If you are not here and are wondering what season it is in Los Angeles, it's jacaranda season. The streets are flush with purple, and soon the sidewalks will be too.

Morning mess on the 405 in Westwood. Labor's losing bet on Wendy Greuel. How City Hall powers will test Garcetti. Are independent PAC's now toxic to LA candidates? Ex-LAT publisher now in at SF Chronicle. Orange County of 'Arrested Development.' Plus KPCC looks atLAPD's helicopters. And more inside.

"Melville was the most extraordinary advocate Los Angeles theater has known," says the CEO of LA Stage Alliance.

You'll remember that Metro's position on the Crenshaw rail line station at Leimert Park was that it was desirable, but not fundable. Today the agency's board decided to find the money, with $40 million coming from the Los Angeles City Council.

A story with more anecdote and commentary than actual data or on the record sources argues that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will struggle to keep up his "one percent" lifestyle.

While the 405 widening project slogs along late and over budget, one nugget of good news if you drive that stretch of freeway. As of Friday, a northbound lane will open for 1.7 miles between the 10 Freeway and Santa Monica Boulevard.

Gary took photos throughout the runoff campaign for mayor between Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel. Here is a selection of our favorites.

Quotes often tell the story. These are from a variety of sources, all uttered today as far as I can tell. "One of the worst run campaigns I've ever seen in my life," a veteran LA political strategist says of the Greuel campaign.

It's not just labor. Elected officials such as Gloria Molina and Jose Huizar backed Wendy Greuel, but Eric Garcetti "represents the 2.0 model of Latinos in LA," argues the former editor of Ciudad magazine.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky welcomes the election of Eric Garcetti, Mike Feuer and Ron Galperin as "a new generation of leadership for the city." He says he's comfortable with his decision last year not to run.

Eric Garcetti chose a playground in Echo Park for his debut as the mayor-elect of Los Angeles. He thanked Wendy Greuel for a good campaign and says they will always be friends.

The voter turnout in Tuesday's Los Angeles city election will be shamefully low by the time the ballots are all counted. But it won't be the 19 percent that some in the media are using.

In order to become the first woman mayor of Los Angeles, analysts believed that Controller Wendy Greuel needed to win a majority of female voters and pick up a solid majority in her home turf in the Valley and, as the somewhat less liberal of the candidates, win the niche of Republicans who vote in LA. Kevin James' endorsement was crucial in the end.

Today seems like a good day to bring back out the cute photo that Eric Garcetti posted to Facebook a few years ago, of him and his father Gil. "Nice mustache, Dad!," Garcetti wrote.

Eric Garcetti is 42 years old, the youngest mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century, and he will be the city's first Jewish mayor. He won with 53.9 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Wendy Greuel.

The Loyola Marymount exit poll conducted by students under the Center for the Study of Los Angeles forecasts Eric Garcetti will win the mayoral election with 54 percent of the vote. In actual votes counted so far, Wendy Greuel is slightly ahead.

Greuel and Garcetti vote. Both will hit the Apple Pan this morning — at almost the same time. A ton of Campaign 2013 links from across the US. More phone numbers for me to call from Greuel. Plus: Tanaka slams Baca again. Fox 11 promotes Pablo Pereira. KCET promotes Juan Devis. Sherwood Forest gets postal recognition. And SoCal firefighters head for OKC.

If you lived in Los Angeles in the 1960s and were inclined toward rock and roll, you might have seen Ray Manzarek and The Doors play at Sunset Strip clubs, at Ports O'Call in San Pedro — or at your high school. Memories are flowing on social media.

The Dodgers' Matt Kemp is from Oklahoma City. He homered in tonight's Dodgers win in Milwaukee and after the game he represented.

Nice headline from this morning's traffic... jam... attributed to the Los Angeles Times' Joseph Serna.

After the tornado passed today in Moore, Oklahoma, one family opened its shelter and looked onto a vanished neighborhood. Whoever is holding the camera seems stunned into silence, at first.

Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist, died at a clinic in Germany. Manzarek had cancer of the bile ducts. Sunset Strip clubs dimmed the lights Monday night in his honor. Video and photos inside.

Villaraigosa was in Dubai, but quietly. Jackie Goldberg makes no endorsement in her old council district. Yahoo-Tumblr CEOs make their case. AP boss says phone record seizures unconstitutional. News-Press employees drop union. What's behind those Village Voice layoffs. Under the radar LA rental 'hoods and more.

After two full weekend days of campaigning, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel were back at it before sunrise this morning. Here's a snapshot of the day, the weekend and the final hours of Campaign 2013.

The Board of Airport Commissioners is expected on Tuesday to name the Antonio R. Villaraigosa Pavilion after the mayor who appointed them. I guess it's worth a chuckle that the pavilion is late and over budget.

As the Center for Investigative Reporting, the newsroom in Berkeley will take a more national focus and cut back on the number of stories it undertakes. California Watch has been one of the most successful nonprofit journalism startups in the country.

Parents and five girls from Sweden was found walking on Sepulveda Boulevard near LAX at 4:30 a.m. on Friday. They were out of money after changing their return flight itineraries due to a health emergency at home.

Radio Titans is an Internet outlet for podcasts that was started by Carl Kozlowski (arts writer for the Pasadena Weekly), Jake Belcher and Brant Thoman. They do Grand Theft Audio ten hours a week and other shows that have guests including Richard Linklater and Burt Bacharach.

Remember our report in April on the twin agave century plants just starting to sprout in Meg Sullivan and Steve Roe's front yard? Well you better look again.

Before airing a documentary about the Park Avenue building where Koch and a lot of other rich people live, the president of WNET gave the mogul a call and offered to water things down. It didn't help: Koch still resigned from the station's board.