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Borders to close 17 SoCal stores, Brown hiring freeze, special election winners, LAUSD's budget, more politics and media notes and the NYT gets a local dateline amusingly wrong.
Borders will close 17 Southern California bookstores, including the one in Century City's shopping center. LA Biz Observed
Gov. Jerry Brown froze state hiring after dropping a Schwarzenegger-era attempt to impose the federal minimum wage on state workers during budget impasses. AP, LAT, Bee
Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Sharon Runner won Tuesday's widely watched state Senate special elections in Los Angeles County, avoiding the need for April 19 runoffs. LAT, AP, DN
Gene Maddaus parses out the Hahn-Bowen (and possibly Winograd) showdown for the Jane Harman seat, in a special note to Calbuzz.
"The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report" – the book version of the study produced by the federal commission led by Phil Angelides – has become a modest if unlikely best-seller. Bee
Damage to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is so extensive that billions of dollars in restoration efforts may not save smelt and salmon from extinction, according to the first draft of a long-range plan to manage the West Coast's most important estuary. Chronicle, Bee, Bay Citizen
Tim Leiweke is proving to be as arrogant as the NFL, writes T.J. Simers, but he says that Ed Roski "is not very highly regarded in NFL circles." LAT
The city will free up 27 police officers to patrol the streets by borrowing funds intended to help the community near the Sunshine Canyon landfill, under a plan approved Tuesday by the City Council. DN
The City Council is expected to decide today whether to proceed with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to lease nine municipal parking garages to private operators to help solve Los Angeles' budget crisis. DN wires, related DN editorial
How the staff of Chief Administrative Officer Miguel Santana erred in its analysis of Measure H on the March ballot. LAT editorial
LA Unified board members approved the district's annual worst-case budget (with layoff notices for 7,000) pending actual decisions later based on what money arrives. LAT, DN
How will Arianna Huffington fare under the AOL Way of doing journalism? LAT
Hugh Hefner is only a minority partner under the newest Playboy structure, says Jeff Bercovici. Forbes
The New York Times dateline reads that actor Kenneth Mars died in Grenada Hills — somewhere in the suburban Caribbean no doubt.
The ACLU of Southern California called for an investigation into the VA's stewardship of its sprawling West L.A. campus, which includes leasing portions of land for use as private tennis courts. LAT