Los Angeles Times watcher Patrick Frey, who blogs as Patterico, has been waiting years for America's most-quoted so-called "man on the street" to finally break into the pages of his favorite (not) newspaper.

The KPCC afternoon host mentions meeting Leonard on a Buddhist retreat, before she know who he was.

Chicago News Cooperative, an online alternative to the Tribune and Sun-Times run by former Los Angeles Times editor Jim O'Shea, will shut down later this month.

The Great Eastern, the Chinatown landmark in San Francisco where President Obama made one of those "unscheduled" stops on Thursday's campaign swing, still offers a $48 bowl of braised shark...

Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell tells a horrific story in his online tribute to the New York Times' Anthony Shadid.

The popular and respected food writer Jonathan Gold was spotted shaking hands in the Los Angeles Times building yesterday. The buzz is that he will rejoin the paper shortly after his upcoming Gold Standard tasting event, but the Weekly would like to keep him.

Xi Jinping's day in LA, Herb Wesson politicizes the City Council, Richard Alarcon's bad week, why Stephen Colbert took off, the LAPL takes to Pinterest and remembering the heyday of Gold's Gym in Venice.

Reporter Jane Yamamoto and Fox 11 went their separate ways in November, and now she's reporting for CBS.

Lalo Alcaraz takes umbrage after a "white lady" approached him twice outside a Mexican restaurant and tried to give him her valet parking ticket.

For me, the worst incident of the day was the death in a police pursuit of a woman who apparently had been kidnapped this morning in the Westlake district.

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson just announced the death of foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid to the staff. He apparently was stricken with an asthma attack.

-feb2012.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="float: left; margin: 0 20px 5px 0;" />Water watcher and dry gardener Emily Green is advising her fellow Los Angeles-area gardeners that despite the tease of rain this week, it's time to irrigate the soil.

President Obama stopped into San Francisco's Chinatown for some dim sum dumplings today. Unlike here, there didn't sound like much fuming in traffic.

Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter, born in Culver City, played one season with the Dodgers near the end of his career

KFI said today it is suspending the popular talk show pair "for making insensitive and inappropriate comments about the late Whitney Houston." They called her a "crack ho."

Zocalo Public Square ran a contest to solicit some favorite names for an NFL team in Los Angeles, in advance of a Friday night panel on the NFL and LA.

Interesting remarks by Hollywood Reporter editorial director Janice Min at Mediabistro via Fishbowl LA.

Jack Klunder, the publisher of the Daily News, Daily Breeze and Press-Telegram, has just been promoted to president of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

The White House has provided an official account of what President Obama had to stay last night at the fundraiser in Holmby Hills.

Obama moves on to OC, China's Xi Jinping arrives, redistricting panel redraws council districts again, Rep. Laura Richardson in hot water again, and Jim Ladd is back on the air — again.

Every president from Kennedy to Clinton stayed at least once at the Beverly Hilton, the hotel says, and it's where President Obama checked in before tonight's Democratic fundraiser. By flying over much of the Westside to Cheviot Hills, then taking the short jaunt up through Century City to the hotel, he cut out many miles of potential traffic mayhem on this trip.

Jeffrey Kaye worked at the San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and The Hollywood Reporter, and wrote for TV Guide and the Los Angeles Times.

President Obama is scheduled to land at LAX about 4 p.m. After that traffic could suck for awhile in the corridor from Brentwood to Beverly Hills.

Gerhard Albert Becker was arrested Saturday on his arrival from Spain at LAX, and he's scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death last year of LAFD veteran Glenn Allen.

Cold rain expected, an audit of Animal Services, Frisbee rules to back for rewrite, redistricting gets testy, Villaraigosa on chairing the Democratic convention, and a disabled placard stunt with Steve Lopez and Dennis Zine.

Roy Brewer is a despised historical figure by many in Hollywood, but not by Ronald Reagan researcher John Meroney.

But it sounds as if he the mayor will be named chair of the Democrats' convention in Charlotte, with an announcement possibly tomorrow when President Obama is here in Los Angeles.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer formally announced his candidacy for City Attorney this morning. He lost to Rocky Delgadillo in 2001.

With politicians in Riverside and San Bernardino counties clamoring for an explanation, the local Caltrans chief has re-assigned the engineer on the Interstate 10 repaving project that closed several lanes of the freeway at the height of Sunday's westbound rush.

Just as blogger Lee Rosenbaum said yesterday, the Getty announced today that the museum's new director is Timothy Potts.

Nonprofit funds vanish, Whitney Houston goes home to Newark, FPPC softens oversight of candidates, Dems endorse Janice Hahn, Bernard Parks comes back from surgery and blogging Dudamel's trip to Venezuela.

The sculpture garden and all the lawn areas are included in the closure, in case that affects your plans to visit.

We have a simple web widget you can put on your blog or desktop and have easy access to everything posted at LA Observed.

Just 17 seconds, uploaded to You Tube by Jonathan Alcorn.

Dwight Evans is one of the most underrated players in baseball history, the godfather of baseball stats writes to the sport's hall of fame, urging enshrinement for the retired Chatsworth High alum.

My chat tonight with Lisa Napoli is on the background of the Ansel Adams photographs of the Los Angeles area, shot in 1940, that go on display this weekend.

Sunday's Caltrans-induced traffic jam on Interstate 10 coming back in from Palm Springs was so bad that at least one group of music industry types headed to the Grammy Awards flew into Santa Monica Airport.

The cancellation of the Irwindale Speedway season marks the end of stock car and NASCAR-sanctioned short track racing in Los Angeles County.

The Times wants two reporters to cover the Vietnamese and Korean communities in the West, while KPCC is still advertising for a co-host of the soon-to-be Latinoized Madeleine Brand show.

Beverly Hills police today confirmed the reports that singer Whitney Houston was unconscious and underwater when attendants entered her Beverly Hilton bathroom on Saturday afternoon.

I've been tied up all weekend on a project that is carrying over into Monday....

The entertainment highlight of the Democratic Party's state convention this weekend in San Diego was apparently the unusually harsh words from Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, aimed at each other.

All of the news operations at the longtime NBC home on Alameda in Burbank will move to a building formerly occupied by Technicolor on the Universal Studios lot.

Caltrans work narrowed the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 in Banning Pass on Sunday afternoon and evening, creating a monster backup.

The Grammys handled the death of Whitney Houston by having host LL Cool J follow opening act Bruce Springsteen with some words of tribute and a prayer "for our fallen sister," and Jennifer Hudson sang "I Will Always Love You."

While the body of Whitney Houston lay upstairs, music business legend Clive Davis and his guests held their annual pre-Grammy party — somewhat muted, it sounds like, and with some high-profile absences.

KTLA brought in a full crew, I'm told, to pull together a nearly five-minute news piece on Whitney Houston's rise and fall. If the player doesn't show, here's the link....