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LA Observed archive
for January 2012
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
The former Lakers coach is writing "Eleven Rings" with Hugh Delehanty, the co-author of Jackson's previous bestseller, "Sacred Hoops." Penguin has agreed to publish.
When the last campaign fundraising reports came in six months ago, Austin Beutner's camp crowed how he was setting the money pace for the 2013 candidates for mayor. This time, they are pooh-poohing any of that.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi entertained Hollywood political players last night with her plans for regaining a Democratic majority in November. Plus: Obama's biggest Hollywood bundlers.
The images of 1940 Los Angeles that photographer Ansel Adams shot for Fortune magazine, then put away and forgot for awhile, are getting their first public display other than on websites.
Yes, once again it's young and mostly white actresses, fronted by Rooney Mara, Mia Wasikowska. Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain.
O'Brien, Nick Offerman and Patton Oswalt will take part in a family-friendly benefit for the Geffen Playhouse Story Pirates Play/Write program.
The Natural History Museum, downtown, Santa Monica Pier and Pacific Coast Highway are among the Los Angeles-area scenery in this new video pitch for the 2012 CR-V, featuring Matthew Broderick.
Fired teacher arrested for lewd conduct on 23 children, Michelle Obama comes to town, a redevelopment agencies explainer, film critics who lost their cars to the Hollywood arsonist get some wheels, Ed Padgett talks about LAT firing, and more.
Today's "Morning Edition" has a feature all ready to go on LA Clippers superfan Darrell Bailey, better known as "Clipper Darrell."
Jon Weisman's "outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers and baseball" has left ESPN for life on its own.
The Clippers took on the NBA's best team tonight at Staples Center, built a first half lead and hung on to win.
Ruth Price's Jazz Bakery received approval today from the Culver City city council to develop a new Frank Gehry-designed, 250-seat theater.
Oh sorry, it was just two British tourists on holiday. Were they sent home because of tweets?
In the long legal fight over Sam Zell's dubious use of employee funds to acquire control of Tribune, the good guys have won, more or less.
Mister Los Angeles, getting ready for his 63rd season in the Dodgers press box, is the local sports broadcasters' choice for best radio play by play. Oh, you think?
That's $212.9 million in professionals' fees since Sam Zell's Tribune Company slipped into bankruptcy court in 2008, plus another $17.8 million in lawyers’ expenses.
Periodic campaign reports are due Tuesday, so the day before brings the press releases trying to grab a headline (or prevent a headline) for a factoid that matters little at this stage.
"Goodreads celebrates it's Independence today", founder Otis Y. Chandler tweets.
Former speaker and losing candidate for mayor releases a statement (through campaign strategist John Shallman) saying thanks but no thanks.
KCET's weekly news show "SoCal Connected" will receive this year's Public Service Award from the Los Angeles Press Club for exposing "lavish and out of control spending at the Los Angeles Housing Authority.
Every Anglo L.A. cliche of local history and Mexican-American culture you could want, with some quaint pronunciations.
SAG Awards winners, Gov. Brown defends high-speed rail, Mayor Villaraigosa on CNN and at USC, a question for Carmen Trutanich, who runs the LAPD and a detective goes on trial for an old murder.
Bill Shaikin of the Times reports that the finalists include a team of Santa Monica financier Tom Barrack and Leo Hindery, a New Yorker and founder of the Yankees' cable channel.
California's first wild wolf since the 1920s roamed east across U.S. highway 395 on the Madeline Plains north of Susanville in Lassen County sometime in the past ten days, then seemed to slow the "dispersal" quest that began last September in northern Oregon.
Ace Smith and Sean Clegg, the longtime Nothern California-based political advisers to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have left the mayoral campaign of businessman Austin Beutner in the days since he gave a policy speech criticizing City Hall.
Foo Fighters for Obamajam, Wesson punishes City Council rivals and an LAPD detective arrested, plus more.
At the request of friends and the advice of government officials, we will report limited information, including the author's name, until more is known.
Friends of the environmental attorney Roger Carrick held a well-attended life celebration last night at Para Los Niños, the Downtown childrens' center where he was on the board and the former chairman.
