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"What a finish. What a finish!" announcer Joel Meyers exclaimed as the Lakers squeak past the Oklahoma City Thunder 95-94.
LA Observed archive
for April 2010
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
LAT Editor Russ Stanton wants to fix the record on embedded e-commerce links, and fresh info on the Bill Dwyre column on Pat Tillman.
Lopez, a name partner at Century City's Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein, has represented Michael Jackson and members of the Eagles, and had been a producer on "Selena." He...
Police who broke into unit 701 at the Reserve Lofts found, in addition to counterfeit money and AK-47s, a handmade tile mosaic replica of the Central Intelligence Agency seal and a portrait of Huge Chavez.
Last night at the literal eleventh hour an email went out to all Register staffers postponing a big meeting planned for this morning. Eventually, the news was allowed to break. The newspaper's parent company has reemerged from bankruptcy, but with new owners.
Wait, did I mention it's only in the imagination of Not the Los Angeles Times creator Roy Rivenburg
Instead of preserving the Hollywood sign in its static condition as a legally condoned supergraphic, why not embrace its inner hotel potential?
TV loves to "investigate" valet parking in Los Angeles, but this time Channel 4 turned up the interest factor to show that there are few rules governing valets and fewer protections for drivers. Ana Garcia became a valet.
Last week's bust in a downtown penthouse of a counterfeit-money operation has the makings of a great yarn, if only detectives can figure it out.
Chief Charlie Beck made a point yesterday of saying the longstanding LAPD policy of not initiating contact to check on someone's legal status is good policy.
Let me call your attention to a new Visiting Blogger post about Daryl Gates — our second exclusive piece by longtime journalists who had extensive dealings with the late LAPD chief.
Each year around this time, the state's Department of Finance estimates the population for California and every city. Selected tidbits from the report.
Less than two months after losing his longtime gig as chief film critic at Variety, Todd McCarthy has signed on with IndieWire to do film commentary on a blog they are calling Todd McCarthy's Deep Focus.
The U.S. Attorney's office has moved to dismiss federal charges against the Santa Monica sushi restaurant that admitted serving illegal whale meat.
Tom Gilmore, whose adapative reuse projects in Downtown have benefited from a favorable loan from the city of Los Angeles, is facing a financial pinch and has gone back to the city for a new loan, the Garment & Citizen says.
When he's not contributing to Native Intelligence or writing novels, or tweeting as himself, TJ Sullivan tweets as @Eyjafjallajokul.
There have been more than a few chuckles at City Hall about Austin Beutner's title in Mayor Villaraigosa's administration. When this invitation for an event tomorrow landed, at least one longtime City Hall hand almost snorted corn flakes out of his (or her!) nose.
At a news conference today, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came out in favor of the city of Los Angeles boycotting Arizona over that state's new law putting cops into the business of enforcing immigration laws.
On this day, the Rodney Kings riots erupted in 1992 and the Central Library burned in 1986.
Is anybody surprised? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich reportedly met last night and came to an agreement that essentially splits the difference on budget cuts for the...
Guess which one of these young men is Huell Howser circa 1966, and which one is the Tennessee senator Howard Baker.
Cardinal Roger Mahony is ramping up his advocacy for immigrants, with an address scheduled for Monday at Fordham University in New York called "Immigration Reform: A Moral Imperative" and a new website launched today by the archdiocese.
DWP workers caught going to strip clubs and drinking on the job, who paid for the Gates funeral?, the Times endorses Newsom over Hahn, and what could the Broad museum mean for downtown?
Deputy Cameron Glover of the Santa Clarita sheriff's station died tonight after an off-duty motorcycle accident on McBean Parkway. He was a four-year veteran who had been assigned to patrol duties since 2008.
KTLA reporter Lu Parker blogged recently about taking her boyfriend's 16-year-old daughter out for a driving lesson in Parker's car. I guess we can assume that is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's daughter Natalia Fe she's talking about.
K, we've written so much about the geography wars in Los Angeles — and especially the bastardization of the traditional Eastside — that we're pretty tired of it. Curbed LA is tired of it too, so the site is asking readers to help.
Winder Barrios and Jose Aldana, robbery suspects who were due in court today, got out of the Peter Pitchess Detention Center last night but didn't get far.
The Dodgers lost 7-3 today in New York, meaning they were swept by the Mets and have the worst won-loss record in the league.
Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, argues that piracy, digital technology and the expectation of consumers that Internet content is free makes this "not a happy time to be an entertainment industry executive."
Escape from Pitchess, Arizona backlash, Whitman regrets, Ridley-Thomas puts on a show for Steve Lopez and more.
Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota is having a fundraiser Friday night at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip that's calling on his Saturday Night Live days.
From May 17-31, Rhino Records will re-open near its original Westwood Boulevard location. Rhino, which closed in 2006, did the resurrection by pop-up thing during the holiday season in 2007....
Since we seem to be on the Pinkberry closure beat now, let it be noted that the Abbot Kinney outpost of the empire — mildly controversial when it opened two Julys ago — shuts down on May 3.
Regarding that Bill Dwyre column on Pat Tillman that I mentioned over the weekend, sharp-eyed readers noticed that the original phrase Dwyre used — that Tillman was "murdered by guys on his own team" — has been changed to "killed by guys on his own team."
Marcia Clark, the lead Los Angeles County prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, has sold her debut crime thriller "Guilt By Association" to Little, Brown for publication in spring 2011.
A public service message from Channel 2 and LAO: if you feel the urge to whip out a brush and start painting after a violent sneeze, seek medical attention.
Coverage of this morning's Daryl Gates services in text, photos and video.
In the new issue of Los Angeles magazine, David Davis talks to and about Pau Gasol i Sáez, the Lakers resident Spaniard.
We're locked in pre-June gloom on the Westside these days, but Katie Keating had a ray of virtual sunshine find her on the freeway this morning.
The Los Angeles Times will begin selling e-commerce links in selected stories and blog posts — but not in news stories or columns — as "both a reader service and a revenue opportunity for the company," editor Russ Stanton announced to the newsroom in a memo that also changes the comment moderation policy.
A study and ranking by Forbes and NewGeography.com has put Los Angeles in the bottom ten of large U.S. cities for job growth. It's the first time L.A. has fallen so low in the rankings.
Anyone who's ever gone to the beach in the Santa Barbara area knows that oil and tar can be part of the experience.
Maldonado's confirmation, defending Daryl Gates' handling of the riots, Santana charged, more X Games in L.A., more Alan Rich appreciation and is Nikki Finke being diluted?
The family of the late LAPD chief Daryl Gates received several hundred visitors on Monday after his casket was placed on display in the auditorium at the police headquarters on 1st Street.
four-minute clip from "The Garden," Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Oscar-nominated documentary about the South Central Farm saga, is today's featured pick at Telegraph 21, a new video magazine for documentary films out of New York and Barcelona.
Hugh Hefner helped put up the last chunk of money in the Trust for Public Land's campaign to buy and preserve acreage west of the Hollywood sign. Councilman Tom LaBonge will talk up the effort this evening on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW.
The venture capital firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has, along with other investors, put another $2 million into The Wrap, the site says in a news release.
Long lines again for free health care in South L.A., LAT's Sunday circulation drops under a million, the spring ritual at City Hall, street closures for the Daryl Gates funeral and more.
Patt Morrison is stretching but only a bit when she writes that Monday's closed-casket viewing at the Police Administration Building — and Tuesday morning funeral at the cathedral — "will be the closest thing to a state funeral that Los Angeles could have."
Bill Dwyre and Nancy Rommelmann on having second thoughts about a story.
The Los Angeles Kings' season ended tonight, not unexpectedly, with a loss to the quicker, hungrier and more experienced Vancouver Canucks.
The 16-year-old sailor from Thousand Oaks posted Saturday that she will pull into port in Cape Town, South Africa for repairs, ending her bid to sail around the world without stopping — but not her solo sail.
Mike Silverman was one of L.A.'s "realtors to the stars" before he retired in 2001. He used to say he got his start when when he sold Frank Sinatra's house...
Would you believe 110-89? The Thunder tie the series 2-2, with play returning back to L.A.
Friends and admirers are passing around on line the news that longtime Los Angeles music critic Alan Rich died yesterday. He would have been about 85.
Floyd Dominy changed the map of the West as commissioner of the federal Bureau of Reclamation from 1959 to 1969. It was on his watch that Glen Canyon Dam was built, forming giant Lake Powell on the upper Colorado River.
At Friday night's Los Angeles Times Book Prize ceremony, Dave Eggers won the current interest award for "Zeitoun" and was given the event's first Innovators Award.
