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The editors of the American Bar Association's ABA Journal have put up their annual list of top 100 legal blogs, including several SoCal gems.
LA Observed archive
for November 2010
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The editors of the American Bar Association's ABA Journal have put up their annual list of top 100 legal blogs, including several SoCal gems.
Escrow closed last week on the late photographer's Raphael S. Soriano-designed home on Woodrow Wilson Drive — Los Angeles historic-cultural monument #325.
The Broadway Deli, opened in 1990 by Bruce Marder and Marvin Zeidler, closed Monday after the landlord said the restaurant had to be out by Nov. 30.
James Hibberd has been television editor at the Hollywood Reporter. He gets a gracious send-off in a memo to the staff this evening from editorial director Janice Min.
Frank McCourt accepted a divorce settlement proposed by the Superior Court mediator, but Jamie McCourt apparently did not. So an impasse has been declared, and it looks as if Jamie will now take her chances with the judge
Once a preferential parking district is approved, it costs you $34 a year for each permit to park on your own street.
Three members of the Imperial Stars band were charged by District Attorney Steve Cooley, for blocking the Hollywood Freeway last month.
Heal the Bay president Mark Gold isn't a fan of the Department of Water and Power reform measures that may appear on the March ballot in Los Angeles.
Spirit Award nominations are out, Maxine Waters could face trial by the Republicans, Caruso expands again, Ryan Seacrest has a deal, Michael Douglas seeks to quash the rumors and the Dodgers sign Uribe.
I can't say it never happens, but it doesn't occur very often.
The Santa Monica Mirror's Slav Kandyba found out the hard way that unpaid parking tickets can be a bummer in Los Angeles.
The official Christmas tree in the rotunda, or the pressroom tree?
Robert J. Lopez, the night cops reporter at the Los Angeles Times, just tweeted the sad truth.
More than 650 issues of Playboy magazine — from the Marilyn Monroe debut issue in December 1953 through last year — are now available on a hard drive that plugs into a USB port on your computer.
Kamala Harris will take her victory lap on Tuesday with "a major announcement regarding the race for California Attorney General."
Hector Villagra, legal director of the Americal Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, will succeed Ramona Ripston as head of the organization.
Nikki Finke says the pair of actors have been asked to host the Academy Awards telecast and both have tentatively agreed.
Connie Bruck does the honors in today's issue and introduces Broad as "the Lorenzo de’ Medici of Los Angeles—the city’s singular patron, especially of the arts.”
Moving LA's summer vacation, housing director controversy, Don Novey's gamble, Rick Orlov's Tipoffs and more.
Back from some holiday travel and going through the piles on my desk.
I didn't know it was started by the Los Angeles Press Club after the closure in 1954 of the original L.A. Daily News.
Lee Linderman, a student at the USC Gould School of Law, writes a nice piece for Zocalo about searching for silence on a Thanksgiving visit to the Minnesota farmhouse where he grew up.
In "The Reversal," Michael Connelly's offering for this Christmas season, his longtime characters Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller work together on a case arising from a kidnapping and murder in Hancock Park.
The LAT's Michael Hiltzik explains his conversion
The Canadian actor who had a long dramatic career before he was cast in "Airplane!" and as LAPD Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies died near his home in Fort Lauderdale.
The LAT columnist spent 11 harrowing days in the hospital with typhus, which she apparently picked up in her Pasadena backyard.
Steve Cooley conceded that he has lost the race for attorney general to Kamala Harris, but the vote count goes on.
Over the past two years, Los Angeles County emergency responders have been quietly preparing for a massively bad scenario: explosion of a 10-kiloton "improvised nuclear device" in the San Fernando Valley.
LA Biz Observed's Mark Lacter has a column in the December issue of Los Angeles magazine on how Occidental Petroleum — the largest publicly traded company left in L.A. — found itself at the center of a shareholder revolt over the $900 million that CEO Ray Irani has taken home in the last decade.
Jose Rodriguez, Harold Katz and Danny McDevitt.