San Fernando ticket controversy, James Franco upsets USC and more
I guess it's good news that the president's main venue on Feb. 15 will be in Holmby Hills, at the home of soap opera producer and writer Bradley Bell and his wife Colleen.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times did a story on the LAX-adjacent city of El Segundo becoming a trendy office location. It's got the ocean, a small-town feel west...
Just another KPCC billboard — except this one is on the roof of the Cahuenga Boulevard building adjacent to rival public radio station KPFK.
Since taking over as editor of Los Angeles in 2009, Mary Melton has "continued to push the publication beyond its former Westside comfort zone into the far corners of our megalopolis," says The Frying Pan News, the city and politics website from the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
Los Angeles Kings players Jarrett Stoll and Matt Greene let a video camera ride along as they drove from Hermosa Beach to a game at Staples Center.
Adam Leipzig, publisher of the website Cultural Weekly, doesn't pretend to be objective about the city's move to remove the Latino Theater Company from the Los Angeles Theatre Center, its Spring Street home for six years.
Geraldine Baum's farewell note to the Times newsroom reminds you what a collegial family a newspaper is to its inhabitants
An architecture student made a jigsaw puzzle out of Chicago's 50 wards
OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano's new book, "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America," was just praised by Publishers Weekly as one of the top cookbooks of the spring crop. That would be nicer for the author if it were a cookbook.
News, politics and media notes plus a melting Prius
Iris Schneider was with projectionist Tom Ruff for tonight's showing of Kubrick's "Paths of Glory."
Since 1977, Philippe has charged just nine cents for coffee — plus a penny in tax. Nice touch and marketing gimmick while it lasted
The secret City Council district maps were released publicly today, revealing whose ox is being gored. As she foreshadowed, Councilwoman Jan Perry is among the gored.
After 42 years (28 of them in Los Angeles), George Lewis' last day at work at NBC was today, not yesterday.
The well-known criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles recently was directing attorney of the Post Conviction Assistance Center. She died last week.
Former LAPD chief William Bratton was on "The Young Turks" on Current TV when he talked about the department's interactions with the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Obama Victory Fund is sending out an invitation to upcoming Obama reelection events offering local high rollers some options on how to get past their upset at the president's stance on SOPA and PIPA.
Former Orange County Register reporter Thanhha Lai "spent 15 years grinding away at a sprawling novel she could never quite get right. So, five years ago, she turned her creative energies to a verse novel about a single year in her childhood as a Vietnamese émigré."
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky isn't a fan of the coverage of his proposal to cut back on the amount of time wasted listening to the same gadflies at Board of Supervisors meetings. And he really didn't care for the Los Angeles Times story about it this past weekend.
Fighting over LA turf in redistricting, a post-election chat with Joe Buscaino, Steve Lopez stakes out disabled placard cheaters, LAPD will search the Calabasas landfill for gun and tough words for Frank McCourt from ex-Dodgers exec.
I kept seeing Twitter and Facebook posts go by marveling at the sunset over Los Angeles on Tuesday. I thought, well OK, sorry I missed it. Luckily, photographer Jonathan...
Visiting blogger Barbara Kraft, a Los Angeles writer and former Time magazine reporter, knew both Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller. She met the famous former couple independently while they were living here.
Historian Jon Wiener op-eds in the Los Angeles Times about a divisive 1966 art installation intended as a protest against the Vietnam War.
Spotted on the Los Angeles Times website.
The narrow squeeze between the San Fernando Valley and points north shuts down so often that a blog has come up with the, um, Comprehensive Newhall Pass Disaster Planning Tool.
The Oregon gray wolf that entered California on Dec. 28 has been tracked moving through Lassen County and crossing several roads and highways.
It's unclear whether this was in the works when Russ Stanton stepped down as editor of the Los Angeles Times in December.
George Lewis, the venerable NBC News correspondent in Los Angeles, is hanging up his microphone on January 31. What's he doing today, on his last day in the field? Covering the Oscar nominations.
"It's been 40 years since I took a vow of poverty and became a newspaperman," Dennis McCarthy writes in his column announcing he will retire from the Daily News on January 31.
Eleven Oscar nomoinations for "Hugo," nine best picture candidates, Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. goes to trial with Dick Clark, Westfield will serve food at LAX, Cadiz water project is back, an Occupy protester gets jail for hitting cops, plus the New York Times moves Hancock Park to "downtown Los Angeles."
