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Light day on the blog. I'll be at USC judging the Online News Association awards for this year.
♦ I know a true con man never stops conning, but this is still amazing: Fred Brito, the parolee arrested in June after lying to get hired as a top fundraiser at UCLA a few months back, used phony credentials to get hired in August as chief development officer for the American Red Cross in Pasadena. Only recently did a suspicious co-worker Google Brito and discover the Times did a front-page piece on his scams a month before he was hired. [* Couple of people email that the Times chased the Pasadena Star-News on this week's revelation. I have to take their word for it, since the Star-News is stuck with the L.A. News Group search engine and I can't get it to return anything on Brito (when I can get to the page at all.) ** The link at last: An editor on the inside sends the link and adds, "We’re supposed to get a new and improved search function later this month--believe me, we’re counting the days." 11 pm]
♦ Guess what, that nose-wheel problem on Jet Blue's Airbus is not so rare. Six other times in about a decade, the Airbus nose gear has gone cockeyed. LAT, NYT
♦ The urban myth is true: an LAPD captain busted sheriff's deputies dumping a homeless guy onto Skid Row.
♦ Councilman Jack Weiss is fighting the Ethics Commission's plan to fine him $25,500 for campaign violations.
♦ Times editor Dean Baquet met Brady Westwater Thursday and said that he knew who the blogger and downtown activist was.
♦ The top story on the Daily News website this morning is a piece by Food Editor Natalie Haughton about the wedding at Getty House this weekend of Mayor Villaraigosa's second-oldest daughter, Prisila Villar: "After the late afternoon vows, the bride's family, including her mother, Andrea, and 125 invited guests will celebrate the couple's big day with a reception catered by Paul Vicino, co-owner/chef of Five Front and 12th Street Bar & Grill, both in Brooklyn. The bride has been the general manager of the 12th Street Bar & Grill for the past three years."
♦ ABC News Supreme Court correspondent Manny Medrano, who made a name at Channel 4 covering the O.J. Simpson murder trial, has a new blog on the network's dime. Jake Tapper also gets an ABC blog.
♦ Clint Wilson, longtime editorial cartoonist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, died in a Hawthorne convalescent home. The Breeze has an obit.