The latest secretary of state count gives Democrat Kamala Harris a 53,764-vote edge over Republican Steve Cooley in the election for attorney general.
Let's hope Steve Lopez didn't really mean to say "west of the 10 freeway."
Mexican authorities advised Americans and anyone else going home to visit relatives for the holidays to drive in convoys — and only during daylight hours.
You don't see this every day. In a video clip provided by the L.A. Superior Court, longtime LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus learns she is a suspect in the 1986 killing of her ex-beau's wife.
I'll be out of pocket most of the day. My posting will be lighter through the week. * Update: Went through LAX Terminal 3 this morning virtually without breaking stride,...
Mayor Villaraigosa made his case for full-body scanners at LAX by going through one for the TV cameras. The Staples Center suite where a toddler fell to his death...
Kristina Schake joins the White House as communications director for Michelle Obama. Maryna Hrushetska leaves as director of the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
David Poland at Movie City News talks with Natalie Portman at length about "Black Swan," her new movie.
The mayor will be at Terminal 6 about noon to go through the scanner, as part of a photo op aimed at heading off chaos at the airport during the crazy Thanksgiving travel period.
David Wright has been tapped to moves from ABC’s Washington bureau to Los Angeles, where he will join correspondents Mike Von Fremd and Abbie Boudreau,
The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists put out a statement over the weekend calling for an investigation into the firing of Allan Parachini as spokesman for the Superior Courts.
A two-year-old falls to his death at Staples Center after last night's Lakers game, plus more.
Writers Bloc is offering five pairs of tickets to LA Observed readers for the Dec. 7 conversation between Cavett and Brooks.
Jacob Soboroff, who made all those great videos for LA Observed a few years ago, is now co-host of "School Pride" airing Friday nights on NBC. The show did a makeover at Hollenbeck Middle School last week and will do LACES this week.
Longtime radio reporter Michael Linder plans to launch a Venice Beach-based Internet radio outlet after the first of the year.
The latest release to hit my in box is for a sheet of seasonal ice on the grounds of the W Hotel in Westwood. But how about the Tower of London?
A thousand rats removed from a home in Los Angeles for the reality TV show "Hoarders" arrived by 18-wheeled truck Saturday in San Jose.
The busboy who comforted Robert Kennedy in a pool of blood on the Ambassador Hotel pantry floor in 1968 visited his grave at Arlington for the first time.
Close to a thousand mourners overflowed the chapel at Hillside Sunday, crowding onto a patio to pay their respects to slain publicist Ronni Chasen.
Councilman Tom LaBonge, with a football in the orange jacket, and organizer Michael Schneider posed for a pic this morning before kicking off the Great Los Angeles Walk on Wilshire Boulevard.
Lance Harper, the chief engineer for KPCC, shot this scene this morning outside the station's transmitter on Mount Wilson.
It's unofficial, of course, but City Council President Eric Garcetti has been closely following the count in the attorney race between Kamala Harris and Steve Cooley and crunching the numbers almost daily.
LA's beach curfew, Ronni Chasen murder, redistricting panel, McCourts back before a judge, Villaraigosa to Mexico and a media person death. Plus more.
Allan Parachini, the former journalist who has been spokesman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court for eight years, says he was fired because his bosses wanted him to block the media from getting access to salary and spending information. But they blamed his ties to TMZ.
Phil's Diner was a beloved hangout for its fans in North Hollywood when it was located on Chandler Boulevard, from the 1920s until about ten years ago.
David Lauter, the assistant managing editor for local coverage at the L.A. Times, responded this afternoon to critics of the paper's stories on the deaths of children who had been under the care of the county's Department of Child and Family Services.
Pretty much the whole gang arrived at LAX today and received a police escort into the city.
The Hollywood Reporter is going with a story that the working theory is that the attack on Ronni Chasen was planned in advance and not the result of road rage or a carjacking gone awry.
