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Saving the convention center (really Staples Center) hotel and the mountain yellow-legged frog, photo op of the day, missing shotguns at the Long Beach PD and a sell-out for the Getty Villa, plus Kathleen Connell, Don Herbert and the front pages.
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♦ With his hotel plans for downtown at risk despite the city's subsidy, Philip Anschutz stepped in and with KB Home will build and own the 50-story hotel and condo tower across the street from Staples Center.
♦ Protecting the few remaining mountain yellow-legged frogs means that rock climbers won't be able to use Williamson Rock in the Angeles National Forest this year, and they aren't too happy about it.
♦ Mayor Villaraigosa repeated his assertion that Los Angeles is the "capital of homelessness."
♦ Photo op of the day: Gov. Schwarzenegger, Mayor Villaraigosa and a supporting cast will stand beside the 405 at noon to announce the state will speed up construction of the car-pool lane between the West Side and the Valley. The Daily News already has the story.
♦ Starting now, when you call 911 on your mobile phone from a Los Angeles street you are supposed to get the LAPD. Calls from a freeway will go to the CHP. We'll see.
♦ All tickets to visit the Getty Villa are taken through July, according to Modern Art Notes.
♦ Kathleen Connell gives up $22,000 in laundered campaign funds from the 2001 mayor's race.
♦ Long Beach police can't find 85 of their 272 shotguns, and a bunch of service revolvers are missing too.
♦ USA Today has joined the newspapers who blog about the Oscars trend with The O-Factor.
♦ Retired KFWB news anchor Don Herbert has a self-published book out called We'll Have More Music, Right After the News.
♦ Looks like Life & Times is repeating Saul Gonzalez's segment with me on Wilshire Boulevard, tonight at 6:30 on KCET. Also, the KCET website has a page up on Diane Gamboa's photographs of the East L.A. music scene in the 1980s.