Former mayor Richard Riordan spent Tuesday night at St. John's for observation and tests after calling the paramedics because of dizziness and chest pains. Riordan was released the next day and says he did not have a heart attack.

Another year of the cross-city football rivalry is in the books. Yes, that's right: UCLA won.

Bring ponchos to the UCLA-USC game, says the city of Pasadena. "Umbrellas are prohibited from the stadium, as they block the view if those behind them,'' said William Boyer, a...

Villaraigosa was in a forgiving mood about that "Failure" cover back in 2009. He even joked about his "General Petraeus moment."

Federal regulators gave the go-ahead for Tribune Corp. to continue operating TV stations and newspapers in five markets where it holds both, removing a major obstacle to the Chicago company...

The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC announced this morning that Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism since 2008, will step down in June. She said she will return to New York with her husband, Annenberg faculty member David Westphal. USC's release says it will launch a recruitment campaign for a successor to Overholser.

Analysis by Gallup and UCLA Law's Williams Institute suggests that the gay and lesbian vote for Obama was big enough to matter. That would certainly add to gay political clout if the belief takes hold.

The New York Times statistical guru made a strong case at FiveThirtyEight for the Angels' Mike Trout to win the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.

One of the remaining unsettled California congressional contests has been won by Democratic challenger Ami Bera. Dan Lungren, the former Long Beach area lawmaker who has also been the state's attorney general and the Republican nominee for governor, lost by more than 5,000 votes. The margin on election night was fewer than 200 votes.

The California Supreme Court denied a request by Neighbors for Smart Rail for a stay that would stop construction on the Expo Line extension across the Westside to Santa Monica. The supremes agreed with previous rulings that there's no cause to stop work while the homeowner groups press their case that the project's environmental review made mistakes.

"The call I feared finally came late on a Friday...'I’m a nurse at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital,' she said. 'Don’t panic, but we have your son.'"

The first round of reductions at Variety under new owner Jay Penske was announced in a 1:40 p.m., unbylined post at sister site Deadline.com. A "Dear Team" memo from Jay Penske says "without a doubt, this is a challenging day." No editors or reporters got the axe.

In which the third floor at City Hall fills up and numerous staffers and reporters post Facebook pictures of themselves with Snoop Dogg and a certain new Lakers center. Video from the office of Councilman Joe Buscaino.

Wilbur Woo immigrated to Los Angeles in 1921, became the head of his family's Chungking Produce Co., a vice president of Cathay Bank, and emerged as a top Chinese American community leader in Los Angeles. Woo, a Republican, was the top contributor when his son, Democrat Michael Woo, ran and became the first Chinese American elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

Many LA area courtrooms to close, Dems get super-majority in Sacramento, LAFD response times mapped, city attorney hopefuls get testy, Noguez stays in jail and more.

Lynn Harrell, the international cello master who lives in Santa Monica, always buys a separate seat for his instrument on Delta flights. He's been accruing frequent flier miles for "Mr....

Deadline.com editor Mike Fleming returns to the site two weeks after his dad was injured at home during the storm in New York. Fleming says he's grateful for the support of his colleagues at the website.

George Mann was a vaudeville performer who made color photographs of downtown's Bunker Hill neighborhood before all the Victorians and rooming houses were torn down. There is a show of his 1960s Kodachrome photos — in 3-D, with glasses provided — tonight at Central Library.

President Obama has nominated Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell for a seat on the United States District Court.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is being talked up as a possible chair of the Democratic National Committee during President Obama's second term, should there be a change.

Composite sketches in possible El Sereno kidnapping, LAPD officers convicted of lying, Krekorian apologizes for fake column, LAT catches up on Carmen Warschaw obit and where are all the KUSC listeners going?

Los Angeles journalist John Johnson and his co-author, Joel Selvin, have finished "Peppermint Tiwst," their book on the nightclubs where the mob discovered through "The Twist" that there was money in rock and roll music. "The Sopranos meets American Bandstand," Ronnie Spector blurbs. With some fun video.

Spotted on Councilman Eric Garcetti's TwitPic page, from last month but worth a reprise.

City Councilman and candidate for mayor Eric Garcetti up in the saddle, posted to his TwitPic account in October with the message "Happy Horse Day." While we're on the subject,...

Many journalists in Los Angeles, and many more in the LA Times diaspora, remember Baron as the business editor at the LAT during the section's glory days and a contender for higher-level jobs even since he left for the New York Times.

Message to freelancers: sue the Los Angeles Times at your own risk. An arbitrator has awarded the paper $266,000 to cover the costs of defending itself against a suit by the longtime Hollywood photographer.

LA sales tax would be a victory for real estate lobbyists, John Noguez' campaign contributions, the engineering challenge of high-speed rail, Tony Cardenas' plans for his City Council seat, a new sea creature and more.

BuzzFeed gets to the heart of the latest revelations in the David Petraeus scandal. Plus: an LA media angle to the Paula Broadwell story.

Councilwoman Jan Perry's move last week to re-brand herself as the business-minded reform candidate in the race for mayor is at least "viable," Times columnist Jim Newton says. What choice does she have really?

On Sunday it was mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel's turn to go for a trail ride with the equestrians of Chatsworth. It's a rite of political passage in LA: we even have a pic of Antonio Villaraigosa in the saddle.

Self-serving questions from constituents for the 'Ask Paul" column on AOL Patch are actually written by the councilman's press deputy. But let's hope you knew that.

Jackson says the call waking him to say he didn't get the job was "slimy." He says the Lakers might have the talent to win the West, but not necessarily the East.

Before the LA Times rediscovered the corruption in Bell, and in some cases before DA Steve Cooley got to town with his corruption prosecutions, investigative reporter Jeffrey Anderson was digging into the dirty dealings in the southeast cities for the LA Weekly. KCET interviewed Anderson about the challenges of reporting in places like Cudahy last decade.

Live Talks Los Angeles is offering LA Observed readers a pair of tickets to see Penn Jillette on Thursday at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.

Mike Trout wins some hardware, a new co-anchor for 'ET,' remembering the colorful Art Snyder, Manhattan Beach's sand, a memorial for John Retsek and more.

The mayor vows he's staying, but his new reformer mode sounds a lot like a statewide candidate. This week he kisses and makes up with Los Angeles Magazine, three years after the "Failure" cover.

Men by a wide margin opposed requiring condoms on porn actors in LA County. Women, by an equally large margin, favored condoms. Blacks favored condoms. Whites opposed the new rule, strongly. Voters in the city of West Hollywood also rejected the condom mandate for porn films.

The Lakers signed a big-name coach on Sunday night, but it's not Phil Jackson. When talks with Jackson bogged down, despite his all-out endorsement by Kobe Bryant and the Staples Center fans, the Lakers quickly gave a multi-year deal to Mike D'Antoni.

The Los Angeles Times went to the red ink on Sunday's front page for the opening story in a series on prescription drug overdose deaths.