Christie, the senior features editor, was (I believe) the last of the pre-New Times mainstay editors still with the LA Weekly.
The creators of the somewhat controversial reporting project The Entryway have posted their exit messages.
he team that saved Chicken Boy from destruction and had it mounted on a Highland Park art studio will receive a 2010 Governor’s Historic Preservation award on Friday.
Winner of AG count to get rising star status, Schwarzenegger's final grade, rabid bats, Hollywood Blvd. performers and more.
Kudos to The Wrap for the lede of the day cutting to the chase on Tuesday's murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen
An ever-louder chorus of complaints is being heard about coverage of child deaths and the county's Department of Child and Family Services by L.A. Times reporter Garret Therolf.
Members and fans of PEN Center USA gathered tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel to give out the organization's 2010 Literary Awards. The journalism winner is Mary Melton, the editor...
The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S. Labor Department is investigating the Tribune Company employee stock ownership plan and GreatBanc Trust Co., which was hired to represent employee interests in the $8 billion leveraged buyout that gave Sam Zell control in 2007.
"James Ellroy's LA: City of Demons" debuts Jan. 19 on the Investigation Discovery channel.
This afternoon's official update of the attorney general count gave Kamala Harris a lead of 30,730 votes over Steve Cooley, up a little from yesterday's lead.
Next week, J. Michael Walker will make a return visit to la Feria Internacional del Libro, representing the L.A. contingent to reflect on the year since the festival celebrated Los Angeles.
Jerry Brown at work, L.A. ballot measures, Katz resigns from high speed rail board and those new Lakers books by Jeanie Buss and Phil Jackson.
The OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano went verbally toe to toe last night in Denver with immigration critic and former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo.
Bruce Beresford-Redman is the reality TV producer who left Mexico while authorities there were investigating the killing of his wife, Monica Beresford-Redman, in Cancun last April.
Nobody has been able to advance the story much on this morning's killing of publicist Ronni Chasen, while Hollywood reacts. Services are Sunday.
Christmas is coming early to the good folks at the Los Angeles Times. Not only is owner Sam Zell conceding he won't be active in a post-bankruptcy Tribune Company, I'm told that the Times is getting back operational control of the Tribune Washington bureau.
I'm not sure these daily updates are needed anymore. The race for California attorney general is clearly going down to the wire, which might be located about two weeks from here.
The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens has a much clearer idea today of its windfall from L.A. art patron Frances Brody's estate.
Longtime Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, 64, was found dead of five gunshot wounds about 12:30 a.m. today in her Mercedes-Benz E-350, which had crashed into a light pole on Whittier Drive just south of Sunset Boulevard.
The newly independent public station wants your programming, especially if it's already paid for.
Supervisors take up plastic bags, the City Council considers 13 ballot measures, the FPPC begins to investigate Cooley and more.
In the video, LA Observed's Judy Graeme goes through LACMA's exhibit on fashions of the 1700's and 1800's with Marlene Stewart, a costume designer on films such as "Ali," "The Doors" and "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian."
As the counting of votes in the attorney general race rolls into its second week, the rhetoric level is climbing.
The singer got her star today on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. City Council President Eric Garcetti uploaded the mobile photo to his Facebook page.
The news site that's merging with Newsweek has rated LAX the fourth-best big U.S. airport, after Phoenix, Seattle and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. Best, not worst.
Latest from the Secretary of State has Kamala Harris pulling away from Steve Cooley, but with 774,000 votes still to be tallied.
There are still some tickets available for the Live Talks Los Angeles event with author Simon Winchester ("Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean") in conversation with Patt Morrison on Thursday at Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station.
All the perennial candidates plus a bunch more filed to run for City Council, Antonovich and Commerce, redistricting, Rizzo and the Galaxy lose.
Sometimes a picture is worth more than thirty words.
A rookie LAPD officer resigned after being accused of illegally accessing law enforcement information on two witnesses who testified at a gang member's murder trial.
As of January, the magazine now called LA will be available to any subscriber who opts in, with a redesign.
