Morning Buzz

Morning Buzz: Monday 10.24.11

Chinese carmaker BYD opens but where are the jobs, Hollywood heavies schedule Elizabeth Warren funder, Villaraigosa planning trip to Asia, Harold and Belle's sweet deal, urging a bigger mall in Woodland Hills and tiring of Occupy L.A. Plus more inside.

Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed.

Top of the news

Los Angeles touted landing the North American headquarters of Chinese carmaker BYD Co. as a win that would generate jobs and make L.A. a center for the growing market for electric autos. But BYD America opens today about a year behind schedule with fewer workers than first targeted. Bloomberg, plus coverage at the Daily News and Downtown News

It's an Obamajam day. LA Observed


Politics and politicos

Hollywood heavies Norman Lear, Barbra Streisand and Hans Zimmer will co-host a Nov. 1 fundraiser at Lear's estate for Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat running against Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Hollywood Reporter

Also: THR now has an online Politics page.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is planning a 12-day trade trip to China, Korea and Japan in December, while the City Council has decided not to send any members to the National League of Cities meeting in Arizona next month. Rick Orlov's Tipoff/DN, City Maven

Patrick Lynch, while serving as Coliseum general manager, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a stadium contractor who deposited the money in a Miami bank, the Times says. LAT

The chosen route of the California high-speed train across the Central Valley "would destroy churches, schools, private homes, shelters for low-income people, animal processing plants, warehouses, banks, medical offices, auto parts stores, factories, farm fields, mobile home parks, apartment buildings and much else as it cuts through the richest agricultural belt in the nation and through some of the most depressed cities in California." LAT

Harold & Belle's Creole Restaurant on Jefferson Blvd. received a taxpayer-financed $2.6-million loan from the City Council and Steve Lopez isn't happy about it. LAT column

Community debate over the planned Village at Westfield Topanga in Woodland Hills has a new twist: Whether the proposed outdoor mall is urban enough. A small but vocal group of neighbors have banded together to advocate for a denser, more city-like Village. DN

Followers of Occupy L.A. pitched their tents, erected their signs and girded for battle with the establishment, only to discover that City Hall has no interest in fighting back. Jim Newton column/LAT

Denizens of Bunker Hill are getting tired of their visits from Occupy L.A. protesters. DN

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., was Conan Nolan's guest on Sunday's "News Conference," talking about the Justice Department's stand on medical marijuana and the crackdown on dispensaries. NBC 4


Media and media people

The “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Jobs’s biographer Walter Isaacson included audio recordings of Jobs describing a remarkable moment in his life: an accidental encounter with his biological father. NYT

"All Things Considered" co-host Michele Norris will step away from those duties to be a reporter for NPR while her husband, Broderick Johnson, works for the Obama re-election campaign as a senior adviser. Romenesko

L.A. Times baseball writer Bill Shaikin was elected the next president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle was elected VP, which means she likely would become the group's first female president next year. ESPN/AP

Director Roland Emmerich guests with Kim Masters on KCRW's "The Business" at 2:30 p.m.


More

The CareNow free health clinic at the Sports Arena health clinic served about 5,000 people over four days. KPCC News

High school seniors are confused by UC's message that taking SAT subject exams will be a plus on applications, but won't count against anyone who does poorly or opts not to take the exams. LAT

Vowing to keep alive the memory of Los Angeles’ first deadly race riot, two dozen political, academic and civic leaders gathered Sunday morning at the El Pueblo de Los Angles historic monument downtown to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the Chinatown massacre. Supervisor Ridley-Thomas

Little Tokyo's 21-story Kyoto Grand Hotel, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year, is set to become a DoubleTree. Downtown News

The Westwood pop-up branch of Eastside bookstore-library Libros Schmibros is hosting a lunchtime reading group of Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. They're taking on chapters 7, 8 and 9 this Friday at noon inside the Hammer Museum installation. Schmibros

Conejo Post is a news blog about doings in the Thousand Oaks to Agoura areas by Janna Orkney. CP


More by Kevin Roderick:
Gustavo Arellano, many others join LA Times staff
Power out Monday across Malibu
Put Jamal Khashoggi Square outside the Saudi consulate on Sawtelle
Here's who the LA Times has newly hired*
LA Observed Notes: Clippers hire big-time writer, unfunny Emmys, editor memo at the Times and more
Recent Morning Buzz stories on LA Observed:
Thursday news and notes
A little bit of mid-week reading
A few links from a few different places
Let's talk about anything but the weather
A few links from here and there
A couple of links from a couple of places
A bit of news from a few places
Morning Buzz: Wednesday 4.16.14


 

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