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LA's longtime news anchor signed off KCAL last Friday (watch the video inside) and has the starring role in a new short film (watch it too.)
LA Observed archive
for September 2014
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
LA's longtime news anchor signed off KCAL last Friday (watch the video inside) and has the starring role in a new short film (watch it too.)
I'm still traveling but came across some stories with Los Angeles angles worth mentioning — plus the unexpected sounds of a Mexican band deep in the French Basque country.
A blown save let Derek Jeter come up in the bottom of the ninth inning with the winning run on base. One pitch later, the Yankees have the win and the Jeter legend adds a final paragraph.
Moore, the author of two books set in surfing culture, was taken captive while working on a book about Somali pirates. He had moved to Berlin from the South Bay before going to Africa.
Dodgers clinch(!), Aaron Kushner talks to USA Today, the biggest Craftsman in LA is for sale, and it's adios to Red Medicine.
New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet has announced his first big remake of the organizational ranks of the paper, choosing to replace his old job of managing editor with four deputy executive editors and the new position of creative director. Reads the memo.
In a farewell email, the OC Reg's bureau chief in Washington says the parent company is closing its DC outpost.
Imported wind power, the Port of LA Fire, an Airbnb tax conundrum, and LA gets bicycle libraries -- a few links and updates to help pass the time until Kevin returns.
The list of layoffs at the OC Register, which began yesterday in the wake of the closing of the print edition of the LA Register, continues to grow, according to OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano.
OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano says the final blow to the Los Angeles Register came when the company could no longer pay the LA Times to distribute the paper. Layoffs at the Register are beginning today.
An 11 p.m. email broke the news to Register staffers. The Los Angeles website will continue, as will Freedom's weekly papers here, but the surviving Register will focus on Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
After five years as a semi-independent website and a year under the name The Wire, the site is going back under the banner of The Atlantic.
No campaign manager, advertising, debates or web page. But there is now a Tanaka campaign video on YouTube.
I'm getting ready to head out for a couple of weeks of lighter than usual posting. But first: some news notes and items to get off the desk.
The British novelist and journalist Will Self dropped in to our fair city this summer and collected a fresh set of outsider observations about LA — and you know how we all love reading those.
We mean the actual chairs. In the screen grabs from Friday night's news, watch just the height of the seat backs behind Leyna Nguyen and Sylvia Lopez.
Passing along without comment or anything to add: "We now understand that many [staff reporters] were expecting L.A. Register to go belly up by today's end."
Valley days in the media. Why City Hall may like even-year elections. Mismanaging the VA in West LA. Black elders denounce Daniele Watts. Plus more.
Assuming you like Stefani, Shelton or Fallon. You don't even have to like all three.
Fred Roggin, Jim Rome, Marques Johnson and Jeanne Zelasko are on the schedule. Also: The LA Times wants to know which of its sports scribes have radio and TV gigs.
Alison Martino's Vintage LA community on Facebook has turned up another gem. It has been seen before, but check out the video.
Cover story on Patrick Soon-Shiong. Kuehl and Shriver debate. Gov. Brown's unusual campaign. Another sheriff deputy convicted of hiding jail inmate from the feds. Mapping the LA sewer system. You didn't win a genius grant again this year. And more.
The Spanish language daily newspaper rolled out an all-new look this week. There's now a section of English language news on the website.
LAT goes Republican for secretary of state. Three-foot buffer for bikes takes effect today. Dean Baquet after four months at top of NYT. Clear Channel renames itself. And more.
The high on Tuesday is only expected to be 102 -- 12 degrees more than right now. Could be worse, I guess.
The Dodgers will probably make it too, but reporters noticed a confrontation in the dugout between Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig that nobody would talk about after Monday's game.
But neither will Perez commit to an endorsement either way. Coverage is starting to crank up for the showdown in the Eastside and Downtown district.
Roderick Wright says he'll leave the state Senate on Sept. 22. Two incumbent assemblymen announced they would run to fill his seat.
Look for a brew pub kind of experience in about a year. The deal is for 20 years.
Time Warner Cable will allow KDOC 56 to broadcast the last games of the season, starting with the Giants series next week.
Fifteen minutes in a Sierra Madre swimming pool then back to the forest. Watch the video.
Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism proposes new $10,000 fee on students. Robert Lopez says LAT tried to keep him. Allie Mac Kay out at KTLA Morning News. LAT hires for Wall Street beat. Plus Hilda Solis and more.
Daniele Watts, who is black, and her white husband posted on Facebook they were rousted for being affectionate on Ventura Boulevard and deemed to be a suspected prostitute and john.
That's another Democrat going down for cheating on the residency laws. I wonder if that's going to keep happening.
This morning's memo from Digital First Media CEO John Paton doesn't confirm or deny. Let the speculation continue.
Support for death penalty wanes in California. Voters can't identify Neel Kashkari. Six-state boondoggle falling short. Garcetti has a new business tax idea. DWP pays out on UCLA flood damage. Plus more.
My Central Library conversation with Gary Leonard last month has been put online by Photo Friends, the supporting organization for the Los Angeles Public Library photo collection.