Journalist and blogger about gardens and water policy Emily Green writes about leaving her garden in the city for a new challenge in the foothills, "half the house and twice the land...and has sandy loam instead of clay."
With today's votes, including a bunch from Los Angeles County, Kamala Harris has regained the lead over Steve Cooley by 5,576 votes.
The Wall Street Journal gives over almost its entire Friday Journal section front today to Laura Hillenbrand's upcoming biography of Louis Zamerpini, the 93-year-old war hero and star Olympic athlete of the 1930s who grew up in the South Bay and lives in the Hollywood Hills.
The Daily News' Tony Castro writes on his personal blog that despite Alex Padilla's talk of running for mayor, the state Senator from Pacoima really wants to be in Congress.
The latest memo from the Steve Cooley campaign quotes senior consultant Kevin Spillane analyzing the late vote count in the Attorney General race and how having the Republican Party affiliation by his name hurt Cooley in Democratic Los Angeles County.
Tina Brown gets Newsweek, a new L.A. serial killer probe, politics notes and a new day for "Deadline L.A." Plus more.
A documentary called "Out: The Glenn Burke Story" aired last night on Bay Area television.
De Laurentiis died Wednesday at home in Beverly Hills. Not many Hollywood producers have this range of credits, both hits and flops.
The picture here was taken at the same time as a Channel 2 camera captured Monday's possible missile launch over the Pacific — but the next day. It's the control of US Airways flight 808.
A piece in the November issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine starts out sounding a little bit like Silverton's financial reversals weren't already big news two years ago, but the story goes on to look at what's been going right at the Mozzas and elsewhere.
Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who is making the L.A. rounds today, grew up in the Valley.
The City Maven website — "turning Los Angeles City Hall inside out" — officially launched today, by Alice M. Walton, the former City News Service reporter in City Hall who's just back from graduating at the top of her class with a master's at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
Huell Howser made his television singing debut on last night's California's Gold, belting out a rendition of "California, here he comes."
Focus on Anne Gust Brown, is Jerry Brown really on vacation in Arizona?, the City Council to examine LAPD deployment, and the line forms for Jenny Oropeza's Senate seat. Plus: no more first-class travel for actors?
At the conclusion of Tuesday's counting, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley leads by 43,212 votes over Kamala Harris.
A week in the area Los Angeles, with no car and about $100 a day — staying in a youth hostel. Seth Kugel, the New York Times' Frugal Traveler: Seven...
Video appears to show the marshal shooting the man in the back, and the investigation has found the marshal was drinking heavily, arguing with his wife, and may have shot the man to settle a grudge.
ProPublica reporter Robin Fields, a former L.A. Times investigative reporter, landed a major project this morning on the morass that the federal kidney dialysis program has become.
This is the second in a very random and occasional series, the first having featured KCAL TV reporter Suzanne Marques at the shooting range. In heels.
A federal judge in Illinois ruled in favor of former L.A. Times newsroom staffers who used over the handling of the employee stock ownership plan used by Sam Zell to get control of Tribune Company.
When KCET loses most of not all of its PBS programming after Jan. 1, the replacement fare will lean heavily toward "Asia-focused news, cooking and science programs from Japan and Canada, and reruns of British sitcoms and dramas."
The Pentagon hasn't explained an apparent missile launch over the Pacific last evening, but says there was no threat to national security. You do the math.
Schwarzenegger on pot, Villaraigosa at the Breeders' Cup race, a profile of mayoral chief of staff Jeff Carr, Mark Kriski's illness and more.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced today it will transmit live performances of three Sunday afternoon concerts next year to more than 450 high-definition-equipped movie theaters.
The Harvard economics graduate who figured in the Michael Lewis book "Moneyball" will be a VP for the Mets.
The L.A. Times headline more than doubles the fee hike proposed by the president of the University of California.
We have a limited number of tickets available for upcoming author events around Los Angeles.
