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Gov. Brown signed a law to devote $24 million into rounding up nearly 40,000 handguns and assault rifles from Californians who are not legally allowed to have them. LAT
The average pay of DWP workers is nearly $100,000 (including benefits) and 50 percent higher than the average for other city workers, the Times found. The union, of course, is the biggest single independent spender on behalf of mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel. LAT
DWP union's PAC paid for new Greuel ads after its video camera just happened to get into the Greuel-Bill Clinton event at Langer's, despite the event being billed as high security. DN, LAT, KPCC
A South LA activist helps journalist Hillel Aron put into words his view of the Greuel-Garcetti mayoral race: "You've got two assholes who have been in City Hall for a decade, driving our city toward insolvency. It's not like they've been saving their good ideas for when they're mayor." LA Weekly
Mayor Villaraigosa's proposed budget has the $21 million needed to fund a 5.5% raise coming for city employees. He has urged the unions to forego the raises. LAT
Ray Joseph, Villaraigosa's pick to run the pension system for public safety employees, dropped out in advance of his final City Council confirmation, saying Wednesday he didn't want to "get wrapped up in the politics" of the agency. LAT
Former councilman and mayoral candidate Mike Woo endorsed Greuel for mayor.
City Council candidates Gil Cedillo and John Choi, from neighboring districts, will hold a joint press conference this morning at Shatto Recreation Center.
New style and usage guidelines at the Los Angeles Times mean that stories will no longer refer to individuals as "illegal immigrants" or "undocumented immigrants." LAT Readers' Rep
Immigration is one of the most contentious and compelling subjects of our time. In our coverage, we aim to report with authority and balance — to be fair, nuanced and precise. We know that language matters and that our word choices must likewise be fair, nuanced and precise.
The Times adopted its current style on immigration-related language in 1995, recommending the use of "illegal immigrants" or "undocumented immigrants" in lieu of "illegal aliens." Those phrases have become highly politicized since then, prompting the Standards and Practices Committee to consider an update. The committee has been consulting with reporters and editors from across the newsroom since last fall, as well as meeting with advocates seeking an end to the media’s use of "illegal immigrant." After hearing strong arguments for and against the current Times style, we concluded that it was time for a new approach."Illegal immigrants" is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation. The alternative suggested by the 1995 guidelines, "undocumented immigrants," similarly falls short of our goal of precision. It is also untrue in many cases, as with immigrants who possess passports or other documentation but lack valid visas.
Gustavo Arellano, editor of the OC Weekly, asks where is the diversity in all the hiring at the Orange County Register? An inexact analysis of 76 new reporters and editors finds the group is "about as white as the Balboa Bay Club membership." OC Weekly
Slate's Matthew Yglesias dismisses Joel Kotkin's latest screed on the suburbs versus cities: "every six months [he] writes some version of this exact same article in which he says media hipsters keep overhyping dense cities and downtowns while population growth evidence shows that most people move to sprawling sunbelt suburbs." Slate
"The Hit" by David Baldacci is new top bestseller in hardcover fiction at SoCal independent bookstores. Other bestsellers are "Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls" by David Sedaris (hardcover nonfiction), "The Great Gatsby" (paperback fiction) and "Wild" in paper nonfiction. Indiebound
LA Times photographer Rick Loomis won both the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Photography and the Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize for Photojournalism for his work on the series “Beyond 7 Billion.”
Byliner named Deanna Brown, the former CEO of Federated Media, as its new president.
Former LA Times staff writer Jia-Rui Chong Cook has won the Zócalo Poetry prize. Zócalo Public Square
The Los Angeles Press Club will give its president's award to Hollywood veteran Carl Reiner at a banquet on June 23.
Michael Sigman hung a bit of Frank Sinatra wisdom on his car and found it made people want to talk. Huffington Post
Vin Scully will present an award to Roz Wyman at noon at the Exposition Park rose garden for the LA Parks Foundation. As a young City Council member in the 1950s, Wyman played a key role in bringing the Dodgers to Los Angeles from Brooklyn. They should invite Jim Hahn to this event. (Pictured: Kenneth Hahn, Walter O'Malley, Wyman from USC collection.)
The LAPD released a composite sketch of man seen blowing kisses at school children in North Hills. DN, LA Weekly
After UCLA's campus-wide smoking ban kicked in, KCRW found some students sneaking smokes in bushes. Which Way, LA?
LAPD threatens closure of a painted alleyway in Boyle Heights to public events lacking permits. Streetsblog
Where in LA that New York expats settle to feel like home. LAist, The Morning News
Meet Josh Tucker, the man behind the Dodgers' Twitter feed. LA Weekly
Deanna Durbin, a teenaged singing starlet whose popularity may have saved Universal Pictures in the Depression, died in France at age 91. "She was one of the last really legitimate movie stars from the 1930s who was still with us," said film historian Alan K. Rode. LAT