Candidate Steve Poizner's book about teaching at Mt. Pleasant High School in San Jose makes act one of this week's "This American Life" on NPR.
They fold 7-2 with two goaltender changes — and the goalies weren't even the problem — as the Canucks go up 3-2 in the series. The Canadians can clinch the...
That planted rectangle on the 110 near Downtown that Caltrans sold to Toyota last year for a Prius ad is being given a baseball-themed message.
Host Conan Nolan will put questions to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Republican candidate for governor Meg Whitman on this weekend's "KNBC News Conference." Proposition 17 and its impact...
Dodgers lose their hottest hitter for two weeks, and a look at the Kings-Canucks series for KCRW.
I'll be signing "Wilshire Boulevard" and "San Fernando Valley" on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Angel City Press booth. LA Observed authors will be all over the place, including on a bunch of panels.
They can't both be right. I suppose we'll find out pretty soon which one is BSing.
Alicia Parlette was diagnosed at 23 with a rare form of cancer in her hip and a breast. The copy editor's 17-part series in the San Francisco Chronicle under the Alicia's Story banner told of her experiences undergoing chemotherapy and coming to grips with her fate.
Glamour won the top honor as Magazine of the Year, while New York took four Ellies and The New Yorker and National Geographic each won three.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich followed up top aide Jane Usher's email critical of the mayor's budget with his own communication, saying that Villaraigosa's spending plan "shows a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination" and is a management failure.
Former LA Weekly film critic Scott Foundas won two awards, including print critic of the year, and KABC 7’s George Pennacchio also won a pair at the at the Los Angeles Press Club’s third annual National Entertainment Awards tonight.
Sharon Waxman sends word that while Joe Adalian is leaving as television editor of The Wrap, the TV blog he brought with him is staying.
Media analyst Ken Doctor parses the Huffington Post numbers at Nieman Journalism Lab.
Campbell rises in a poll, dueling tax returns, packaging Beutner, radio ratings and another downtown police funeral scheduled.
This time, actually, the former planning commission president who now advises City Attorney Carmen Trutanich used an email to attack Mayor Villaraigosa.
It's that jet stream sitting right over us and sweeping in a Siberian air mass, Bad Mom, Good Mom explains, tracing the cold air all the way back to the old country.
HL commissioner Gary Bettman just met the press underneath the stands at Staples Center and was asked about the prospects for staging one of the league's popular New Year's Day outdoor games here. His answer — that he assumed the suggestion was a joke — was surprising.
Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter finally got to read the script for a potential HBO series about a "no-holds-barred show biz blogger." His main question going in was answered: it's definitely based on Nikki Finke.
Austin Beutner will be on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW this evening at 7:30 p.m. to talk about his plans for serving awhile as interim head of the Department of Water and Power (while still doing the rest of his $1-a-year job as deputy mayor and jobs czar.)
Joe Adalian just joined the Wrap last June, but he's taking his address book and his TV MoJoe blog (originally started at TV Week) to New York Magazine's entertainment site Vulture.
The Journalism Shop, created last summer to help unemployed former Los Angeles Times journalists find freelance gigs and other work, is opening up to experienced reporters across the country.
Hitler reacts to news that YouTube is taking down the Hitler parodies. "Before people started making fun of this scene, there were only a few people outside Germany who knew...
Gabriel Snyder, let go recently as editor-in-chief at Gawker after several media stints in L.A., is joining Newsweek Digital as executive editor.
If you're the Los Angeles Times and you want to go top of page one with a story attacking the credibility of the mayor, you probably shouldn't misspell credibility in the headline deck.
Amusing piece at LA Eastside by guest blogger Matt Lucas on waiting at that Angelus Plaza bench for Zooey Deschanel to appear, as she did in "(500) Days of Summer."
Romney comes back for Whitman, Kaus and Ann Coulter, editorializing against Beutner and a new Knott's history book.
This morning's Los Angeles Times carries a correction to that Op-Ed piece from last week that stated the LA logo on the Dodgers cap sprang from team executives and a...
A roundup of coverage and reaction following Mayor Villaraigosa's State of the city speech.
Journalist/author Charles Bowden will discuss his new book, "Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields," tonight at Aloud at the Central Library. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez will...
David Cay Johnston, the ex-NYT reporter who's been getting a fair amount of attention for his Daryl Gates post here at LA Observed, talks to John Rabe on this weekend's "Off-Ramp" on KPCC.
