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Environment reporter Margot Roosevelt's note to the newsroom tells the story. Plus another exit, and Tim Rutten's KCRW appearance.
LA Observed archive
for July 2011
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Photograph by William Reagh, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library's photo archive.
Generally, the redrawing is likely to benefit Democrats more than Republicans.
Don't expect too many surprises at City Hall.
Faced with stepped-up scrutiny, pilots might want to pull back a touch,
Authorities are investigating Hideki Irabu's death as an apparent suicide and hanging.
The veteran LAT columnist talks to Warren Olney about being laid off.
It comes just a day after a near-riot broke out at the premiere of a documentary on the Electric Daisy Carnival.
Done in by a daughter, a lawyer, and a federal judge.
The 84-seat landmark now charges 50 cents a cup on orders from owner and former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan.
You have to wonder whether it's worth all the time, effort and political maneuvering.
Crowd had assembled outside the theater, which had been premiering a movie about the Electric Daisy Carnival festival.
In addition to the newsroom turmoil at the Los Angeles Times, a couple of other transitions to note today. Tina Dupuy is leaving Fishbowl LA — voluntarily! — after three...
One of the Los Angeles Times newsroom veterans who found today that she was laid off is Jane Engle, an assistant editor in Travel who has written a lot for the Travel section.
Too much money has been spent on pet projects.
NBA writer Mark Heisler is out, according to a source.
The City Council just voted 13-0 to kill off the program,.
All book-related pieces will now be done in-house, part of another cost-cutting move at the paper. Among those out of a gig: Susan Salter Reynolds, a former staffer who had...
A $25,000 raise given to the guy in charge of the Coliseum's not-so-savory finances appears to have done the trick.
I'm off to the Pacific Northwest and the upper end of California for a week.
A release just sent out notes that Trutanich's exploratory committee has raised $507,000, and claims the endorsements of former mayor Richard Riordan and Sheriff Lee Baca.
It seems that newcomers are negotiating lower prices while the older mariachis are trying to maintain the traditional $50 hourly rate. About 200 of the price-fixers belong to United Mariachi...
Brown nominates Goodwin Liu to state high court, Democratic gains under new districts, red-light cameras likely ending, websites of ex-TV reporters and more.
Before she left the City Council, Rep. Janice Hahn made the motion that City Hall East — the white boxy building across Main Street from actual City Hall — be renamed for her brother, the former mayor.
Reporting extended from Mexico to Bell to the Bronx, says the memo by Times editor Russ Stanton.
Ana Garcia is moving back to the investigative team full-time. The new 6 p.m. anchor on Channel 4 is Lucy Noland, recently imported from Houston. She starts tonight.
Jacob Lassen works as a commercial actor sometimes, and crawls under houses the rest of the time.
The New York Times features a photo project on Lakewood by Tom M. Johnson.
Amazon politics, Villaraigosa's legacy and new platform, Hector Tobar book on Chilean miners, Olivia Wilde's journalism roots, white flight into the cities and more.
Does Billy Bob Barnett want to protect the citizens of Los Angeles, or is this political payback? You decide.
After the Rodney King verdict riots in 1992, George Ramos wrote a first-person piece in the L.A. Times that began "Los Angeles, you broke my heart. And I'm not sure I'll love you again."
The Wall Street Journal editorial page on Saturday notoriously blamed the massacre on Muslim jihadists, without hedging language (or apparently reading the paper's own front page story.)
Leo Braudy and Timothy Egan on what to take from last weekend's unexpectedly light traffic.
The body of Ramos, the former L.A. Times staff writer and editor, was found in his Morro Bay home after he did not respond to calls from colleagues at CalCoastNews.com.
Chuck Manatt was co-founder in Los Angeles of the law firm now called Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and served as national (and California) chairman of the Democratic Party and co-chair of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president. Manatt died Friday night at a Richmond, Va., hospital of complications from a stroke.
The L.A. Times has posted tonight, for Sunday's paper, the first of a four-part series by Richard Marosi that reconstructs the inner workings of a busted Sinaloa drug cartel from court records and interviews.
There never was any physical evidence linking Giovanni Ramirez to Dodger Stadium or the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow, just weak eyewitness IDs, says an L.A. Times story. Then...
The British soul singer with a drug and alcohol problem was found dead in her London apartment on Saturday afternoon local time. An autopsy is pending.