Two men who met through Vimeo made a stunning video from time lapse photos of Yosemite National Park.
Levy's clients included Cannonball Adderley, Betty Carter, Roberta Flack, Herbie Hancock, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard, Ramsey Lewis, Herbie Mann, Les McCann, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson and many others. In 2006 the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Levy's role in jazz.
As of Monday's soft deadline to float a non-binding bid to buy the Dodgers, the players include Magic Johnson, Peter O'Malley, Rick Caruso and Joe Torre, Mark Cuban, Steven Cohen, Stanley Gold and the family of the late Roy Disney plus others.
The board of directors of the Los Angeles Press Club selected CBS2/KCAL9 investigative reporter David Goldstein for this year's Joseph M. Quinn Memorial Award for journalistic achievement and distinction.
Jason Alexander, the actor/writer/director, will engage in conversation with Val Zavala of KCET-TV on Wednesday night at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica.
David Wittman, the DJ Dave who made a hit YouTube music video spoof last year about getting real in the Whole Foods parking lot (on Lincoln Boulevard), and followed it up with a new satire of yoga studio culture, gets "noticed" in this past weekend's New York Times Sunday Styles section.
A fee dispute between the wealthy widow of sub-prime mortgage magnate Roland Arnall and her former tax attorney has gone to a civil jury trial in Los Angeles. That's not...
Former California Highway Patrol officer Tomiekia Johnson was convicted Monday of first-degree murder for shooting her husband beside the Riverside Freeway in 2009.
Those of you who remember Dean E. Murphy from his days reporting around town for the Los Angeles Times might want to take note of the piece he has in the Modern Love column in Sunday's New York Times.
Video: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at Dodger Stadium talking about his fandom of motorbikes.
Sherman wins a round against Berman, what sets the two congressmen apart besides their backers, Jim Newton on Herb Wesson, Channel 4 rebrands news, and more.
This morning at 9 a.m., Councilman Tom LaBonge and others will gather at the Caltrans building in Downtown to celebrate the first use of Loyd Sigman's SigAlert system.
Highland Park's rooftop pollo gets cited as a prime example of a Muffler Man derivative on the "50th anniversary of the creation of these strong and silent giants, who, with their behemoth height, are some of the largest examples of American roadside kitsch."
Armin Mueller-Stahl, the German actor who has settled in Pacific Palisades, recently returned to his birthplace in East Prussia to receive honorary citizenship. Oh, but it's so much more complicated than that.
Rep. Gabrielle Gifords to leave Congress, Simpson case detective Philip Vannatter dies and more.
The Penn State football legend who was fired last year over a child sex scandal involving an assistant died Sunday, his family announced. CBS Sports apologized for posting an erroneous news story about his death on Saturday.
Channel 4 swept the best TV newscast awards at Saturday night's Golden Mikes, and KPCC picked up nine trophies in the radio categories.
Newt Gingrich got 40 percent of the vote in Saturday's South Carolina primary, well ahead of both Mitt Romney (27 percent) and Rick Santorum (17 percent) — "upending the Republican race for the presidency."
Phil Jackson, the ex-Lakers coach, sat down for lunch by the beach on Thursday and talked with Mark Heisler, the ex-LA Times basketball columnist now writing hoops for the New York Times.
Curt Sandoval of Channel 7 tops Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth's annual list of the top 10 sports anchors and reporters on Los angeles television. A local female reporter leads his bottom ten list.
The acting police chief in the city of San Fernando has been placed on administrative leave during an investigation into an allegation that he fixed a traffic ticket for Fred Flores, an aide to Rep. Howard Berman
The Los Angeles Zoo announced today that it had euthanized its 28-year-old hippopotamus. Jabba had been sick for about a month.
The CBS 2 and KCAL duopoly launch new morning news shows this weekend with Serene Branson and Kaj Goldberg anchoring.
KPFK (FM 90.7), which had a long association with Johnny Otis, will air tributes starting tonight with Bill Gardner's 8 p.m. show, "Rhapsody in Black."
