First thing Wednesday, 8/31

A little morning briefing...

   • Brian Cullen, the suspected killer of model Iryna Singerman, was found dead in a Tijuana motel room. Authorities say he killed himself with a bullet to the head. But they would like to talk with his wife, who jumped bail in Mexico after an accident in his bloody car. Previous post.
   • Since Getty chief Barry Munitz says that in L.A. it's "embarrassing" to fly coach, the LAT's Steve Lopez went to Burbank to gather reaction from average Joes (no Jills.)
   • Antonio Villaraigosa says he won't run for governor in a few months. This is where cynics sputter, "but he said that about running for mayor!"
   • City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo rolled out the website for his campaign to become state attorney general. An email to politics bloggers almost apologized: "We know it's a basic site - we'll be adding more bells and whistles in '06. In the meantime, I thought you might find Jerry Brown's quote of the week feature interesting."
   • Controller Laura Chick will release her follow-up audit of the mess at the Department of El Pueblo at 11 a.m.
   • Claude Brodesser, host of The Business each Monday on KCRW, is leaving Variety, says FishbowlLA.
   • In other KCRW news, incoming LAT Book Editor David Ulin spoke to Warren Olney's Which Way, L.A.? about his plans for the book review.
   • The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke deconstructs the LAT's long, long, long search for a theater critic, and outs Angela Lu as her intern.
   • Burbank councilwoman Stacy Jo Murphy resigned Tuesday night, saying the felony cocaine and child endangerment charges against her were a distraction. July post.

And as well...

Political blogger Justene Adamec, a Pasadena lawyer, created CalBlog and has posted there for several years. She still does, but Adamec is branching out. She already sends a biweekly column about poker to Blogcritics.org. Now she has surfaced at a new corporate blog called Vespaquest, extolling the virtues of the little Italian motorscooters: "In the next year, I plan to switch from car driver to scooter rider and I'm blogging the effort as well as providing insight into life's journey in general."