Prosecutors today charged two Rialto fathers, Louie Sanchez, 29, and Marvin Norwood, 30, with felony mayhem, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury in connection with the opening day attack on Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium.
Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick and blogger Rich Lederer will stand up at the baseball Hall of Fame in upstate New York.
The L.A. culture war between drivers and bicyclists was in full view this morning on KPCC's "Airtalk.
The con man has been sentenced back to prison, and his journalist partner in short-selling stock on companies they "exposed" does PR for the city of Costa Mesa.
No Morning Buzz today. Check out Mark's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed.
This week's photos of Lakers center Andrew Bynum parking in a disabled spot weren't the first time he's been caught.
The L.A. Times story saying Giovanni Ramirez is off the hook in the Bryan Stow beating is attributed to an unnamed law enforcement source
Dan Gillmor typically buys a new computer every year, and loves his MacBook Air.
The Los Angeles city parking and traffic officer who was filmed in uniform spanking and fondling the breasts of a porn actress has been fired, the city says.
City Council hopefuls get a date, Garcetti gets an NYT story, Cenk Uygur gets mad and Katzenberg says the movies "suck." Plus more.
From a new online slide show at the New York Times website.
A sudden flurry of high-level meetings and grim faces this week at the Los Angeles Times has people in the newsroom on edge again. But stats are up at LATimes.com.
Supervisor Yaroslavsky's website team has pulled together some insightful data points from the weekend closure of the 405 freeway.
After Alex Chadwick lost his job at NPR, then his wife to cancer, he and a friend who also was facing a personal crisis went rafting through Cataract Canyon in Utah. The radio documentary that resulted debuts Friday on KCRW, and there's a twist to the story.
City Controller Wendy Greuel's news release cites reports about theft of animals and fraudulent time sheets at the Lincoln Heights shelter as the reason to launch a "comprehensive review."
Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney was at the Valley Plaza shopping center in North Hollywood today, using it as a photo op for some claim about jobs and the economy.
Whether Garcetti can deliver on any of the conditions is an open question, but here is his letter addressed to CAO Miguel Santana and the council's legislative analyst, Gerry Miller.
KPCC's John Rabe and I share a pet peeve: drivers who take up two curb parking spots by not pulling a few feet farther forward.
It isn't even close, says Slate's Jennifer Reese. It's "America's Test Kitchen," the PBS show from the staff of Cooks Illustrated magazine.
Zev, AEG's stadium, Maxine Waters, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, this month in Los Angeles magazine, Paris Hilton walks out then come back, plus more.
Professor and author Leo Braudy will be the special guest, and I'll be the not-so-special interviewer and moderator, this Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Central Library in Downtown. It's for the ALOUD series.
Riding the canals, in still frames from Yo! Venice.
Nikki Finke watchers are having a fun time with this morning's news that she's flacking a Hollywood-themed Facebook game with Paramount Digital Entertainment.
Lakers center Andrew Bynum was videotaped parking his BMW across two marked disabled spots at the Bristol Farms store in Westchester.
New deputy mayor, new library hours, a new rainbow for Sony and a vote for Bill Simmons' Grantland.
Veteran TV reporter John Schwada has posted on Facebook about his firing by Fox 11. He's not happy about it.
Villaraigosa spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton heads home to Chicago, the mayor cuts a transportation video and more.
Amanda Corrigan, her husband Matt and their friend Barry Neely set up early Sunday morning on the closed southbound side of the 405 freeway in Sherman Oaks.
The KCRW commentator is in Florida with her team, checking weather and training to try again to swim from Cuba to the U.S. mainland.
A press release from Time Warner Cable says these were the movies its On Demand customers in Los Angeles demanded the most this past weekend: 1. The Lincoln Lawyer 2....
Now that the big media event is over, it's back to the routine closures that users of the 405 freeway have experienced over the past several months. Here's tonight's partial list.
In tonight's episode of "The Closer" on TNT, City Council President Eric Garcetti returns to his role as "Los Angeles Mayor Ramon Quintero."
Lance Armstrong's new legal team, led by John W. Keker of San Francisco, has filed a brief alleging the government has been leaking damaging information to "60 Minutes" and others about the former bicycling champion.
Headline you knew was coming: "Post-Carmageddon crashes snarl L.A. freeways." A full menu of Monday items inside.
The reigning radio talk host in Los Angeles for a couple of decades until conservative talk took over the AM dial sits in for Patt Morrison on KPCC on Monday and Tuesday.