Long Beach wants to be known as more a bicycle friendly city than Portland, Oregon — and even put its claim of two-wheeled superiority on the wall of city hal
The Layover, Anthony Bourdain's new food and (a little) travel show on the Travel Channel, has been to London, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Montreal, Hong Kong, Miami, Singapore and Rome and now comes to Los Angeles. Here's where he goes.
Beyonce Knowles released this statement on today's passing of Etta James, who she portrayed in "Cadilac Records."
Cheech Marin will be the first guest on the new Gerald Rivera show that debuts Monday at 10 a.m.
The longtime Business Week correspondent in Hollywood is leaving Bloomberg BusinessWeek to be the Los Angeles bureau chief for Reuters.
Etta James, who was 73, is another of the great R&B figures to come out of the Los Angeles area. She died Friday in Riverside after suffering from ill health, including leukemia and dementia.
No Morning Buzz today. Here are Mark's headlines at LA Biz Observed....
Lucy Jones, the best-known seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, has been holding the hands of Southern Californians (and science-challenged reporters) through earthquakes for a long time now. "I’m everybody’s mother," she says in a new Smithsonian piece by Amy Wallace.
A female gray whale that summers off Sakhalin Island in the wetsern North Pacific was expected to swim past the Los Angeles County coast on Thursday and head south on Friday. Named Varvara by scientists, the eight-year-old whale is interesting to researchers for a couple of reasons.
The 29-year-old freeskier from Canada who suffered a head injury and brain damage during a Jan. 10 training run on the superpipe at Park Mountain Resort in Utah, died this morning. Her organs and tissues were donated in accordance with her wishes.
Bronson Canyon body parts, Johnny Otis tribute and more.
Chicken of the sea.
If he didn’t work at The Economist, Andreas Kluth "would still be precisely the type of cosmopolitan his magazine would want as a reader," Andrés Martinez writes for Zócalo Public Square.
Johnny Otis, the white songwriter and singer from the Bay Area who said he "chose" to live as a black man, died in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday.
Rick Perry out, Jerry Brown at City Hall, Antonio Villaraigosa at breakfast in Washington, a new radio talk show and Jonathan Gold's eulogy to Angeli.
The Southern California Slack Key Festival on Sunday at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center will feature some of the top Hawaiian musicians whose work made it into Alexander Payne's...
Turns out we might keep our own little mental map inside our heads. That's no surprise. But where it's pointed did make researchers think.
Investigators believe the body parts found off a trial under the Hollywood sign belong to a man who was only dead for a day or two.
Clearly, top Hollywood executives feel burned that President Obama has stopped backing their very controversial pet measures to fight content piracy. But enough to drop their support? Two views from Hollywood websites.
The Pacifica station builds around Truthdig Radio and also announces a new backup generator on Mount Wilson to guard against outages.
Arianna Huffington and AOL chairman Tim Armstrong have been dropping hints about the Huffington Post Streaming Network, or HPSN.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has posted pics of the sinking cruise ship and passengers from before, during and after....
From the Daily Breeze, sent in by a reader. And is there a single media outlet in Los Angeles that hasn't headlined, or written into the news lede, the...
Online protests today against the Stop On-line Piracy Act in the House and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act appear to be having an effect.
Wikipedia and other sites go dark, Brown coming to town after speech, Alarcons in court, Hahn on Buscaino's election and more, including a book sale by the original MTV veejays.
LAPD cop Joe Buscaino won't have to do any more patrols if he doesn't want to. He was elected to the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday with 60 percent of the vote to just under 40 percent for Assemblyman Warren Furutani.
Romantic rivalry, not gangs, appears to be the motive in the murder of Francisco Javier Rodriguez Jr. outside the teenager's home in Winnetka. Two suspects with long rap sheets, a man and a woman, have been arrested.
The Sacramento-oriented weekly published by the York family of Malibu announced today that Thursday's ink-on-paper edition will be the last. The publication will continue on the web.
The Southern TV chef known for her Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding and similar recipes went on "Today" to explain that she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago.
The Jan. 17, 1994 earthquake went in the books as a magnitude 6.7 quake that woke up millions about 4:31 a.m. It was the largest earthquake to strike under the city of Los Angeles (beneath Reseda to be precise) since the record-keepers began writing things down.
