Morning Buzz

Morning Buzz: Tuesday 3.27.12

Racial profiling at the LAPD, DiFi is running just quietly, gun-toting lawmaker gets probation, suing over Newhall Ranch, more waste and possibly worse in the sheriff's aero division, and more.

Top of the news

The LAPD says one of its veteran Westside motorcycle officers, Patrick Smith, is guilty of racial profiling in his traffic stops: targeting Latino drivers and sometimes altering his reports to cover up his practice. LAT

Politics and politicos

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is running, at 78, for a new six-year term this year, but you'd hardly know it. Bee

Inland Empire assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Minuteman chapter founder, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor gun charges over bringing a loaded firearm to Ontario Airport in his carry-on bag. He got a $2,215 fine and three years of probation. Bee

Talking About Los Angeles, a series of conversations with the candidates for mayor, begins March 29 at Trade-Tech with Eric Garcetti. The series is backed by Microsoft, Fixing Angelenos Stuck in Traffic, La Opinion, Patch and Time Warner Cable. TALA

Environmental groups are suing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for approving building permits for Newhall Ranch, the master planned community near Santa Clarita. DN

Media and media people

Sandy Banks finds out what her column's readers really think of young men wearing hoodies. LAT

LA freelancer Claire Hoffman interviews Drake at home for GQ and gets a proposition of sex. LAT

Television producer Matthew Asner, the son of actor Ed Asner, has been named Autism Speaks' Executive Director for Southern California. He has a son and a brother with autism, and guests on KPCC's "Patt Morrison" at 1:40 p.m. DN

Daily News photographer Hans Gutknecht won five awards, including two first-place honors, in the annual contest sponsored by the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles. DN

Los Angeles Times photojournalist Barbara Davidson receives the Frank McCulloch Award for Courage in Journalism from the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno.

More

An internal report on the Los Angeles County sheriff's Aero division says that officials overpaid a private contractor nearly $11 million for work that wasn't needed and aircraft equipment they already had. LAT, Witness LA

Jeffrey Stenroos, the former LAUSD police officer who faked a shooting incident in Woodland Hills, will pay lump-sum restitution to the city of $309,000 and in exchange will get out of county jail on bail pending appeal of his conviction and sentence. LAT, DN

Some of the grossest real estate listing photos you ever want to see, from a fixer condo in Panorama City. Curbed LA

Larry Stevenson, a Venice Beach lifeguard who helped popularize skateboarding in the early 1960s, died in Santa Monica at 81. LAT


More by Kevin Roderick:
'In on merit' at USC
Read the memo: LA Times hires again
Read the memo: LA Times losing big on search traffic
Google taking over LA's deadest shopping mall
Gustavo Arellano, many others join LA Times staff
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Morning Buzz: Wednesday 4.16.14