The federal court lawsuit by an unidentified 25-year-old Mexican was filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which allows foreign victims of human rights abuses to bring their perpetrators to justice in U.S. courts.
Jeanie Buss of the Lakers tweeted the photo of the newest statue outside Staples Center, with a short and sweet caption: Chickie baby.
The little shop on Huntley Drive where you or someone you know probably lined up for tart yogurt-like icy stuff — and possibly earned a parking ticket or two —...
My take on the Kings' exciting playoff win last night was really just a sequence of quick observations. Brian Kennedy, my seatmate in the press box who covered the game...
Regarding all those web parodies using footage of the Adolf Hitler character from the film "Downfall," the German production company that owns the film has asked YouTube to yank them all.
Mayor Villaraigosa was at LAX to see off President Obama this morning.
A statue honoring the late broadcaster Chick Hearn will be unveiled outside Staples Center before tonight's game 2 of the Lakers' playoff series with Oklahoma City.
Rain on the way, less-dire budget news all around, the morning news battleground, a new book show and more.
President Obama's official remarks at the Democrats' fundraiser, as provided by the White House Media Affairs office. After the jump....
Fans came in jerseys dating back to the Marcel Dionne days (that would be the 1970s and 80s) ready to stomp and cheer at the first Stanley Cup playoff game...
Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times is the pool reporter with the president in Exposition Park. Here's the first pool report, via the White House press office. About 1,000...
Crisis PR meister Mike Sitrick has been sued in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by a former employee (on behalf of them all) who says the boss at Sitrick and Company manipulated the ESOP to deprive current and former employees of millions of dollars
Former CityBeat editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, who blogs as Commie Girl, went with her boyfriend and the other writers for Fourstory.org on a recent trip to Cuba. She posts that Havana was Havana was "so dreamy and beautiful and different—different from our homes, from anyplace we have been, and from how we thought it would be. It is massively crowded, 2.2 million people squashed into a city you could walk across in not so very many hours."
David Cay Johnston's visiting blogger piece for LA Observed on Friday about his experiences covering Daryl Gates and the LAPD in the early 1980s has been getting some nice attention and attracting favorable emails. Johnston will be a guest on "Which Way, L.A.?" with Warren Olney on KCRW at 7:30 p.m.
In a post Sunday on his blog, Cardinal Roger Mahony calls the new Arizona statute "the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law."
Democrats wrap up in L.A. before Obama visits, LAT's in-house anti Obama blogger spins the trip, a letter from L.A. and Animal in the new New Yorker, a new blog and more.
Jerry Brown, shown with L.A. political consultants Julie Buckner and Donna Bojarsky, turned up Saturday night at the Calbuzz dinner at Cafe Pinot during the Democrats' state convention. Brown kibbitzed with Demo adviser Garry South, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, Patt Morrison and other media types, including LA Observed.
President Obama will arrive a little before 5:30 p.m. Monday to raise L.A. campaign cash for the Democrats — Sen. Barbara Boxer and the DNC specifically — and wreak a little unfortunate havoc with local mobility. At least it will be a Monday, so the natural afternoon traffic should be a bit lighter than usual — but there's a Kings playoff game at Staples Center at 7 p.m.
Now comes L.A. Times media columnist James Rainey with his take on The Entryway, the project where two white journalists (soon to be one) are embedded with an immigrant family near MacArthur Park.
Three years ago, the family that owns the Hollywood property where Yamashiro and the Magic Castle sit put the 10 acres up for sale. They accepted an offer from Sean MacPherson, impresario behind the Maritime Hotel, Jones, Bar Lubitsch and other hip spots.
AEG's Tim Leiweke and sports mogul Casey Wasserman are considering reviving the NFL stadium plan they first aired eight years ago.
Mayor Villaraigosa will announce Monday, as expected, that he is appointing Austin Beutner to be interim general Manager of the Department of Water and Power.
I noticed at LAX the other day that the skin is back on the iconic Theme Building, with a fresh coat of white paint. Renovation only took, what, three years? New York Times bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer explained the meaning of it all this weekend for the out-of-towners.
The Lakers began their playoff run with an 87-79 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Staples Center. Kobe led the way with 21 points, Pau Gasol 19.
Some of today's printed Los Angeles Times editions carry no report on last night's Kings' playoff game, which started early about 7 p.m. and, though it went into overtime, ended with a Kings win at 10 p.m. — well within the Saturday night deadlines of previous years.