Berman raising money fast, Brown's State of the State coming, Yaroslavsky gets exasperating, plus HuffPo, NPR's Alex Kellogg and a girls' basketball team on the Eastside.
City code since 1974 has required helipads on top of tall buildings. (Luckily for the First Interstate Building, circa 1988.) Things could be different, though, if plans move ahead for skyscrapers along Hollywood Boulevard. Empire State Building anyone?
Good on Cheryll Devall of KPCC for working up a radio piece on today's 70th anniversary of the day that Hollywood comic actress Carole Lombard died in a plane crash. Famously married to Clark Gable, Lombard was honored by FDR as the first American woman to die in the line of duty during World War II.
On Tuesday, the race between Joe Buscaino and Warren Furutani comes to a close. On KCRW today I talked about what I'll be watching for on election night. Plus: a roundup of media coverage.Politics page
The former Utah governor went before the cameras in South Carolina this morning and formally pulled out of the race for president. He called on the remaining Republican candidates to clean up their acts.
Check out some of the locations from "The Artist" that have played roles in silent films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and others.
His new book is "Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine." He'll be in conversation with Lisa Napoli.
Pioneering and wildly popular Los Angeles-based blog Boing Boing will take down all content temporarily on Wednesday, Jan. 18 to protest the proposed Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act pending in Congress.
The opener of the AMC show's fifth season will run two hours, it was announced Saturday.
Playboy Enterprises, founded in Chicago by Hugh Hefner in 1953, has been slowly moving west.
A roundup of news briefs, observations and email items.
Lots of tweeting and checking-in online tonight from the final night at Angeli Caffe on Melrose Avenue. And a call for food trucks to come feed the staff.
Just to close the circle in a story we reported earlier.
It seems the web people at the L.A. Times forgot that certain tags pop up when a mouse rolls over a photo on the paper's site.
This year's showdown in the Valley between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman does more than just echo the 1980 fight in Sacramento when Berman tried to unseat fellow Democrat Leo McCarthy as Speaker of the Assembly.
It's in hardcover nonfiction where some change is occurring.
High speed rail, impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers, a Wendy Greuel audit, growth at the Natural History Museum and more.
Tony Ortega at the Village Voice reports that the top man in the Church of Scientology used Michael Doven, then Tom Cruise's personal assistant, to get reports from inside the actor's household. The former #2 backs up the account.
No, the Los Angeles Times acknowledges in a For the Record item, the late oil legend and Los Angeles power player Armand Hammer was not also a "baking soda tycoon."
Chris Burden's installation now at LACMA came together with the help of an interesting crew that reflects Southern California.
Manny Ramirez sat down for an attempt at image rehab with ESPN and vowed that if someone will just let him play baseball this season, he'll be a good role model.
George Clooney and Viola Davis grabbed the best actor wins, Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer the supporting actor wins.
Sports talk has been putting Josh Macciello on the air to plead his case, so Ramona Shelburne of ESPN LA went over to talk to him at his rented house in Studio City.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be in Washington from Tuesday to Friday next week in his role as head of the US Conference of Mayors.
President Obama's reelection team has furnished donors with a list of more than 190 well-known Americans who the campaign hopes will stand in for the president during the year.
Jerry Lewis, the dean of the California Republicans in Congress, confirmed today what's been around for a few days now
There were Manning's Coffee Shops.
Student murdered in the Valley, City Hall park plans, making fun of TV critics, Olivia Munn gets naked, interviewing with Arianna Huffington, the KKK's membership roster in OC and more.
At 7 p.m. on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?," City Council candidates Warren Furutani and Joe Buscaino talk about the 15th district race that culminates this coming Tuesday.
Capt. Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is in Las Vegas talking up the electronic features of a black-and-white developed for the county by Raytheon.
The Service Employees International Union in California will announce today its backing of Rep. Howard L. Berman in the San Fernando Valley showdown with fellow Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman.
Doesn't look good. The woman has a history of mental issues and assaults on police, says Sheriff Lee Baca, but she wasn't arrested in this incident.
Judge OK's Dodgers deals, LAUSD may propose parcel tax, City Hall faces life without the CRA, a new editor for Huffington Post and more.
The Dodgers won't try to sell the team's television rights now, and Fox agrees not to object to the settlement between baseball and Frank McCourt.
