It has been more foggy than not along the beaches for the past week or so. Blame the recurring Southern California weather phenomenon known as the Catalina eddy, shown here. NASA explains how it works.

They are meeting any media that comes out on a Saturday afternoon at the Doll Factory, the Temple Street home of the Derby Dolls near downtown. Unless they are going to strap on skates, I'm assuming this is where Pleitez announces he is endorsing Garcetti in the runoff for mayor. Plus: Greuel gets Emily's List.

The Los Angeles Marathon begins at Dodger Stadium on Sunday morning and ends on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Most runners will start at 7:28 a.m. Streets and freeway ramps will reopen across the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and on the federal VA campus near West LA, on a rolling basis.

Domenic Priore, the author of "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood,” wants the city of West Hollywood to designate the former Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard (across from Book Soup) as a Strip-themed cultural resource center.

Anschutz says NFL deal still likely, Leiweke's departure ripples, $40,000 for women the LAPD shot at, Newark Cory Booker as newest Hollywood political darling, hacking the LA Times website, the end for the Boston Phoenix and a KPCC reporter sings for losing a bet.

Aaron Kushner, the hands-on owner of the Orange County Register, is still embroiled in conversation over his comment that the old quip about a newspaper's role — to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable — is out of step with his vision of the paper. The latest exchange is with Marc Cooper, the longtime alt-weekly and The Nation rabble-rouser who has been a journalism prof for several years at USC Annenberg.

Ramona Schindelheim, a former producer for the 10 p.m. news on Channel 11 in Los Angeles, is returning to KTTV later this month. She will be the managing editor, after stints as executive producer for CNBC's "Business Day," senior producer for "The Jane Pauley Show" and business editor at ABC News.

Bryan Frank, the photographer for the CBS 2/KCAL 9 duopoly, has been posting some really nice behind-the-scenes images — as well as some food, coffee and street life shots that make me wish I was back in Rome.

Brenda Rees of the website SoCal Wild joined a volunteer outing last weekend to count bighorn sheep in the eastern San Gabriel Mountains. There are believed to be more than 400 sheep in the range.

Billionaire investor and philanthropist Eli Broad is joining in financier Austin Beutner's proposal to buy the Los Angeles Times and run the newspaper as a non-profit, the Hollywood Reporter says tonight based on sources.

I'm told that what could be the final episode of the television drama "Southland" will shoot tomorrow morning in front of the Police Administration Building. Chief Charlie Beck is supposed to make a quick cameo appearance sometime between 11 a.m. and noon.

"SoCal Connected" aired a story tonight that analyzes where Los Angeles Archdiocese priests accused of sexual abuse were assigned. Author Daniel A. Olivas' experiences with an abusive priest are featured. Warning: the video starts automatically.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office issued the following statement regarding AEG Chairman Phil Anschutz's decision to not sell the company. Villaraigosa does not address the departure of the top Anschutz executive...

Sheriff's detectives said today they are now investigating last May's disappearance of media executive Gavin Smith as a homicide case. Smith's 2000 black Mercedes Benz 420E was recovered last month in a storage facility in Simi Valley.

Times chides Greuel, city attorney candidate won't endorse, Democrats regain super majority in Sacramento, college waiting lists "a human tragedy," Chris Hayes takes over "The Ed Show" slot on MSNBC, earthquake warning system worked on Monday and news of tonight's downtown Art Walk (and its oral sex-desiring leader.)

Kobe Bryant was listed as out indefinitely after turning his ankle on the last shot of Wednesday's game against the Atlanta Hawks. X-rays were negative but ESPN LA called Bryant's injury a severe sprain. He did leave the arena on his feet, limping but without crutches.

There were 354 sales of lofts and condos in greater Downtown LA's top 30 buildings last year, ranging in price from $120,000 to $ 4 million. A new report pegs the average at about $600,000, or $355 per square foot.

Been a while since I posted an early look at the bestselling books in Southern California's independent bookstores. Here are the top books through sales of Sunday.

Former congressman, defeated last November in that costly and bruising battle in the Valley with fellow Democrat Brad Sherman, has signed on as a senior policy adviser with the largest law firm on Washington's K Street.

The first gray wolf to roam California in 90 years has crossed back into Oregon — again. If he's headed back to his old pack, he'll find things have changed.

Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope on Wednesday night at the conclave in Vatican City. He took the name Francis and will be the first leader of the Roman Catholic church from Latin America.

LAUSD settlement with Miramonte victims, Owens Valley air and water, Villaraigosa in New York, Manchester says no partnership with Koch brothers, Kushner ticks off Gustavo Arellano, MOCA talks with the National Gallery and what happened to all the DDT off Palos Verdes? Plus: Interest in Chicano studies declines.

The County Federation of Labor's political unit voted to endorse Wendy Greuel for mayor after she told a closed-door meeting, "I'm gonna stand with labor, not stand up to labor." County Democrats, meanwhile, gave more support to Eric Garcetti but failed to make an endorsement.

Campaign consultants for Greuel, Garcetti and Perry dissect the mayoral primary races that are behind us — turnout is the story — and look cautiously ahead. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee's cartoonist lampoons Angelenos for not voting.

The ambitious Megacities Carbon Project aims to monitor the greenhouse gas emissions of "the largest human contributors to climate change: megacities." They are starting with Los Angeles and Paris, and have sensing stations planted across the LA basin.

"Unverified rumors that should be taken with a grain of salt if not a whole dollop," says the LA Weekly. But still worth reporting. The Hollywood Reporter claims to have more.

Last night's Zócalo Public Square panel took up the question of what celebrity-driven news and websites like TMZ are doing to news reporting. And oddly enough there was a top producer from TMZ on the panel.

The Deadline.com team broke the news last night that parent company PMC is moving Variety out of its Miracle Mile office tower, and the Deadliners out of wherever they sit, and throwing them together in a building on Santa Monica Boulevard beside the 405 freeway. Nikki Finke and the Variety staffers she regularly insults together?

Kevin James isn't sure he'll endorse Garcetti or Greuel, county Democrats will try again tonight, Register's Aaron Kushner doesn't believe in afflicting the comfortable, new demographic projections for LA, media and politics notes — including when Vin Scully dated the creator of Sesame Street — plus Deanne Stillman, Dwight Howard and more.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck was among the top law enforcement and government officials whose address, social security number and credit reports were posted online. The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, also had some personal information posted, as did vice president Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Beyonce, Ashton Kutcher and Mel Gibson, among others.

Los Angeles TV stations generally won't do Sacramento news (ABC 7 is the exception), but most sent their own people to Rome to cover the selection of the new pope — even though it is already one of the world's most adequately covered news events. Here's who is there.

The push for "On the Road" is ramping up with nationwide release in theaters and video on demand set for March 22. In this clip, Kristen Stewart takes a break from making out with Garrett Hedlund to listen to him whisper at her.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nominated the former state assemblyman, school board president and college board president -- and losing candidate for City Council -- to the Board of Public Works. That's the city's one true plum full-time paid commission.

Artist and designer Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA -- in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? According to TED.com, "for fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where 'the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.'"

An earthquake measured at 4.7 rocked the area around Anza-Borrego State Park this morning, accompanied by a whole bunch of lesser magnitude quakes in the vicinity of Anza and Ocotillo Wells.

Jan Perry has no love for Greuel, pushing for South LA and Valley votes, what Jim Newton wants to hear, Garcetti en Español on Univision, John Shallman items, and is mass immigration a thing of the past in LA? Plus the closure of Bahooka Family Restaurant.

Jimmy Orr, the managing editor for digital at the Los Angeles Times, praises the staff in a memo regaling the biggest month yet for the Times website — and biggest traffic day for the LA Now news blog. Coverage of the Christopher Dorner pursuit was the big draw -- Orr admits the paper milked traffic by posting and tweeting early and often. — he credits an "assertive digital strategy used to cover the event."

How's this for strange: Michael Kurcfeld was checking out an exhibition on imaginary languages in the Pompidou Museum in Paris recently when he came across a story he wrote in 1979 for the long-dead Los Angeles mag Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing.

When the writer Nora Ephron died last June of acute myeloid leukemia, a disease she had been fighting for years, many in the media and literary worlds were surprised. She had not made her illness a big part of her public life.

Fifteen months ago, the new deputy managing editor of The Wrap dismissed the site as "a small blog" filled with "opinion, agenda and fantasy" and "hardly a beacon of journalistic excellence." Editor Sharon Waxman was similarly dissed. All is forgiven, apparently.