In a visiting blogger post for LA Observed, Pulitzer winner David Cay Johnston recalls his LAT stories that uncovered an international spying operation run by Gates that spied on L.A. leaders and political groups, infiltrated groups using sex and undercover operatives, incited violent acts and tried to intimidate reporters such as Johnston. He also writes about the seven times his car was burglarized, including in the LAPD garage, and the story that the L.A. Times wouldn't run.
Who knew opera could be so contentious? Fan Rip Rense reams LAT critic Mark Swed for not reporting on loud booing, while a heckler who interrupted a lecture on the Ring Festival was almost evicted by Zev Yaroslavsky.
Los Angeles Daily Journal editor David Houston clearly has a thing about his reporters being at their desks by 9 a.m. He has memoed on it at least twice that...
Gates was chief of police in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1992, his tenure ending shortly after the riots that followed the jury verdicts exonerating officers in the Rodney King...
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Did Jimmy Hahn, the future mayor, design the Dodgers' LA logo as a 9-year-old? Or is the style decades older? We delve into the mystery.
Santa Barbara writer David Freed is scheduled to be on NBC's "Today" show this morning to talk about his May profile in the Atlantic of Steven Hatfill, the virologist who the FBI mistakenly targeted as an anthrax suspect.
Starting next year, Zócalo Public Square will award an annual $5,000 book prize to "the U.S.-published book that most enhances our understanding of community the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion be it locally, regionally, nationally or globally."
A long piece in USC's student-run Neon Tommy (by senior editor Hillel Aron) follows Ron Kaye on his crusade to foment, as he calls it, "the birth of democracy in L.A." The story captures Kaye as a 68-year-old white ex-newspaperman from the far west end of the Valley who wants to create a "new revolution" that goes beyond the early-2000s secession campaign he stage-managed as managing editor of the Daily News.
It's the 4.8% increase the City Council wanted, not the higher rate that Mayor Villaraigosa originally sought and that the DWP commission tried to force through last time. For the...
The Wall Street Journal's Hannah Karp informs the global audience that, with the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in eight years, "there's a...
Diana Nyad, my more accomplished colleague in commentary at KCRW, talks in today's segment about being sexually abused by her swim coach.
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana came back to work today, less than three weeks after his March 26 DUI arrest and subsequent announcement that he would seek treatment....
Last night's Dodgers score didn't make it into this morning's Los Angeles Times Sports section, at least the printed version that many subscribers get — just as predicted when the...
Inventing the tea party express, Whitman's video reports, Jill Stewart on City Hall, Capitol Weekly's lower Top 100 and more — inside after the jump.
The City Council went ahead today and approved the same level of electricity rate hike it offered two weeks ago, but this time the increase — of 0.6 of a...
Remember that video I posted the other day by a fan devoted to KCBS weathercaster Jackie Johnson? She tweeted just now that it's going to be featured tonight on sister station KCAL (Channel 9.)
Janice Hahn and Gavin Newsom both officially crowed this afternoon that she (or he, respectively) won the endorsement of the California Labor Federation in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. While technically true, they both left out a key part.
Mandalit del Barco of NPR's Los Angeles bureau has the latest story, airing today on "All Things Considered," on the mixed bag you get with red light cameras.
The Dodgers and the LAPD decided to crack down on parking lot partiers at yesterday's home opener. L.A. Times staff writer Carla Hall commits the story to video:...
LAPD funeral traffic, saving teachers at LAUSD, Gatto gets to runoff in AD 43 and Villaraigosa's gift report for the year. Plus more.
KPCC-FM has posted a job opening for a journalist-blogger to cover what the station calls emerging communities.
Eric Spiegelman was at Disneyland checking out an old map of California mounted in the Main Street railroad station when he spotted an unexpected geographic feature. "There are like a...
The news blog of the Glendale News-Press and its sister papers has a story up about a local car reaching 500,000 miles — and it's the car driven by the husband of the managing editor of the La Cañada Flintridge paper.
Illogical as it sounds, a panel of experts convened by the city has concluded that last year's siege of water main breaks was triggered by the DWP's Monday-Thursday watering restrictions creating higher pressures on aging pipes.
Jamie McCourt will be staying away from Dodger Stadium today, though she claims to be part owner. David Kipen has a fun Op-Ed piece on the origins of the interlaced...
Big Downtown funeral for officer Robert Cottle, crackdown on tailgaters at Dodger Stadium, a possible LAPD hiring freeze and more.
