Politics

Morning Buzz: Friday 12.18.09

Getting rid of teachers who don't work out, the city's plans for Owens Lake and just how much Supervisor Molina meddled in the building of the Gold Line — plus more, after the jump.

  • Supt. Ramon C. Cortines ordered LAUSD administrators to weed out ineffective new teachers before they become permanent. LAT, DN
  • City officials are drafting a master plan for a proposed solar farm and possibly a state park on Owens Lake in the Owens Valley. LAT
  • Police sketches show what the Grim Sleeper serial killer might look like today. LAT, KPCC, LA Weekly
  • Records finally obtained from the MTA show Supervisor Gloria Molina objecting to painted pavement along the Eastside Gold Line extension — and that the paint created electrical shorts that caused trains to unpredictably switch tracks, delaying the project's opening. USC Neon Tommy
  • James Rainey says the paid staff at the Huffington Post has grown to 89 full-time employees, including 11 who generate original content, and that sources think the site might take in $12 to $16 million in revenue this year. LAT
  • The LAT obituary of Roy Disney carried the co-byline of James Bates and this note: "James Bates, who covered the Walt Disney Co. and wrote much of this obituary while a member of The Times staff, left the paper in 2007 and now works for Sitrick and Co., a public relations firm that represented Shamrock in its fight against the Disney board. He wrote the obituary several years before joining the firm."
  • The idea for California Watch grew out of talks with the Irvine Foundation, according to an interview with the founders at PBS MediaShift.
  • Rob Schmitz of KQED and the "California Report" has been reporting from the climate conference in Copenhagen for KPCC.
  • Steve Grace, formerly the head of Channel 36, has been named Executive Director of the President's Leadership Institute at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
  • Jennifer Jones, who won an Academy Award for the 1943 film "The Song of Bernadette" and was married to producer David O. Selznick and art collector Norton Simon, died at home in Malibu at age 90. LAT

More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
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David Ryu and candidate Mike Fong
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Helping in Houston, new lion cubs, Garcetti's back
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Garcetti hitting the road to New Hampshire
LA Confederate monument coming down
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