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There's been some movement on the mayor's plan to conquer the L.A. Unified School District, some second thoughts about the Coliseum deal for an NFL team and some exposing of Ron Burkle's assets. Also, did a blogger find one of the LAPD's Most Wanted crooks sitting in jail in Nevada? And has LA Observed been banned at Channel 5? Click the Buzz for a whole menu of tasty breakfast treats.
♦ Clippers win: They live to see Game 7.
♦ Schools takeover: Mayor Villaraigosa agrees to share more power with the other mayors. Also, KPCC begins two days of special coverage devoted to Villaraigosa’s plan to take control of LAUSD. "AirTalk with Larry Mantle" features a panel discussion with key players, and this afternoon "Patt Morrison" talk to mayors of other affected cities. Coverage continues on Monday's programs.
♦ Coliseum deal: The Times' City-County Bureau reports there is substantial privately expressed concern about terms of the public's contribution to the package intended to lure an NFL team to the Coliseum. Meanwhile, the Valley boosters who came up with the LA Celebs meme will hold a spirit rally on Saturday at 10:00 am at the Studio City Hand Car Wash.
♦ Not happy: A Daily News editorial calls the City Council's passage of a new trash fee (or tax, if you prefer) for cops "a major disappointment."
♦ Rocky's record: The Times Patrick McGreevy looks at City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's five years in office, sees nothing to get excited about. Quotable: Joel Kotkin, "Lackluster." John Emerson, "Creative and appropriately aggressive."
♦ Burkle wins one: A state appeals court ruled Ron Burkle did not trick his wife into accepting a divorce settlement of only $40 million. Their pact is valid, the court says. But the public did get a long-delayed peek inside the billionaire's finances, AP says. Burkle also resigned from the Getty board.
♦ Hot in Brentwood: CityBeat reporter Michael Collins has posted a longer version of this week's cover piece on the nuclear dump in Brentwood on his new website, EnviroReporter.com.
♦ Pancakes, Mr. Speaker?: Speaker Fabian Núñez has breakfast with Town Hall Los Angeles this morning.
♦ Bad girls: Remember last month's post about drinking and hazing by the Loyola Marymount swim team? The Times today discovers the BadJocks.com website where it came from. ♦ Do the genetic math: Da Vinci Code aside, the way genealogy works means that "Jesus couldn't have just a few descendants living today. If anyone alive today is descended from Jesus, then so are most of the people on the planet." Just the way it works, a scientist writes on the LAT op-ed page:
Essentially, whether you have descendants is an all-or-nothing proposition in the long run, as two coauthors and I showed in an article in the scientific journal Nature a couple of years ago. If a person has four or five grandchildren, that person will almost certainly be an ancestor of the entire world population two or three millenniums from now. And if a person lived longer than two or three millenniums ago, that person is either an ancestor of everyone living today or of no one living today.
♦ Banned at KTLA?: I've heard nothing about this, but Ron Fineman says that LA Observed (and his pay site On the Record) have been blocked on the computer system at Channel 5. He speculates it's over the recent item about a possible shakeup, but I'd like to think (if it's true) that management thinks the staff was spending too much time here. The LAT's Channel Island blog also reports that we're blocked by KTLA
♦ Watch the sky: Citizen of the Month blogs about the absurdity of those "Watch the Road" banners around L.A. being placed high in the air.
♦ Blogger helping blogger: Los Anjealous thinks they know where the LAPD can find one of its Most Wanteds: serving two life terms in Nevada.