Archive: South Bay

It doesn't much matter where a newsroom is located — unless you work there. Then it matters a lot. Times retention and hiring may be impacted.

Larry Altman leaves the Daily Breeze after 28 years, much of that covering murder and mayhem. "For the most part, I loved being a reporter, but the job came with so much sadness and stress."

Michael Justice, who shot for the Wall Street Journal, Daily Breeze and LA Herald Examiner, was on assignment for the port in San Pedro.

There could be a train to the Inglewood stadium but the current earliest date is 2035.

This is the first time since LA's National Football League teams left town that things have actually gotten this far.

On the third try, SpaceX brings back the Falcon 9 and lands it on a pad at Cape Canaveral. Video inside.

Federal; judge ordered video released after requests by the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and Bloomberg.

There's no real surprise here. Yes, the tar that washed up on local beaches came from 100 miles away.

Jim Dear, the former mayor, walked out of last night's city council meeting after an "incoherent rant" that included a "Lord of the Flies" reference.

An explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery just before 10 a.m. rocked the north side of Torrance and nearby areas.

Sure, it's a whole city, but Inglewood is on the rise. So it counts.

Los Angeles magazine profiles Kings coach Darryl Sutter, who might be the most entertaining coach of any pro team in Los Angeles now that Phil Jackson is gone.

Chances are your favorite media outlet over-hyped what happened over the weekend. Heal the Bay scientists offer the lay of the land.

Eric Spillman, the reporter for KTLA Channel 5, posted this photo to Twitter of World Cup fans watching in South Bay.

The Kings will take the Cup home to the streets of the South Bay this afternoon. It was intense down there last time -- check out the pics. Plus: The Cup visited Vin Scully and the Dodgers on Tuesday night.

The only question is how bad. A Texas newspaper says many of the jobs appear headed to West Plano, outside Dallas.

The race to succeed Rep. Henry Waxman in the 33rd congressional district just got more crowded. Miller will take a leave from KCRW and his Washington Post column.

Greuel is going with old Villaraigosa hands to run her campaign this time, but Ace Smith and Sean Clegg also advised one of the so-called independent PACs that pushed Greuel for mayor last year.

Wal-Mart last month sold a vacant 60-acre parcel next to the Forum and Hollywood Park in Inglewood to a mystery buyer many believe to be St. Louis Rams owner E. Stanley Kroenke. Speculation about a stadium plan abounds.

Greuel doesn't live in the Westside and coastal district, but the law doesn't mind — the voters may be another story. The list of other candidates still may be long.

Rep. Henry Waxman's decision to retire rather than run for another term makes available one of the Democrats' most valuable congressional districts.

No changes in staff at the weekly are expected, but you can see Aaron Kushner working his way deeper into Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives are working to solve the homicide of a woman that took a macabre twist on Monday.

The La Tijera Boulevard standby had been around since 1949.

The long-time restaurant at the end of runways 25R and 25L plans to close by the end of the year, the Daily Breeze reports.

Larry Altman, who covers crime for the South Bay Daily Breeze, contributes to a piece on CBS' "48 Hours: Over the Edge" airing on Saturday night. The story is about the case of Dawn Viens, who disappeared in 2009 from her Lomita home.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated the former state assemblyman, school board president and college board president -- and losing candidate for City Council -- to the Board of Public Works. That's the city's one true plum full-time paid commission.

There hasn't been a stormier career lately in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department than that of Paul Tanaka. Today the department announced that Tanaka will step down as the number two sheriff's official and retire on August 1. He was reelected Tuesday to a third term as mayor of Gardena.

In hula, it's a big thing to compete in the annual Merrie Monarch Festival held each spring in Hilo. This year there are only three troupes from outside Hawaii, and two are from the Los Angeles area. There's video inside; one halau struts its stuff Sunday in Lakewood to raise money to go.

You visit it and have dinner and drinks served by former Pan Am flight attendants. Of course.

