Morning Buzz: Tuesday 3.6.12

72 protesters were arrested in Sacramento demonstrations over state budget cuts to education, most for refusing to leave the Capitol when it closed for the day. Bee

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has paid $30,000 in fines to the FPPC for inappropriately spending $1.1 million in campaign funds on a media blitz during his 2009 budget battle with Democrats. Bee

An attorney for City Council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry sent a letter challenging the legality of proposed district maps that are moving toward final approval by the council. DN

Mayor Villaraigosa, in Washington to push his 30/10 transportation initiative, will join Warren Olney on tonight's Which Way L.A.? to discuss transportation, his recent career revival and city issues. 7 p.m. on KCRW.

Rush Limbaugh gave a somewhat better apology to law student Sandra Fluke on Monday and lost a couple more advertisers, including AOL. He's not lacking for advertisers. Washington Post

Interesting comment on food writing by Elina Shatkin, who has left the LA Weekly food staff to be senior editor at Los Angeles magazine:

In the past year, I have gotten food poisoning more times than in my previous three decades combined. I also gained 20 pounds.

Learning to write reviews was excruciating. I had done a fair bit of food writing -- profiles, trend pieces, behind-the-scenes stories, etc. -- but not a lot of reviewing. I had only begun to find my voice as a reviewer when it was time for me to leave this job.

Actually, I know the hardest thing about my job. It's the writer's fatigue and constant sense of failure that sets in with doing 15 posts per week. I look back on every story and see how it can be improved. It's humbling.

Channel 11 has hired general assignment reporters Araksya Karapetyan (from Portland) and James Koh (from San Diego). Fishbowl LA

California's nearly four-year-old ban on drivers using handheld cellphones is apparently saving lives, according to a UC Berkeley study that found a 47 percent drop in driver deaths attributed to cellphones. AP

Black students in Los Angeles are being suspended at a proportionally higher rate than in the nation's other largest school systems, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education. LAT

The Windsor Square home and historic-cultural monument formerly occupied by Dorothy Chandler, whose family used to own the Los Angeles Times, is at the center of a dispute between the home seller and buyers who didn't discover problems with the structure until too late. LAT

The Los Angeles Zoo opens a new reptile and amphibian habitat on Thursday. DN

Another longtime LA studio musician has died: Frank Marocco, a jazz accordion player and composer. He was 81. LAT

Disney songwriter Robert B. Sherman, who with his brother Richard wrote "It's a Small World (After All)" and songs for Disney movies such as "Mary Poppins," died in London at age 86. BBC