Future installments will look at the former LA Times owner's "interlude as 'emperor of the Pribilofs,' his military atrocities in the Philippines, his bitter legal battles with the Theosophists, the Otis-Chandler empire in the Mexicali Valley, the Times bombing in 1910, the notorious discovery of fellatio in Long Beach, and Otis’s quixotic plan for world government."
Carmageddon weekend is taking on the same image of freedom from traffic as the 1984 Olympics has in Los Angeles lore.
It's been real quiet across the Westside with no 405 freeway spewing white noise for miles around. Villaraigosa thanks "the people of Los Angeles for doing their part."
As the traffic experts say, it doesn't take many drivers to change their ways for congestion to go away.
So far? Best traffic on the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass in years. Free flow in both direction under the Mulholland Bridge — at 7 p.m. on a Friday. Funny...
It's not bad out there. I came over Sepulveda Pass about 2 o'clock, and except for what seemed to be a bit of lookie-loo slowdown on both sides approaching the...
From Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing....
Until the tunnel under Mulholland Highway opened in 1930, there wasn't much "pass" to Sepulveda Pass. There was a dirt road and trails, but most of the traffic between...
Traffic along the 405 has been good today. People are self-correcting: good sign. Now this from cartoonist Donna Barstow.
Political and investigative reporter John Schwada has been with the Channel 11 a long time, and last month picked up the L.A. Press Club's Joseph M. Quinn Award for journalistic excellence.
Quick stack for a summer Friday. "California's district maps needed to be reformed in the worst way. Unfortunately, they were," writes Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. NBC PropZero A new state law...
A two-month-old baby and its mother were struck by a sheared-off parking meter at 4th and Spring at the peak of tonight's Art Walk.
Patrick Range McDonald, a staff writer at the Weekly, has been tapped to co-write the memoir of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.
Chris Nichols of Los Angeles magazine has the story behind a Jacques Overhoff sculpture that was hidden behind a medical building near Wilshire and Bixel.
A federal judge in Los Angeles must really feel that Jeff McGrue's crime was over the top.
The Wrap is reporting that the Beverly Hills police have completed the investigation into the Nov. 16 murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen. The gun was stolen from a police officer in the Valley.
CBS 2 says it has an exclusive with the local murder suspect who was released from custody in Puerto Rico then disappeared.
A roundup of news and observations on the biggest story in Southern California: this weekend's closure of the 405 freeway in Sepulveda Pass, potentially affecting a million or more people — but probably only a little bit.
Redistricting doubts, BH versus the subway, animal shelter probe in Lincoln Heights, plus is the city's campaign matching funds law now unconstitutional?
"Born of the motorcycle and hot rod culture of Burbank California in the early 1970s, the Travis Bean guitar was fused from gear head sensibility and rock and roll creativity," says a website.
"They have to do this every two years to sweep up the shell casings," Jay says in tonight's monologue.
Eddie North-Hager spotted this sign under a display of Dodgers bobbleheads at King of New York Pizza in Koreatown.
Lots of politics today: Hahn win analysis, Padilla not running for mayor, political stakes of the 405 closure, charges against Rod Wright reinstated and more. Plus: who wins, Harry Potter or Carmageddon?
With the final election night ballots counted, and most of the mail-ins tabulated, the county registrar says it's 54.56 percent for Democrat Janice Hahn and 45.44 percent for Republican Craig Huey.
Last month, blogger Susannah Breslin offered $100 to the young female journalist who came up with the best guest post for Breslin's Forbes blog, Pink Slipped.
The city Department of Transportation is slapping up new No Stopping any Time signs for Carmageddon weekend on these streets, mostly in the Valley.
Riverside County sheriff's picked up Rodney King this afternoon while he was driving in Moreno Valley.
Subway fear-mongering by Rodeo Drive merchants inspires a transit-rich fantasy.
Debra Levine at Arts Meme urges movie fans to take in the final run of films curated by Ian Birnie at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In "Berth Marks," Laurel and Hardy (and Hal Roach) show off the bridge and the old Santa Fe rail station that was beside the river.
Television writer and producer created Gilligan and "The Brady Bunch," TV sitcom milestones from the 1960s that remain popular in syndication.
I'm the reporter-narrator on a UCLA-produced program on the 405 closure that's airing as a special edition of "SoCal Connected" on KCET, Wednesday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 p.m. Here's the trailer.