The video is from the Sports Chalet in Torrance on Feb .1, two days before the first two of the murders that authorities attribute to rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner. It shows a man who is apparently Dorner getting two scuba tanks re-filled with air and purchasing a third tank.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o came close to winning the Heisman Trophy with an inspiring backstory about his Stanford girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, dying tragically of leukemia. Deadspin says she never existed, but instead was the creation of a former Lancaster area prep football player who used the Facebook photo of a South Bay woman to perpetrate a massive Internet and media hoax.

Rep. Janice Hahn has been profligate with the press releases recently — but this one is actually worth mentioning.

Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson sent in a letter to the Los Angeles Times responding to a piece on Saturday by Mike Love, another original member of the band — and Wilson's cousin — about how it came to be that an entity called the Beach Boys will continue to tour without Wilson or Al Jardine.

The newspapers that make up the Los Angeles News Group have been gradually blending over recent months, and today take a big step toward being a regional news operation with the emphasis on digital — and less on geography. One upshot: Daily News editor Carolina Garcia has a new role and title.

The jury found Lomita chef David Viens guilty only of second-degree murder: willful and deliberate, but not premeditated. His sentence will be 15 years to life, says the Daily Brreeze.

Politico reports that Rep. Laura Richardson, already under reprimand for pressuring her staff to work on her campaign, is now accused by the House Ethics committee of retaliating against and intimidating aides who cooperated with the earlier investigation.

A young gray whale that was found dead on Friday is believed to be the same emaciated animal that was freed from a rope off Manhattan Beach on Sept. 6.

City News Service is reporting that a 69-year-old driver was killed early this morning when his car hit a horse at Palos Verdes Drive North and Crenshaw Boulevard in Rolling Hills Estates.

If you don't know by now that our notch of the Pacific is popular with the sharks, here comes another piece of evidence. There was an amusing moment a few seconds later when the shark swam under a swimmer who had no clue.

At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the powers that be clearly signaled they want Janice Hahn to stay in Congress.

The Bob's Big Boy in Torrance is set to close Sept. 3. Cause of death? "A general lack of sales," the owner says. Boy, Bob's used to be big in LA.

Two years ago, Misty May-Treanor wasn't sure she would even try out for the London Olympics. On Wednesday, she and Kerri Wash Jennings completed their stunning run through three Olympic Games, never losing a match — and only dropping one set. They beat the American team of Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to claim their third gold medal.

John Bogert is the South Bay columnist who announced in his final column last month in the Daily Breeze that he had stopped treatment for his colon cancer. The paper has just posted the news that Bogert died Sunday afternoon at home in Pasadena.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour is expected to arrive in Los Angeles in late September, carried atop a 747 jetliner from Cape Canaveral in Florida. In mid-October it should begin the roll across town to Exposition Park.

The Stanley Cup takes off next week for its trans-Atlantic tour of the homes of each member of the Los Angeles Kings. Here's the schedule, some pics and video. Before the Cup departs, Dustin Brown will visit Children's Hospital.

John Bogert figures he has written 6,500 or so columns for the South Bay Daily Breeze since he became the paper's columnist in 1984. In his final column, running today and accompanied by a story, he says the colon cancer he told readers about a couple of years ago has essentially won. He is off treatment, and also off the Daily Breeze payroll.

Fidel Lopez was dragged from his truck, beaten and nearly killed at Florence and Normandie just minutes after the same bad luck fell on Reginald Denny, the afternoon of April 29, 1992. Lopez had gasoline poured over him as he lay on the ground and was saved from death by a pastor who told the attackers they would have to kill him too. Lopez has not been seen in the media much since then, so Times columnist Steve Lopez tracked him down. Wasn't easy.

The Los Angeles Conservancy says that the 1959 home by architect Lloyd Wright was torn down on Wednesday, "the day after the Palos Verdes Estates City Council denied the Conservancy's appeal of the decision to allow the home's demolition."

Judge Otis Wright II, a George W. Bush appointee who was confirmed in 2007, has filed for personal bankruptcy, "a rare thing for a federal judge." His home in Rancho Palos Verdes will be put on the market.

The plan is for the Levitated Mass convoy to enter Los Angeles on Thursday night — in hopes of reaching the museum on Saturday morning.

