Friday desk-clearing

Kobe Bryant signed a three-year contract extension that will keep him with the Lakers until just shy of his 36th birthday.
DWP union chief Brian D'Arcy said he met with Mayor Villaraigosa and urged him to support the City Council's compromise rate-hike plan before the mayor's commissioners defied the council and voted for higher rates.
City Controller Wendy Greuel released a follow-up audit of how the city Planning Department handles land use cases, saying "of all of the audits I have done so far, this is among the most disappointing."
Political organizer Ron Kaye called a Saturday meeting of his Saving L.A. Project to find candidates to run for the City Council, saying "the single most important thing is to develop a slate of credible candidates who pose a serious challenge to the incumbents in the even numbered districts that are up for grabs next March."
LA Business Journal editor Charles Crumpley says if City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's budget is hurting so much, "why is he spending so much time and creative energy on something as silly as his war on supergraphics?"
That stretch of Mulholland Drive above Studio City closed since February due to a slide has finally reopened.
A brief history of the California swimming pool.
A police sting nabbed an iPod thief at the Central Library in Downtown.
A ribbon-cutting was held for the 123-room Ritz-Carlton hotel at L.A. Live.
Andy Rosa Adler will join KNBC as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter, replacing Alycia Lane, who has moved to co-anchor of the station’s early-morning newscast, “Today in LA.”
The Los Angeles Times unveiled Pacific Time, a weekly podcast hosted by Times editorial broadcast manager Michelle Maltais to highlight LAT stories and journalists.
Metrolink named a new CEO: John E. Fenton, previously operating partner of investment bank CIH Capital Partners.
Actor John Forsythe died in his Santa Ynez home at age 92.
The Dodgers named Blake DeWitt their second baseman and knuckleball pitcher Charlie Heager their fifth starter.
Sen. Barbara Boxer guests on "NBC4 News Conference" with host Conan Nolan on Sunday at 9 a.m. following "Meet the Press".
That CBS Sunday Morning feature on "All the Saints" artist J. Michael Walker and the L.A. streets named for saints is due to air Easter morning.
Longtime San Francisco Chronicle outdoors writer Chronicle outdoors writer Tom Stienstra and his wife were arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession for sale after sheriff's deputies found a sophisticated growing operation at their home — in the Northern California town of Weed.