Narco money laundering in LA. Alarcon sentencing update. Stopping work in Bel-Air. Zocalo hiring. Update on Hall of Justice. Plus cops, courts, media and more.
The two stations will continue to operate separately but they will "share a single, over-the-air broadcast television channel," while auctioning off unneeded bandwidth and splitting the proceeds.
Chris Knap, the longtime Orange County Register investigations editor, moves to the radio-web newsroom in Pasadena. There's also a new education editor and a new regional desk. Memos inside.
Tim Molloy leaves as TV editor at The Wrap to join PBS "Frontline." Plus: TMZ scores with Ray Rice video clip. ESPN Films and Nate Silver. New seasons at KCET. New editor for Los Angeles Magazine's driving blog. And more.
Walt Mossberg, the former Wall Street Journal tech columnist now writing for the start-up Re/Code, sort of parodies the hype and sort of joins in outside the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto.
Wilson, the jazz musician and arranger whose career spanned from 1930s swing to the present, died at home in Los Angeles today at age 96. He had come down with pneumonia two weeks ago.
The ranks of veteran newspaper writers just keep shrinking. This is the second we've posted about today.
Tobar, a former foreign correspondent, has most recently been a staff writer in books. His book on the buried Chilean miners comes out next month.
As president, Pisano oversaw the transformation of NHMLA. She will stay on until a replacement is named.
Boxer looks unlikely to run. Mystery respiratory virus. Metrolink ridership keeps dropping. James Corden gets "Late Late Show." New James Ellroy books, Bob Welch's death not heart attack, and more.
If you want breaking news in the LA area at night, you might be better off not going to the LA Times website. They prefer quakebot copy to real news.
Susan Kang Schroeder/s unusual news release accused the website of "years of inaccurate and unethical web 'reporting.'" The site stands by the quote that set her off.
Alcaraz was killed on his motorcycle in a traffic collision in Torrance. He was due to start work in West LA division on Sunday.
The former hurricane Norbert heading into Baja California is now a tropical storm with winds down around 50 miles an hour. Expect big swells to continue on our beaches.
"It has been 30 years since I have had a depression that has weighed this heavily on me, so I am in new territory," the California secretary of state told the LA Times. There also have been tax liens due to missed tax payments.
Termed out supervisor tells the LA Times that she has moved into the district and hired a campaign manager. "I am concerned that there is only one woman on the City Council."
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Heyday just published a collection of oral histories: "The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher."
KCRW gathered up as much available public data as they could get on the breeds and names of dogs in Los Angeles County -- it's surprisingly difficult to get -- and produced an interesting list of the most popular dogs.
The first video under a new Los Angeles Times Originals banner debuts Sept. 13. Noted: Ex-publisher Eddy Hartenstein founded DirecTV.
Some 10,000 square feet of landscaping needs to be replaced and repairs are already underway on the popular splash pad fountain.
Shootings and fear across South LA. Brown and Kashkari debate. Rancor in OC. Blue whale numbers are back. A new gig for Jon Christensen. Plus Scientology's baby Buddha looks like L. Ron Hubbard and more.
The Hahnies came out for a reunion and Mayor Garcetti had nice things to say about the mayor who brought Bratton to the LAPD and defeated Valley secession.
David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, La Marisoul and artists in Mexico, Argentina, Mali and Congo strum and sing through "La Bamba."
Statement from Melissa Rivers says "It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers….My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh."
The Eastside campus has been hiring to raise its public affairs profile under a new president. Peter Hong is senior deputy for Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.
The draft EIR is out and shows that Renzo Piano's giant ball remains in the plan and that a big Oscar statue may take over the old May Co.'s iconic sculpture at Wilshire and Fairfax.
Danille Berrin went to temple with Sotloff in Miami and had corresponded with him about stories after they later reconnected.
Upset over stolen nude photos of celebs. Labor and the Board of Supervisors. Fallows and high speed rail. Bloomberg Politics hires Weigel and Bezos names a publisher. Dunkin' Donuts comes to Santa Monica. And much more.
Now everyone knows that a generation of Los Angeles officials has fumbled the infrastructure ball and that Garcetti and the City Council don't yet have a workable answer.
The emeritus professor at Annenberg was a prolific author and had been a correspondent for the New York Times and Look, and a writer for the late Valley Times newspaper.
There used to be a car club in Los Angeles -- maybe still is -- devoted to 1957 Chevys. The hold of that model and year is now the subject of a book on the backstory of a single car.
Minimum wage raises are popular with the people, but Garcetti risks his image as a politico who can work with business and labor. Having Eli Broad at your kick-off event doesn't hurt.
The cougar kittens that were extracted from under a car in Burbank in 2011 — saved from curious residents who were poking at them with broomsticks — now live at a sanctuary in Riverside. An update.
Robert J. Lopez has been an investigative reporter and on the cops and street action beat for the Los Angeles Times for 22 years. An early convert to digital journalism, he's also a prolific tweeter of breaking news @LAJourno.
Palm tree zoo? It's almost as if the three fan palm young 'uns have come to visit a jailed parent.
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.