Author and LA Observed contributor Denise Hamilton is now writing a column on perfume for the Los Angeles Times magazine. Former Los Angeles Times columnist Tina Daunt will write...
This weekend in Toronto, U.S. Olympic champion Cammi Granato joined Canadian legend Angela James as the first women received in the Hockey Hall of Fame. They picked up their rings...
Republican Steve Cooley's lead in the race for attorney general stands at 19,189 in this morning's update from the Secretary of State.
Conan debuts tonight, Olbermann to return Tuesday, Whitman's spending put in perspective, Qantas passengers stranded at LAX and much more for a Monday.
Nice piece in Sunday's L.A. Times on the success of Zócalo Public Square and the people behind the discussion forum, led by founder Gregory Rodriguez.
ZevWeb has posted a clarification about what happened with public documents left behind in the old Hall of Records in Downtown.
Elizabeth Martinez, the former Los Angeles city librarian, has written a piece about coming to identify herself as a Chicano around the time of the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles in 1970.
L.A. Times music writer Todd Martens blogs at Tumblr about a battle of wills with his neighbor over parking — and ultimately having the guy's girlfriend's car towed away.
Steve Cooley has erased Kamala Harris' lead and gone up up by 22,817 votes as the late vote counting stands now in the state attorney general race.
Another East Los Angeles Classic is in the books.
"Newspaper men meet such interesting people," folk music icon Pete Seeger sings in this YouTube video.
Dan Neil's farewell email when he left the Los Angeles Times for the Wall Street Journal last Febuary gets a thorough parsing at Lifehacker.
Back to the 1970s with Jerry Brown, from Steve Greenberg.
Special issues and the guides will still be in print. Otherwise, U.S. News and World Report is converting to digital.
MSNBC's president has suspended talk show host Keith Olbermann indefinitely for donating to three Democratic candidates.
Actress Jessica Alba, the cover babe in December's Elle, is quoted saying that "good actors, never use the script unless it’s amazing writing. All the good actors I’ve worked with,...
The Internet has surpassed TV as the biggest source of political news for Californians under 35, the PPIC finds. LAT critic Christopher Hawthorne looks at how Tuesday's election results...
Jerry Brown will be governor again because he won the coast.
With the L.A. Kings' 1-0 win tonight, they remained the top team in the National Hockey League. Which makes the sports report by Jim Hill tonight on Channel 2 that much more ragged.
That's a lot of outstanding ballots in a race where Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley by just 9,364 votes (out of 7,215,055 already tabulated.)
This is the tenth anniversary of the murder of David Price, the brother of our contributor Jenny Price.
Jet Propulsion Lab scientists and NASA's EPOXI mission captured this image of comet Hartley 2 in a fly-by today.
Anderson was the first baseball manager to win World Series titles in both leagues, with the Reds and Tigers. He played ball at Dorsey High School.
Proposition 19 passed on the coast of California, from Los Angeles to Sonoma counties, and in the mountains of Mono and Alpine counties. Everywhere else in the interior, no dice.
Back in the day of Jerry Brown I, noted Los Angeles artist Don Bachardy painted the official portrait for the gallery of governors in Sacramento. Only the work didn't go over so well.
Martha Stewart has posted on her blog 51 pictures from a recent trip to Los Angeles that saw her appear on "The Tonight Show," "Access Hollywood" and the "KTLA Morning News," eat at Osteria Mozza and unveil an iPad version of her magazine.
Cleaning up the analytical loose ends on the California election, the Valley goes Democratic and pro-pot, a Valley Chicano explores the Holocaust, James Rainey guest-hosts on KPCC and more.
A photo tour of the 1925 Hall of Justice at Temple and Spring streets, closed since the Northridge earthquake.
Zach Behrens, the editor of LAist for going on three years, is moving to KCET to help the newly independent station get deeper into blogging.
The Natural History Museum is looking to hire a puppeteer, but the job isn't for everybody.
One of the stranger election graphics: a day of the dead theme at L.A. Forward, where Oscar Garza and Carmen Dixon Rosenzweig live-blogged election night.
