An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 arriving from Seoul with 291 people aboard crashed at San Francisco International Airport about 11:30 a.m. Most of the passengers got off the plane safely, according to tweets.

After one mostly disappointing season with the Lakers, Dwight Howard confirmed on Friday that he is leaving Los Angeles to play for the Houston Rockets. He says that Kobe and Mike D'Antoni aren't the reasons he is taking millions less to play in Texas. But, well.

In the current issue of Boom, Lynell George explores the civic and online phenomenon that is Hidden LA. Plus some observations about Boom, the journal from UC Press that wants to be the California magazine we never had.

There is reason to believe this solitary fan palm near the Coliseum on the edge of Exposition Park is the oldest palm tree in the city. History writer Nathan Masters has tracked the tree through a series of moves.

Puig spent almost two weeks with the cutter crew that picked him up at sea last year — and that sent him back to Cuba. Within two months, he had successfully defected to Mexico. Today, he was named the National League's player of the month — and he got another hit.

it's surprising and unsettling when LA institutions, even the unofficial ones, suddenly vanish from the scene. The Irish-style tavern announced today on its Facebook page that it will close at the end of business on Sunday.

Garcetti calls runaway production an emergency. Yaroslavsky lauds Villaraigosa on transit. Wesson and Vladovic chosen. No more tickets at broken meters? Dog shooting by Hawthorne PD. Eli Broad on teacher training. Media notes, the top book in SoCal stores, Puig homers again and Milton Bradley sent to jail.

Perry was only out of a job for one day. Garcetti makes a bunch of other appointments as well. The whole list is inside.

Josh Joy Kamensky helped stage Eric Garcetti's first campaign for office out of his Silver Lake apartment. As an OG, and as a writer who can be amusing, he offers some suggestions to the new mayor.

Day one of the Garcetti era. And day two. Who is Garcetti? When did he become Jewish? Unlocking the doors, literally, at City Hall. Iger won't run for governor. Lessons for Texas in California politics. Amy Nicholson named VVM film critic. KPCC advertising for an enviro correspondent. The Register's plan for Long Beach. And more.

These new towers would be built on the parking lots around the Hollywood Palladium near Sunset and Vine. "Holy shit," says Curbed LA, "there have been rumors about some kind of development at the site of the Hollywood Palladium for ages now, but here they finally are, for real....two big-ass towers."

The former anchor and reporter showed up today on the tough story of the 19 firefighters who died in Arizona. You can almost hear the cheering for her from Channel 4 friends on Facebook.

Kevin Martin, the blogging weatherman who took his mother (and her car) to Death Valley on Sunday, said he found temperatures a few degrees higher than the official reading of 129 degrees recognized by the National Weather Service. His thermometer read 135.5 degrees at Badwater Basin, the low point of North America. But there's no official NWS station there.

Villaraigosa's press secretary joins the Garcetti administration. City Attorney Mike Feuer announces some key appointments.

Mayor Garcetti's schedule today. Newton on the mayor and DWP. New state tax adds 3.5 cents to every gallon of gas today. Tribune buys TV stations. Aditi Roy joins ABC News in LA. Soledad O'Brien signs on with Al Jazeera America. And more.

Lloyd Ziff is a former magazine design director who is working on a book of 40 years of his photographs of Los Angeles and New York. "I was a child in Beverly Hills in the 1950s, and L.A. was being built right before my dazzled eyes."

A casting call for Navajo speakers who could voice the key parts brought out people like Marvin Yellowhair, 54, who calls himself a “born Darth Vader." The 34-year-old mom selected to play Princess Leia had never seen "Star Wars," but decided to channel her own mother's sarcasm in the part. Star Wars in Navajo debuts this week.

Oscars ceremonies, Roller Games, cat shows and school concerts are part of the auditorium's legacy, but it's the T.A.M.I Show in 1964 that might be the most enduring memory — at least on film. And no performance measures up to James Brown's.

Coleman was part of the big sex discrimination lawsuit by women at Newsweek in 1970, then became the newsmagazine's San Francisco correspondent, then the first female press secretary for a California governor.

Williams Book Store in San Pedro opened in 1909 but in recent years has been operating on fumes. The store was all set to close, the Daily Breeze reports, when a flurry of sales last week and a meeting with the landlord bought the store another month or so, until at least San Pedro's 125th birthday celebration on Aug. 6.

Eric Garcetti took a ceremonial oath of office from Kenia Castillo, an 8th grader at Luther Burbank Magnet Middle School in Highland Park, on Sunday evening while his wife, Amy Elaine Wakeland, looked on. Garcetti will become the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles at midnight tonight. Excerpts from his speech inside.

Just awful news out of the Prescott area in central Arizona. Nineteen firefighters who were battling a fire near Yarnell in Yavapai County were overrun by flames and deployed their shelters. They were later found dead in and around the shelters. All but one is from the Prescott FD's hotshot team.

Sarah Guyard-Guillot, a mother of two who had spent more than 22 years as an acrobatic performer, became the first reported on-stage fatality in the 30-year history of Cirque du Soleil. She fell an estimated 50 feet during the final battle scene in Saturday night's Ka show at the MGM Grand. The show has gone dark until further notice.

Puig's 44 hits in his first month is the National League record for a rookie. Only Joe DiMaggio, who got 48 hits in his first month in the American League in May 1936, had more.

Eric Garcetti will take the ceremonial oath of office in the 6 p.m. hour in the swelter on the west steps of City Hall. He intends to call himself the "salesman-in-chief" for Los Angeles and in his speech will pledge to bring more jobs to the city. Here's the program as scheduled.