That's a respectable crowd on the sidewalk — reminded some residents of when the Olympic torch came through in 1984.

They want your vote to win a kitchen makeover from Ikea. So they had some video fun.

Berman-Sherman are in one orbit, Richardson-Hahn in another with fewer zeroes.

Mark Henry Berndt, who taught for more than 30 years at Miramonte Elementary School in South Los Angeles, was ordered held in lieu of $23 million bail after appearing in...

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.

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...

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.

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...

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.
 
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Twenty two years after the Herald Examiner folded, its final edition papers over a new pizzeria.

News item: Brian Wilson will rejoin the Beach Boys to make a 50th anniversary album and go on tour.

When Daily News editor Carolina Garcia was named editor over the Daily Breeze and Press-Telegram as well, it seemed pretty clear more moves were coming. Now they have come.

KCET producer Karen Foshay Kolesnikow and friends made this video as a school fundraiser.

Carolina Garcia, the editor of the Daily News, will now be the executive editor for the Daily Breeze and the Press-Telegram in Long Beach as well.

Author and humorist Ashley Ream blogs about stopping in to say goodbye to the Downtown bookstore.

My weekly column this evening centered on the redrawing of political lines in California, mostly on the new districts that will see Reps. Henry Waxman, Howard Berman and Janice Hahn seek reelection outside their traditional home turf.

Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego is opening an L.A. area store this summer on Artesia Boulevard in Redondo Beach.

Authorities are investigating Hideki Irabu's death as an apparent suicide and hanging.

The New York Times features a photo project on Lakewood by Tom M. Johnson.

The citizen redistricting commission 'visualization" for the congressional district that Janice Hahn just won shows just how bad it would be for her if the lines stay as drawn — and invents an entirely new concept of community of interest.

With the final election night ballots counted, and most of the mail-ins tabulated, the county registrar says it's 54.56 percent for Democrat Janice Hahn and 45.44 percent for Republican Craig Huey.

Craig Huey, the Republican running against Janice Hahn in the 36th congressional district, says he had nothing to do with it and called the video "inappropriate [and] highly offensive."

Andrew Garton, 44, a seven-year veteran of the Hawthorne Police Department, was escorting the procession for Manhattan Beach officer Mark Vasquez when his motorcycle was involved in a crash with another officer.

It will be Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey in the July 12 runoff to succeed Jane Harman in Congress.

The only real surprise is that Craig Huey, the unknown Republican businessman who finished second in the 36th congressional district, didn't get more votes. Here's why.

With 100 percent of precincts counted, Craig Huey looks to have edged his way into the runoff with Janice Hahn while Debra Bowen and Marcy Winograd peeled off Democratic votes.

The most famous dancer (I think) from San Pedro is profiled in the current New York magazine as the first black female soloist at American Ballet Theatre in decades and as the muse to Prince in a recent video. Copeland, a prodigy after she took up dance as a teenager,

The latest to form a fundraising committee is Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who filed so he can accept checks to finance a run for District Attorney, if DA Steve Cooley decides not to seek reelection in 2012.

Los Angeles Magazine asked the Chicago native to riff a little on life in Manhattan Beach.

Heal the Bay put out the call for help with the massive die-off of sardines and other fish inside King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

I don't know if folks will be as bemused in Redondo Beach, but the LAT's holy cow approach to the fish die-off works for me.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of dead anchovies are floating this morning in King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

David Viens jumped in Rancho Palos Verdes hours after being named in a Daily Breeze story.

Bowen, the California Secretary of State, announced today that she will be a candidate in the special election to replace Jane Harman.

Looks like there will be yet another p[ening and possible special election in the South Bay to Westside crescent.

The youngest daughter of Daily Breeze columnist John Bogert took to her dad's paper to fill in readers on his health after an operation discovered late-stage colon cancer.

One thing about all the newsrooms in town having blogs now is that when reporters leave, they have some place to say farewell.

The Patch approach of hyper-local news hubs debuted today on the West Coast with the unveiling of a site in the South Bay.

El Segundo skater Evan Lysacek is the Olympiic champion.

