Saturday desk clearing

Southwest Airlines cancelled 300 flights for inspections after that hole opened up in the fuselage of a plane between Sacramento and Phoenix.
Mayor Villaraigosa's negotiated deal with the FPPC to pay a $42,000 fine over not reporting free tickets "highlights the need for that agency to clarify its regulations," says Laurie Levinson of Loyola law school. Plus coverage: LA Biz Observed, LAT, DN, City Maven, LA Weekly
In his column at Truthdig, Bill Boyarsky asks: "With all the evil people in the world, why are public schoolteachers being villainized? And how did they attract such powerful enemies?"
As many as 41 children in Los Angeles County are believed to have died of abuse or neglect in 2010, even after the county Department of Children and Family Services had investigated their home situation, according to a report released this week.
Former state Atty. Gen. John K. Van De Kamp said he was misled into appearing in ads for the city of Vernon.
With the contract for the city's much-criticized red-light cameras coming up for renewal this month, a stinging report that recommends scrapping them could hurt LAPD efforts to continue the program.
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is headed to Nigeria "as part of a delegation of election observers to monitor that deeply troubled nation’s April 9th presidential contest."
John Floyd Thomas, the Westside Rapist serial killer from the 1970s and 80s, was sentenced to multiple life terms.
Patt Morrison talks to Tim Naftali, keeper of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
Michael Jackson, the former radio talk host in L.A., dropped in on the KPCC studios during Larry Mantle's AirTalk show. "One can’t overestimate the impact Jackson had on Los Angeles radio for the decades he was on the air," Mantle blogs.
Howard Cole, managing editor of BaseballSavvy.com since its inception in March 2000 and creator of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, is the new Dodgers blogger for the Orange County Register.
Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy lived in apartment 203 of The Oceana in Santa Monica for the last seven years of his life.