Nice win by the Los Angeles Galaxy this afternoon at Home Depot Center. The Houston Dynamo scored first, then the Galaxy took over the second half of the game.

Los Angeles county prosecutors said only that new information led them to dismiss the murder charge against Lois Goodman over the death of her 80-year-old husband, Alan Goodman, in the couple's Woodland Hills condo last April.

A lawsuit against Occidental College and President Barack Obama by Obama conspiracy-theorist Orly Taitz provided some eye-rolling amusement in the courtroom before it was tossed out by the judge.

Prop. 8 ruling maybe, what happens if SoCal loses its water, Boxer endorses Greuel and more.

Brand tells Los Angeles magazine that she's in talks with KCRW for a 9 a.m. show that would compete with the friends she left at KPCC. But KCRW's Jennifer Ferro says in a statement that nothing is firm.

Both the Times and Daily News are reporting, with somewhat differing details, that Board of Public Works president Andrea Alarcon was at the Doubletree Hotel in Little Tokyo when her unattended 11-year-old daughter was taken from City Hall to a nearby LAPD station about 11:45 on a recent Friday night, following a party.

David Courtney, the arena announcer for the Los Angeles Kings and Clippers at Staples Center and the stadium announcer in Anaheim for the Angels, has died at age 56. No cause was given by the Kings, but Courtney had tweeted yesterday that he was at a hospital awaiting an angiogram.

Witness contradicts deputies on shooting, NYT covers Crenshaw line and Leimert Park debate, LAFD's billing data leaks out, Newhall Ranch versus the judge, Nikki Finke on the old Newsweek days, Lindsey Lohan arrested again, plus hard times at the Spring Street Arcade.

Santa Monica mayor Richard Bloom said he expects to be sworn into the state Assembly on Monday. Measure J creeps closer yet, but almost certainly won't pass.

A federal grand jury in Santa Ana today indicted retired baseball star Doug DeCinces and three associates "for allegedly using non-public information regarding a takeover bid to purchase stock in an Orange County-based medical device company – stock that dramatically increased in value when the takeover bid was publicly announced.

"Off-Ramp" host John Rabe called and talked to me this afternoon for a piece he's doing on the end of Huell Howser's television career. Listen to some of the audio.

In the November issue of Los Angeles magazine, and online today, editor Amy Wallace and photographer Damon Casarez pay attention to the impromptu memorials you sometimes see placed where someone recently died.

Tamar Brott profiled Huell Howser for Los Angeles magazine and found him to be defensive about his enthusiasm and his affection for finding the positive, or denying the negative, in any situation.

Kinde Durkee explains some, foster kids turn into prostitutes, who really rescued those hikers in Eaton Canyon, swatting of celebs and bloggers, 8100 new US citizens, LA's most threatened sites and the return of Arthur magazine in print.

On Wednesday's show, I'm told that KCET's "SoCal Connected" digs into the ties between Supervisor Don Knabe, his son Matt Knabe, and the clients of Matt's lobbying firm, Englander Knabe and Allen.

How's that 110 freeway HOV lane working out for you? A lot of people are flouting the transponder rule, it seems.

Howser is "retiring from making new shows but does not want to make any formal announcements about it," says an email. Amazing.

In a post rife with punnery, celebrity gossip site TMZ says that contrary to a report that originated in the San Francisco Chronicle, it has no interest in using airborne, unmanned drones to gather news.

Those signs are outdated and never were a perk, and they are coming down, says the spokesman for Councilman Mitchell Englander.

Bullet train a tough sell some places, new no-fireplace days in SoCal, meet Register owner Aaron Kushner, warnings again about travel to Mexico, touring Hollywood Forever Cemetery and where you can get a paper Uzi.

How Latino voters go could obviously be a big factor in deciding the next mayor, especially if the Latino vote falls heavily toward one candidate. Controller Wendy Greuel took a big step on Monday, announcing the endorsements of State Sen. Alex Padilla and two members of the City Council.

Interviewed by Warren Olney on KCRW's "Which Way, LA?," former mayor Richard Riordan rejected criticism by Mayor Villaraigosa and others that his pension reform plan would have cost the city money. Plus: Little digs at Herb Wesson, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti.

The percentage of yes votes keeps going up, but not fast enough to make passage likely. There are only so many votes left to count.

A tongue-in-cheek rip on living in Los Angeles from a transplanted Londoner has some amusing observations. "David Spade is one of the city's most celebrated residents. David. Spade." Plus: Cafe Gratitude.

Federal prosecutors in Sacramento intend to seek a prison sentence of 97 months for Kinde Durkee, the Los Angeles-area political campaign treasurer who pleaded guilty to absconding with more than $7 million in funds she managed for Democratic candidates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Really, America? Tomorrow is three weeks from the election, and they're still counting votes. For the first time — these are not recounts, folks.

The newest technology business reporter at the Times is Chris O'Brien, who comes from the San Jose Mercury. The memo to the newsroom from Business Editor Marla Dickerson.

Former mayor Richard Riordan and his Save Los Angeles group are shutting down the effort to place a pension reform measure on next spring's city of Los Angeles ballot.

It's Craig Thornton’s private Wolvesmouth dinners in a loft downtown, says Dana Goodyear in "Toques From Underground" in this week's New Yorker.

AEG raising for Jan Perry, proposed parcel tax for stormwater runoff, end of Copley family in San Diego, tennis tournament leaves LA for Bogota and a few media moves.

Nice line: Harbor Boulevard's architecture, "largely anonymous and inward-looking, is marked by a studied blandness...that recipe has produced on Harbor a feeling of unnatural civility — the architectural equivalent of a forced smile."

Christine Pelisek, the veteran local police reporter who is now a Los Angeles writer for the Daily Beast, writes for the website's broad audience on "the latest use-of-force incident to surface in recent months involving the Los Angeles Police Department, which has been grappling with a series of brutality claims—some of which have been caught on tape."

In a piece at the Los Angeles Review of Books getting some nice social media buzz, Laurie Winer considers Wallace and the reality, and literature, of depression and suicide. Plus: a pitch to donate.

The New York Times says it got questions to Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in federal custody and, with his comments plus interviews with "church and law enforcement officials and more than a dozen people who worked on the movie," can conclude that "the making of the film is a bizarre tale of fake personas and wholesale deception."

"Rust and Bone” is rated R: Sex, fighting, killer whales and parental neglect.

At least one high-spending SuperPAC achieved its goal in the November election. That SuperPAC belongs to Michael Bloomberg, the media mogul and billionaire mayor of New York City. It spent $3 million to defeat Rep.Joe Baca.

Making Angelenos suffer to park their cars is all the rage in City Hall these days. But if you work for Councilman Mitch Englander and want to park at the Chatsworth Metro station, there are a couple of nice spots right in front. (Updated.)