Gov. Schwarzenegger's tweeter just posted a pic of the governor congratulating the world champion San Francisco Giants.
Steve Cooley is going ahead with plans to host 20 or so big contributors in a luxury suite for tonight's Lakers-Kings game in Sacramento.
Governor-elect Jerry Brown committed his first flip-flop in this morning's news conference, saying he would not move to Sacramento after all.
The L.A. Times looks at 14 polls released in the final 10 days of the campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate and says the one that came closest to the final numbers was — ta-dahhh — its own LAT-USC poll.
Dana Milbank says Tuesday's election for Fox News Channel was the culmination of two years of hard work to bring down Barack Obama - and it was time for an on-air celebration of a job well done.
Here's video Mark Frauenfelder posted at BoingBoing of an impressive hailstorm last week in Georgia.
Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley in the race for attorney general by 38,519 votes with more than 96% of the precincts tallied, including all of them in Los Angeles County.
Visit the Secretary of State site for the latest statewide and county by county vote totals.
The youngest California governor since the 19th century is now the oldest to be elected. Jerry Brown's email to supporters went out a little before 1 a.m.
Attorney general candidate Steve Cooley has scheduled a 10:30 a.m. presser with Sheriff Lee Baca and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich in front of the sheriff's department offices in Monterey Park.
It was a Republican rout across most of the country and especially in the House of Representatives, but here in California the Democrats swept the statewide ticket except possibly for attorney general.
Watch as Jim Lehrer hosts an interactive live-streamed web version of NewsHour, with columnists Mark Shields & David Brooks.
Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle threatened to shut out the media, and look how fast the blackout hit LATimes.com.
Erika Anderson has been named the new publisher of Los Angeles
Public radio spoken-word icon Joe Frank will make a rare public appearance at a KCRW event on Nov. 13.
Today's Washington Post checks in on California First Lady Maria Shriver, starting at this year's Women's Conference in Long Beach, and pronounces her a little testy -- and also a force to be reckoned with..
The year of the mail-in ballot, how Whitman spent $160 million, Bell's city council members get jeered, plus radio ratings and more.
The San Francisco Giants won their first World Series tonight on a clutch three-run home run by a new Bay Area hitting star, Edgar Renteria.
Paul Glickman, the news director at Pasadena public radio station KPCC, argues in an Op-Ed piece in the Orange County Register that the evidence shows NPR doesn't have a liberal news slant.
Jim Newton, the former editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, is about finished with his biography of President Dwight Eisenhower and will be coming back to the paper with an Op-Ed column starting in December, just in time for the city election cycle to ramp up.
Leo Wolinskly, the former Los Angeles Times executive editor who joined Daily Variety as editor late last last year, has been let go.
When President Obama won two years ago, local Democrats filled the Century Plaza ballroom, and the lobby — and lined up around the block outside. A less festive mood is expected Tuesday night, and the Dems are also going for a new venue.
Joe Mathews is sitting this one out, he writes in a piece called Your Vote Doesn't Count at Zocalo's website.
The Los Angeles City Clerk has helpfully emailed that candidates for City Council in the March 8, 2011 election — technically, the Primary Nominating Election — "may begin filing documents Nov. 8 indicating their intention to seek candidacy."
An odd 30-minute TV infomercial that director Francis Ford Coppola produced in 1980 and that "effectively ended California Gov. Jerry Brown’s campaign for president" has been posted by the Calbuzz political website.
The L.A. Times website this morning has been featuring a blog post by Andrew Malcolm trumpeting that, based on a new Gallup Poll, Republicans are "poised to reap historic gains...
Whitman and Brown donors are hedging their bets, the day's local campaign events, Brown denies he has tapped Gray Davis to run his transition, a possible new editor for Bon Appetit and and trouble again at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
The Los Angeles Daily Journal already has the highest pay wall around separating its stories from the Internet, and it just got higher.
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.
