Big weekend for Angelenos in the New York Times, including an obituary of Huell Howser. Plus: Kobe and Vanessa back together.

Discredited cycling champion Lance Armstrong reportedly will tape an interview with Oprah Winfrey in Texas on Monday and "give a limited confession to Winfrey and will not provide details of the doping that antidoping officials have said occurred throughout his cycling career," reports the New York Times reporter who got the scoop last weekend that Armstrong was considering changing his tune.

Aaron Swartz, who as a teenager helped create RSS, then went on to become a folk hero for Internet users who believe information should be free online, was found hanged in his New York City apartment. He had faced a federal trial on charges of wire fraud and computer fraud in connection with the downloading of millions of documents from an MIT database.

The Voice For The Animals Foundation has put out a 2013 calendar featuring LAPD officers with their own rescue animals. Proceeds go for medical treatment, food and shelter for animals. Chief Beck is on the cover.

What you need to know about the fundraising race, coveting Obama and the Clintons, talking about housing, Greuel moves into South LA and more from around the campaigns.

Owner Janis Hood said Friday that a potential sale of her family's 51-year-old business in Studio City fell through. She announced she will open at 9 a.m. on Saturday and go until the food runs out, or until 9 p.m.

I suspect Angelenos will still call it Grauman's Chinese. TCL Chinese Theatre just doesn't have that certain something.

Hostages freed at Nordstrom Rack, lawyer for Mexican Mafia jailed, police downplay lewd conduct in the Sepulveda Dam Basin, Sheila Kuehl running for supervisor, Yaroslavsky blogs about Huell Howser and more.

Acclaimed author Barry Lopez lives now in Oregon, but he grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1940s and 50s. He writes in this month's Harper's about being sexually abused for four years by a North Hollywood sanitarium doctor who pretended to court his divorced mother.

The suit names Jenni Rivera Enterprises Inc. as well as the owners of the rented Learjet that crashed Dec. 9 in Mexico.

Carmen Trutanich is, of course, the incumbent city attorney. I guess those future meetings with the mayor's office will be kind of chilly.

Scientists who did not know they were studying the brain of retired football star Junior Seau concluded that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease typically caused by multiple hits to the head.

Lincoln" received the most Oscar nominations this morning with 12, and "Beasts of the Southern Wild" did surprisingly well. Get full list inside.

A new study offers evidence that the massive fault that defines the geography of California could snap along its entire length, unleashing a whomper of an earthquake that would hit north and south. Up to now, seismologists have assumed that a portion of the San Andreas in Central California where the Pacific and the North American plates creep past each other fairly smoothly would protect us.

Councilman Tom LaBonge, a friend of the public TV icon Huell Howser, said today he will join friends and fans for a public memorial at sunset on Tuesday, Jan. 15 at Griffith Observatory. Also: video of Huell in Tennessee as you may never have seen him.

Mouzis was the production director at formative LA radio station 93 KHJ and editor of the 48-hour "History of Rock and Roll" — the station's 1969 rockumentary.

The owner of Henry's Tacos said on Facebook tonight that the Studio City stand may not be closing entirely when its lease is finished. It might move, Janis Hood posted.

Raw news footage from 1964 shows the teenage frenzy and celebrity arrivals outside the private party held for the Beatles during their first trip to Los Angeles. Also: we have a new venue for the event.

The former congresswoman from the Eastside and San Gabriel Valley is expected by many to run for the Board of Supervisors when Gloria Molina is termed out in 2014.

Voice Media Group, parent of the LA Weekly, is giving up on San Francisco and has sold the SF Weekly to the company that publishes both the San Francisco Examiner and former arch-rival, the venerable Bay Guardian. A sale of the Seattle Weekly was also announced in the deal.

First look at Jerry Brown's budget, a new plan for Yosemite Valley, no Democratic endorsement in mayor's race, Greuel accused of misusing office, when the LA Times created Richard Nixon and the lore of El Clamor Publico and Rampart Records.

A lot is being done before the season opens in April, the Dodgers said in detailing work that will relocate some seats, create new walking and viewing areas, modernize the bathrooms and finally give spectators reliable wi-fi and cellphone connections.