After taking another look at the 1981 drowning of actress Natalie Wood, sheriff's detectives see no reason to alter the original finding: accidental death.
For the first time that I remember, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talks about hiding under the bed with his sister while his mother was beaten by a drunken father. “It’s probably the only time in my life that I’ve ever felt helpless," he tells Channel 2.
The 13-1 preliminary vote today would remove to need to spend $4 million to $5 million on a ballot measure — by adopting the measure's provisions.
John Miller, the TV reporter who came into the LAPD with William Bratton and left to work in counter-terrorism in Washington, is now at CBS News. He does a story on bomb-sniffing dogs at LAX.
The Wrap just announced it has created the position of Executive Editor and filled it with Lisa Fung, most recently the online editor for arts and entertainment at the Los Angeles Times website.
The 23-year veteran of Heal the Bay and the group's president for many years is stepping down to become associate director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He will stay on the group's board.
The event was held in the Compstat room at the new Police Administration Building, was hosted by Chief Charlie Beck, and included red and white wine for an audience of Civic Center types, reporters and cops.
Politics, media and more.
Best thoughts for Veronique from everyone connected with LA Observed, and our thanks for sharing Jake with Los Angeles all these years. He was one happy Malibu dog.
A new history book, UCLA: The First Century, has hundreds of photographs of the campus through the years, but this might be my favorite.
The reigning Mister Los Angeles will be the subject of the last bobblehead giveaway of the coming season at Dodger Stadium.
A Venice landscape designer has a Facebook album of almost two dozen dog noses poking out as she walks by.
Stodder, you may recall, reported to federal prison authorities last February to serve a term for his part in the Fleishman-Hillard episode that roiled City Hall a few years ago.
In my weekly commentary segment tonight with Lisa Napoli, we talk about media-shy Colorado mogul Phil Anschutz and his local right-hand, Tim Leiweke.
Shervin Lalezary, the Beverly Hills real estate attorney and reserve deputy sheriff who made the bust of arson suspect Harry Burkhart, was on Ellen DeGeneres' show.
The former Assembly Speaker and unsuccessful candidate for mayor says he can win and she can't.
Those wacky Burkharts, Chargers to stay in San Diego, LA's potholes in the NYT, arguing Proposition 13 and more.
Connie Bruck's profile of Philip Anschutz, Tim Leiweke and their empire in downtown Los Angeles — Staples Center, L.A. Live, the Los Angeles Kings, the proposed Farmers Field football stadium and more — is behind the magazine's pay wall. Here's a brief pre-look.
Read Nikki Finke's note to Variety executives, including this line: "When is Variety going to stop stealing Deadline's scoops without any credit?"
They paddled out Sunday by the hundreds in Huntington Beach to chill for a few moments of silence in memory of pioneering wave forecaster Sean Collins — followed by a ritual splashing of water and cheering that could be heard from shore.
Being attacked these days isn’t the result of saying something badly, "it’s the result of saying anything at all," Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist Meghan Daum writes in a long essay on the instant commentary (and abuse) culture so prevalent online, including and perhaps especially at LATImes.com.
'Nuff said. Look at the photo.
Tony Blankley, the former Reagan speechwriter and press secretary to Newt Gingrich in Congress who was the conservative presence on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, died Saturday after battling stomach cancer.
Lots of L.A. in the video for Lana Del Rey's first hit.
The Republicans had their own local primary election fight between House incumbents brewing due to redistricting. But Rep. Elton Gallegly said Saturday he won't run, leaving the district to fellow Republican Rep. Buck McKeon.
History buffs in the know revere it as the spot where the Portola expedition, the first European land explorers in the region, left the riverbank that later became Los Angeles and came upon a Tongva camp beside a spring in a wide grass-covered valley in August 1769.
The number of links to coverage of last night's forum between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman (and their Republican accessories) has kept growing through the day. So I'm gathering them here.
It may come back, but for now The Music Box on Hollywood Boulevard has the feel of a former venue
Hard to see today, but Downtown was encircled on at least two sides by big hills that blocked access. As L.A.'s outlying areas grew, the traffic poobahs punched through the hills with tunnels.
Berman and Sherman, John and Ken, Buscaino and Furutani, and more.