TJ Sullivan was standing in line at a warehouse store when he called out a couple of his fellow shoppers for strategically staking out spots in two lines, waiting to see which moved faster. OK, so they took umbrage at TJ's umbrage, then things got racial.
Charles McNulty's public rant about the Pulitzer Prize awarded today in drama is unusually interesting, not because he's the L.A. Times theater critic but because he was chair of the official jury of drama critics and playwrights that recommended a different prize winner
The 2010 Pulitzer Prizes (for 2009 work) are being announced right now. The Washington Post has won four, the New York Times three. Self-syndicated cartoonist Mark Fiore won for cartoons...
What had been expected for the past few months is now official, says the blog LGBT POV: "The measure to repeal Prop 8 in 2010 failed to collect the nearly...
Five people, possibly four of them children, died in the crash during a rain downpour just after midnight where I-5 and the 14 meet in the Newhall Pass entrance to...
Riordan makes L.A. bankruptcy sound like a good idea, squeezing homicide detectives, a shorter school year, Susan Estrich and Justice Stevens, Angela Markel and more catching up for a Monday.
In honor of the rain blowing into Los Angeles tonight, here's YouTube songster Parry Gripp's recent ditty devoted to Channel 2/9 weathercaster Jackie Johnson.
Going on five years since it closed, the news is that there's no news on the reopening of the much-loved Tail o' the Pup hot dog (and more) stand.
The Apple Pan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar turn 63, plus Jackie Robinson and the Hollywood Freeway.
Starting tomorrow, all Los Angeles city libraries are closed on Sundays. The Central Library in Downtown is open 10 to 6 other days, and stays opens until 8 p.m. only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
ESPN's Bill Simmons has written an interesting column explaining the conversion of an old-school baseball writer (him) to the modern sabermetric analysis embraced by an increasing number of major league...
A day after saying things were looking better, City Hall is back to describing a $222.4 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
On Saturday morning, the Culinary Historians of Southern California are hosting a discussion on "the heyday of the Los Angeles Times Food section." Former Food section stalwarts Betsy Balsley, Donna Deane, Rose Dosti and Barbara Hansen will be on the panel at the Central Library in Downtown.
Myrna Loy crossed over from the silents to carve out a career as the witty, urbane type in 1930s Hollywood fare. She attended the Westlake School for Girls, but for decades a statue said to be based on her stood outside Venice High School. Venice alumni raised the money to restore the sculpture, and on Saturday a restored sculpture will be re-dedicated.
Hundreds of dump trucks a day have been driving through a Sylmar neighborhood to dispose of sediment from the Station Fire.
Catching up on some notes.
That immediate budget crisis the mayor, the City Council and the CAO have been talking about? Not happening. Money has been found to pay city employees using a transfer from the reserve fund and some newly discovered cash.
I'm LAX bound this morning. I expect lighter posting over the next couple of days. Watch Mark at LA Biz Observed for updates on City Hall and other news.
More budget wrangling, a power grab, a credit downgrade and a lawsuit -- and that's not all.
Jeremy Oberstein, the communications deputy to City Councilman Paul Krekorian, noticed a Los Angeles Fire Department alert about a fire at a familiar address. He tweeted: @LAFD I live there!!!!!! Is it bad?! Half an hour later, this follow-up scrolled across Twitter.
The Getty adds its entry to the growing list of blogs by and about art institutions (here is LACMA's Unframed, for example.) It's called The Iris: Views from the Getty,...
Fox 11 reporter Gigi Graciette was in the Calexico area, preparing to cross the border to Mexicali on earthquake duty, when she tweeted this a little while ago: Man just...
The biggest move is that Pat Harvey officially switches to Channel 2 and wil anchor at 5 and 11 p.m. with Paul Magers. Laura Diaz gets 6 p.m. solo.
Sponsored by parents at Wonderland Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles and posted at Funny or Die. It's pretty good.
The press release from City Controller Wendy Greuel says the audit is intended to "determine if DWP had the necessary funds to complete the anticipated Power Revenue Transfer to the City’s Reserve Fund.
Probably not really, but political blogger Mickey Kaus's previous statements that he didn't intend to actually win against Sen. Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary have been used by the party to deny him a speaking spot at the upcoming state convention.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed this morning for an injunction naming 80 suspected drug dealers active in the Skid Row area of Downtown.