L.A.'s new parolees, Westwood's FlyAway bus, LA Weekly piles on Zooey Deschanel, water main breaks in the Valley, new gigs for Laurie Pike and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the non-story of the month: secession from California.
The Automobile Club of Southern California Archives have some stunning photos from the years in which the L.A. area was discovering its relationship with the car. Like this one.
She was the mother of political writer and former U.S. Senate candidate Mickey Kaus and the widow of the late California Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus.
L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison's blog quip the other day that actress Zooey Deschanel is a "snobby cow" for daring to diss an ugly corner of Downtown has elicited a big response — from Deschanel.
Bob Drogin, a longtime foreign and national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, will be the deputy in Washington. Read the memo.
Ramona Hahn, the mother of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Superior Court Judge James Hahn, the former mayor, died today.
What the Huffington Post does with many stories it picks up from others is have a junior writer rewrite them without adding new facts or smart observation, then not hint until the end that the story actually came from somewhere else.
Villaraigosa and Prop. 13, Hahn v. Huey coming to a close, HuffPost expands again, William and Kate's last day in L.A. and Robert Hilburn will spin the discs.
Officer Ryan Stringer of the Alhambra Police Department was responding to a robbery call early this morning when his patrol car collided with another from the department.
It's a "Primetime" special airing tonight on ABC. Watch video.
Watching KCAL's coverage of the British consul-general's reception for William and Kate, Gov. Brown introduced the couple as Mayor Villaraigosa and Lu Parker stood with the Duchess.
I'm pretty sure I swore off the Hitler spoofs awhile back. but this one is worth it — and just very smart about the city's culture.
Gaye Williams has most recently been an advisor to Austin Beutner, the former deputy mayor who is running for the top job in 2013.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles looks to have a hit on its hands.
Fraiche is hosting a seven-course wine dinner next Wednesday that's not for the unemployed or those whose 401-k's have cratered.
The British residence in Hancock Park was designed by Wallace Neff and finished in 1928.
L.A. Times Metro features editor Nita Lelyveld is returning to local reporting and posted a request on the city desk's public Twitter account.
Toll lanes coming to 10 and 110, Zine makes it official, Hahn and Huey face off for first time, hating "Page One" and more.
Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cried when Walter O'Malley's Dodgers left Brooklyn, and he's not much happier about Frank McCourt's team now.
Carmageddon in the New York Times, from Los Angeles bureau chief Adam Nagourney. You would think that Los Angeles, of all places, would know how to handle a catastrophe. But...
The author and granddaughter of one of Los Angeles' most discussed historical figures, the water legend William Mulholland, died today of natural causes at her home in Camarillo.
I'm tied up all day on other tasks. Mark at LA Biz Observed posted on Mayor Villaraigosa's chief of staff giving notice and other news, starting with the morning headlines....
With tonight's defeat, the Dodgers now have reached 50 losses at the earliest date in any of the team's seasons since 1979.
Author and long-ago L.A. Times enviro reporter Philip L. Fradkin and his photographer son, Alex L. Fradkin, walked the eleven-hundred miles of California coast and have married their words and images in “The Left Coast."
Former Daily Pilot photographer Kent Treptow is walking across the United States with his dog Hanna.
Nicole Bershon, head of the Los Angeles Police Department's watchdog agency just since May 2010, said today she will depart soon to become a Superior Court commissioner
"L.A. also smells of fat and sugar—the cheap donuts served at my hotel.”
New KCET programs named, Sharon Waxman on "Deal From Hell," Ken Auletta on Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, L.A.'s shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe and more.
What did you do for the Fourth of July?
Fox News hacked, Villaraigosa calls for raising the debt ceiling, a new year at the City Council and more.
In advance of Britain's Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting California this week, the New York Times' London correspondent Sarah Lyall gave them some cheeky advice for handling the "culture shock" of Los Angeles.
See the Museum of Neon Art begin its move out of Downtown to Glendale.
The Dodgers are in last place on July 4, and the media pile on.
An architecture critic says don't build that wall, while an artist envisions a revenue opportunity.
How do you bring a 340-ton rock to Wilshire Boulevard? First you need a transporter with 208 wheels, and about fifteen men.
The Dodgers and Angels have played each other many times in inter-league play. But tonight's game in Anaheim is the first time they will face each other in a game that counts while both teams wear L.A. on their caps.
Shriver's filing in Los Angeles Superior Court cites irreconcilable differences and seeks shared custody with ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of their two sons.
A short stack for the holiday getaway day.
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.