Eve Arnold was one of the first female photojournalists to join the Magnum Photos agency, in 1951. She did a book of her photos of Marilyn Monroe.
They had a cake yesterday at the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press for special correspondent Linda Deutsch.
The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens doesn't honor very many L.A. journalists with an exhibition, so it's notable that they will mount a show for Al Martinez this spring.
Burkhart charged, heat records, lawmakers return to Sacramento, endorsements in the 15th council district and the Huffington Post moves into science now.
Take My Picture Gary Leonard.
Charles McNulty's year-end lookbacks "demonstrated anew [the paper's] curiously constricted view of the importance of the other LAT — LA theater."
She resigned as ambassador to the Bahamas and will return to Los Angeles "to help fix the president's troubled relationship with the entertainment industry." Plus: Keith Olbermann, Berman-Sherman.
OR7 is ready for his closeup. Or he was back on November 14, when the first gray wolf known to roam in lower Oregon and California in many decades was likely photographed by a hunter's trail camera.
Celestino Drago has decided not to renew the lease for Drago on Wilshire Boulevard.
Steve Chiotakis has host "Marketplace Morning Report" since 2008. He will be the afternoon news anchor during "All Things Considered."
Joe Torre joins Caruso bid for Dodgers, Wesson wields the gavel, Jan Perry as mayoral candidate, more on the deputy who nabbed the arson suspect, MTV caves to Movie Smackdown and an auxiliary bishop admits fathering two children.
British website The Poke (slogan Time well wasted) posted a poem containing most of the pronunciation variances you're ever likely to encounter in speaking English.
Email from Angeli Caffe says that Evan Kleiman's Melrose Avenue Italian trattoria will stay open until Jan. 13, instead of closing after the meals of Jan. 8 as previously announced.
Cartoonist and satirist Lalo Alcaraz has relaunched Pocho, his news y satire site, to target Latinos nationwide. Bylines include Barney Asada (get it?) and posts from Alcaraz, including his review of 2011 in cartoons.
David Beckham won't be joining the Paris Saint-Germain soccer club after all, and that team says he will be staying in Los Angeles with the Galaxy.
Villaraigosa's fiscal health game, LAWA looking for PR help, Dukakis jumps into Sherman-Berman, the Union-Tribune rebrands in San Diego and an L.A. journalist writes about the death of his brother over the holidays. Plus it's caucus day in Iowa.
I guess the Los Angeles County reserve sheriff's deputy who made the traffic stop that netted arson suspect Harry Burkhart is OK looking too.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says at the presser that Burkhart has been booked on one count of arson. Chief Beck says they got their man.
Last week's post about Life magazine's newly available trove of unpublished on-set photos from the film shoot for "It's a Wonderful Life" brought a nice email pointer to a story by Michael Fessier.Previously on LA Observed:
Valley of 'It's a Wonderful Life'
When Encino became Bedford Falls
At least one of the family groups videotaped up close off the Southern California coast last month was back this weekend. Maybe they live here now.
The German native is 24 years old and suspected of setting as many as 53 fires, with property damage over $2 million.
Photo: B-2 bombers circle over the northeast San Fernando Valley this morning before the Rose Parade flyover. Photo: Roger Vargo/Explore Historic California
Kurt Kamm's "Red Flag Warning" is about an arsonist setting fires around Los Angeles.
A German man who several sources said "is believed to be the same person seen in a surveillance video released by police Sunday" was detained by a reserve sheriff's deputy this morning near Sunset and Fairfax.
Senior communities are being changed from the inside by aging baby boomers. Headline for the Orange Coast magazine cover story: "Sexagenarians, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll."
If Occupy LA members sneak a little civil disobedience into today's Rose Parade, they won't be the first to exploit Pasadena's big day. Sennett got there first.
Greuel joins City Council President Herb Wesson and the Times in backing the LAPD cop in the race. For the Times, the endorsement comes with a caution that Buscaino is not all that impressive.
Yes, a roundup of news briefs that's about a day too late. But still, out with the old and in with the new.
Police distributed video Sunday of a man they say was seen near more than one of the fires in the recent spree of arson fires that has centered in Hollywood and West Hollywood. Plus more updates and a Facebook page.
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
