two onto this week's Southern California bestseller lists.
Thursday, Feb. 4
None of the 50 top New York Times executives reportedly knew that their special guest at dinner last night would be Steve Jobs, there to wow them with the new Apple iPad and its meaning to the future of media.
Most of the local action for "Battle: Los Angeles" was shot in Shreveport, Louisiana, using painted palm trees, with other footage gathered in Baton Rouge. “You’re never going to know we didn’t shoot the movie in Los Angeles,” producer Neal Moritz.
The talk of politics from coast to coast. Video link And now with Pink Floyd soundtrack....
NYU journalism professor and media critic/innovator Jay Rosen argues in a Visiting Blogger post that The Wrap fell for a tale about GOP consultant Frank Luntz going Hollywood.
Villaraigosa spokeswoman tweets early details.
Neil was the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer-winning automobile columnist who sued Sam Zell and Tribune over management of the paper.
No damage has been reported and no tsunami action is forecast.
Laurie Pike at Los Angeles magazine let the website Apartment Therapy do a tour of her Koreatown apartment. Reader reaction hasn't all been positive.
In an interview with Lee Rosenbaum of the art blog CultureGrrl, the former director of the Getty Museum opens up a bit about his problems with Getty Trust president James Wood.
In a pretty transparent bid to attract more web "interaction," L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez recently asked readers of the Times website to vote for their "worst Angeleno of all time." And of course it got gamed.
A Supreme Court justice knocks California sentencing policy and the prison guards union, higher fines for red light violations, a question about Eli Broad — and why is airport commissioner Sam Nazarian not coming to meetings?
Wednesday, Feb. 3
Jim McDonnell, a top assistant to William Bratton at the LAPD but passed over for chief, was named Wednesday to run the Long Beach Police Department. The 28-year veteran currently...
Facing a room full of people demanding that the City Council not enact layoffs or other tough steps to solve its growing deficit, that's just what the council did. Council...
The former UCLA assistant professor of information sciences and Internet culture figure was located by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on January 16 — but the news is only now getting out.
Former L.A. Times religion writer William Lobdell and ex-felon Barry Minkow have launched iBusiness Reporting to investigate inflated claims by public companies — paid for in part by short-selling stock in the companies they investigate.
The Eastsider LA posts about a little mystery in Echo Park and a call for some information about the woman who may have been known as Nita.
The Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor five local journalists at a banquet on April 27. This year's winners follow.
For some reason the weather forecast on the Los Angeles Times home page right now is calling for snow and says the temperature is 37 degrees.
Four newsroom staffers move around, plus a new Dodgers blogger and today in LATExtra.
The mayor's job czar supports Meg Whitman for governor, Gavin Newsom could ruin Janice Hahn's day and the "litmus-test politics" behind GOP opposition to Steve Cooley — plus much more.
That headline is a bit over-simplified, but not by much.
Tuesday, Feb. 2
Southers' letter to the editor has a bit of a chiding tone to it.
We enter act three of the ritual drama that accompanies budget cuts at L.A. city hall.
Leading with Rep. Jackie Speier saying she's out of the Democratic race for attorney general.
Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown was a good friend of, and frequent subject of, the late columnist Herb Caen. Brown is doing a decent job of emulating Caen's political...
Tibby Rothman of the LA Weekly interviews one of the activists she says is behind last week's guerrilla action.
Blog coverage was the best way to find out what went on.
It was less than a year ago that the Los Angeles Times surprised readers by doing away with its long-lived local news section. Today it's back, sort of — in...
The academy got what it wanted: a broader menu of best picture options, some of which aren't as worthy as one might like.
Monday, Feb. 1
Bryant scored 44 tonight in Memphis to take over the franchise lead from West, but the Lakers lost by two.
The entire collection of pictures amassed over more than half a century by the Magnum photo cooperative — Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson and friends — was driven by truck from New York City in December.
Film Independent has put up two decades of opening monologues and dozens of acceptance speeches and other clips from the show on Babelgum.
On Tuesday we begin to find out how well L.A. Times editors have been able to contain the damage from the latest management order to cut costs — by moving to some of the earliest news deadlines in town and trimming story lengths. Read the latest memo.
Your list of Grammy winners, plus blue whales change their octave, Cardinal Mahony's succession, the budget mess at City Hall, a bunch of endorsements for Janice Hahn and Ed Roski's political donations. And more.
On Feb. 1, 1951, Channel 5 in Los Angeles aired on live TV — for the first time ever — the detonation of an atomic bomb blast.
Cintra Wilson's takedown a couple of weeks ago of celebrity dresser Rita Watnick and her Beverly Hills shop Lily et Cie was entertaining on several levels. Alas, Wilson got one thing wrong.
Sunday, Jan. 31
The Inglewood Fox, closed since the 1980s, is up for sale with bids due on Friday.
The city has paid $3.35 million for ten acres and the home designed by Paul R. Williams for actress Barbara Stanwyck, a vestige of the Valleywood horse-ranching heyday.