Blame Villaraigosa and the DWP, the Times says, while the Daily News runs a front page call for the mayor to resign.
Cardinal Roger Mahony introduced his designated successor thus morning, calling Jose Gomez an advocate for immigrants and the poor. Gomez said that Los Angeles “like no other city in the world, has the global face of the Catholic Church.”
Mark is following today's moves in the poker game about City Hall and DWP finances over at LA Biz Observed....
Tonight on NPR's "Fresh Air", Milo Miles favorably reviews the recent DVD release of the film on the remarkable gathering of musical talent at the Teenage Music Awards International shows held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in October, 1964.
Greuel says April 19 is when city workers have to stop working, Whitman writes another $20 million check, The Wrap vs. Newser and more.
A press conference has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the cathedral Downtown amid reports in the Catholic media and blogosphere that Mexican-born Jose Gomez, 58 and the archbishop of San Antonio since 2005, will be appointed by Pope Benedict as coadjutor-archbishop of Los Angeles. He would succeed Cardinal Roger Mahony, who is due to retire soon.
There's been a 4.6 aftershock this hour in the desert 16 miles southeast of Ocotillo, Calif., making at least ten earthquakes of magnitude 4 or higher today mdash;including a pair of 5.1's. It's all playing out as expected after Sunday's 7.2, Lucy Jones of USGS explains.
In a day of bad news on City Hall's financial crisis, Controller Wendy Greuel grabbed the biggest headline.
Everyone was surprised when manager Joe Torre tapped natural #4 starter Vicente Padilla to be his opening day pitcher. Padilla, released last year by Texas, didn't disappoint the skeptics. He...
Ex-LAPD chief William Bratton's Los Feliz home, originally listed at $1.875 million, finally sold for $1.4 million.
Picture editor Honore Brown, posting at The New Yorker's Photo Booth blog, writes that photographs such as those by Jim Marshall (who died last month) "don't get made anymore." Brown...
LegalZoom is still looking to leave L.A., seeking funds to cap the Hollywood Freeway for a park, assault charges against jail deputies, Hot Tub Political Machine and more politics and media notes.
The L.A. Times editorial board on Sunday explained its approach to this year's upcoming election endorsements. In recent years, The Times' editorial page has most often endorsed Democrats, but we...
TJ Simers devoted his Sunday column in the L.A. Times to calling out Kobe Bryant as surly, joyless and worse things, "basketball's version of Jeff Kent in so many ways."...
For the first time since 2002, the Los Angeles Kings will play in the post-season.
That was a long quake. Gentle but very noticeable rolling here on the Westside, but too long in duration to be a small quake. Details as they're posted by USGS.
Take 50 seconds and enjoy Saturday's celebration Downtown of National Pillow Fight Day, uploaded to YouTube by rhivanz.
Today was the annual Blessing of the Animals procession, in which a long line of pets with their owners line up to be received by Cardinal Roger Mahony just off the Old Plaza. If you have never been and want to catch the flavor of the event, here's our LA Observed video from last year.
Kobe Bryant, Brian D'Arcy, Ron Kaye, John Forsyth and more.
Jaime Escalante's legacy is the subject of my regular Friday piece during NPR's "All Things Considered" on KCRW (89.9 FM), airing at 4:44 p.m.
Analyzing the DWP rates showdown, checking in on Bill Bratton, another southeast city official indicted , traffic ticket stings in Glendale and more.
Thursday's Los Angeles Times story on the indictment of a L.A. Unified official for allegedly funneling district business to his company rightly credits an earlier Times investigation that exposed the conflict of interest. What isn't mentioned is that the reporter was laid off last year.
All the TV stations I saw tonight went live from UCLA due to a fifth recent attempted sexual assault on or near the campus.
The fundraiser we told you about awhile back for Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic National Committee will be held April 19, with President Obama the headliner. There will be...
The investigative reporting venture based up north is looking to add another enterprise reporter and a new position for them, public engagement manager.
Ophelia Chong posts an item at her KCET blog on moving in with some women in the Valley, "so that I can better report back to my friends who refuse to go north of the 134 and west of the 405."
Garfield High to name auditorium for Jaime Escalante, more on last night's DWP rates vote, big Bev Hills fundraiser for Meg Whitman, an anniversary for Larry Mantle and more.
Dixon was on the air in Los Angeles for a half century. He died March 13 at a rehabilitation facility in Burbank.
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