Jeffrey Tidus, an attorney with Baute & Tidus in downtown Los Angeles, died this morning of his wounds. He was found shot on the lawn in front of his home...

Redondo Beach Police officer Ken Greenleaf had to make the tough call yesterday and put down his dog. Valor, a 5-year-old black-and-gray German shepherd, had been in the hospital with...

Readers of LA Observed have seen Kevin McCollister's photographs of Los Angeles, first on his blog Jimson Weed Gazette, and more recently on its successor, East of West LA. His...

The managing editor moves up to the top job. From the story in the Daily Breeze: Sciacqua, 37, fills a position left vacant after former editor and interim publisher Phillip...

Brace yourselves for a shock -- D.J. Waldie, whose lyrical writings about his hometown have earned him awards, honors and the title 'the bard of Lakewood', is stepping down from...

Weird story. Melanie Patton Renfrew, a geography professor at Harbor College, has pleaded no contest to violating a judge's order to stop harassing KNBC weather caster Fritz Coleman. That, as...

Channel 4 has cut into programming to cover a wildfire on the Palos Verdes Peninsula that looks to be starting to burn buildings. The fire was reported just before 8...

Linda Lindus most recently was publisher of the Daily News in Longview, Wash. Story in the Press-Telegram....

Phillip Sanfield announced in the newsroom (well, technically in the publisher's conference room) this afternoon that he's leaving as executive editor and interim publisher of the Breeze to become director...

That South Bay real estate broker whose body was found inside a home for sale in Westchester has the kind of checkered past that will certainly perk up the ears...

With publisher Mark Ficarra headed to San Diego, Breeze editor Phillip Sanfield will fill in as interim publisher. Newsroom note from the new president of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group...

Mike Carroll has ben the editorial page editor at the South Bay Daily Breeze for 17 years. He's relocating to Canada. Newsroom note from editor Phillip Sanfield is after the...

The Daily Breeze education reporter died Friday night after being taken off life support with his family by his side. Here's the Daily Breeze story and blog post by his...

Vu Nguyen, who is 34, suffered cardiac arrest while playing in a weekend soccer game in Santa Monica. The Daily Breeze staff story says that Nguyen is hospitalized in a...

The Carson city council spent a chunk of its meeting last night talking about Lyndon LaRouche's "Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007." The item was on the agenda at...

John Stodder grabbed this image of the smoke that belched from the Redondo Beach power plant near King Harbor as generators cranked up to meet today's demand for air conditioning....

Daily Breeze columnist John Bogert settled in to the paper's new location with a column that hints at the glamorous life of a South Bay scribe. In one scene, he...

Jennifer Baszile, a professor of history at Yale, has written a memoir called "The Black Girl Next Door" that doesn't reflect kindly on her upbringing as an African American girl...

In April of 2007, a release arrived from the Hermosa Beach Police Department announcing that longtime spokesman Paul Wolcott was leaving his post. He didn't, until now. Wolcott has an...

Staffers who contacted me say nine positions at the Singleton-owned Daily Breeze were eliminated today, including four reporters, a web editor and a newsroom receptionist who were laid off. More...

Gene Maddaus at the Breeze delves into the decision long ago to spend $700 million building the Green Line light rail for 20 miles from Norwalk to Redondo Beach, then...

Anonymous residents of Rancho Palos Verdes have demanded, through an attorney, that the city produce eleven years of public records — "all documents, communications, e-mail, memos, contracts and other writing...

Last week the staff of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald put out the word that she would take a leave of absence to recuperate from an unstated form of cancer. Now AP...

Jim O'Shea, the Times' reluctant editor, has moved to a Manhattan Beach condo and taken to commuting downtown via Lexus. He has done an LAPD ride-along in South Los Angeles...

The website immediately slows down to molasses. Hearst's purchase includes the Palos Verdes Peninsula News, The Beach Reporter and More San Pedro. Dean Singleton's MediaNews will operate all of the...

Hearst filed a legal document today that says it will buy the South Bay Daily Breeze from Copley, then sell the Breeze to Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group along with the...