Sheen didn't say whether his comments about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa partying with him in Baja for two hours and being able to "drink with the best of 'em" were untrue — but late this afternoon Sheen did apologize "if any of my words have been misconstrued.”

It seems as if there's a video-worthy dolphin, whale or orca encounter off the Southern California every week or so now. This "stampede" by leaping dolphins is pretty impressive.

Reportero, which debuted Monday night on POV on PBS, follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, "as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media." Watch the trailer inside or stream the entire film.

Actor Charlie Sheen tells TMZ that his photograph with an arm around Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was taken in Sheen's suite at the new Hotel El Ganzo near Cabo San Lucas. He also says that this was not just a brief photo encounter as Villaraigosa suggested under questioning Sunday by NBC 4's Conan Nolan on "News Conference."

Supreme Court rules against enviros on stormwater runoff, Daily News chides the mayor, bill to stop fines at broken parking meters, county Democrats endorse tonight, LAPD passes 10,000, and more inside.

KCET has posted some great tributes to Huell Howser, including video of the longtime production team and the station's three-minute obituary from Monday night's "SoCal Connected." Also: Kevin Roderick and John Rabe with Jacob Soboroff on HuffPost Live.

In this Univision video in English, the curator of a new show at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City explains the colorful dresses, other clothing and body harnesses found 58 years after the artist's death.

Controller Wendy Greuel's prospects of being elected mayor "depend largely on how effectively she can repel" criticism that her publicized audits are for show and that her record, including a vote for the big 2007 raise for city employees, mark her as a City Hall insider, LA Times political writer Michael Finnegan says.

The LAPD says that Samuel Little, 72, has been extradited to California from Kentucky and charged in the murders of three South Los Angeles women. DNA evidence links Little to the crimes, investigators say.

Superior Court Judge Emilie H. Elias reversed a private mediator and ordered the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to release 30,000 pages of internal files without blanking out the names of church officials and priests who were involved in the church's handling of sex abuse allegations or who were accused themselves. The judge acted on a request by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press to include names when the files are released under a 2007 settlement with more than 500 victims.

Four years ago, former Assembly Speaker and mayoral candidate Robert Hertzberg co-led the transition team for newly elected city attorney Carmen Trutanich.

Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly reported late this morning that California television icon Huell Howser has died. Arellano based his story on sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. A few minutes later, KPCC "Off-Ramp" host John Rabe tweeted that Howser's assistant confirmed that he died last night at home.

Last night I asked if a color candid photograph of the Beatles chatting with fans outdoors could have been from the private party held in August 1964 in the Beverly Hills backyard of Alan Livingston, then the president of Capitol Records. By this morning, LA Observed readers had provided the answer.

The fast-growing social web site BuzzFeed today launched an entertainment section. "Most exciting announcement of my career," LA bureau chief Richard Rushfield says on Facebook.

LAUSD students return, Jan Perry says she's no underdog, Villaraigosa on learning to drive again, misunderstanding LA demographics, Steve Lopez heads under the knife again and that big flame over Playa del Rey on Sunday. Plus more.

The fake stories and byline on the latest front page wrap around the Sunday LA Times are actually real, just old. 'Gangster Squad' grew out of a Times series, and the screenwriter is a former LAPD homicide detective.

From the Beatles first tour of the United States in 1964, most of the published photographs have been in black and white. Now color slides found in the collection of a late inventor include shots from a private party the Beatles attended here in 1964.

The New Year's Eve live show from Hollywood Boulevard watched by almost nobody on KDOC, but which then went viral on the Internet, kinda sorta went according to plan, says the host. Except for the unbleeped f-bombs, technical glitches and unplanned brawl.

The fallout continues from the Halloween night shooting of four visitors at a party on the South LA campus of the University of Southern California. New rules take effect Jan. 14.

Villaraigosa tells Conan Nolan on NBC 4's "News Conference" that he was in Cabo San Lucas on vacation, bumped into Charlie Sheen in the hotel, and that Sheen asked to take a photo. "I'm in the picture taking business. I've never said no to anyone that wants to take a picture."

The National Hockey League and players announced a tentative deal this morning that could end their sport's shutdown after more than three months. Training camps could open this week, and a shortened season could start as soon as Jan. 15.