Michael Schneider's Great LA Walk marked its eighth year on Saturday with an 18-mile trek from Echo Park Lake to the bluffs in Santa Monica, along Sunset Boulevard and Wilshire.

The funeral for Mark will be Sunday at 12 noon at Hillside Memorial Park. Details inside.

The Los Angeles poet "was a key figure in the literary life of Los Angeles....[and] helped transform the city's literature." Update: An appreciation by David Ulin.

Democrat Matt Dababneh of Encino was declared the winner of the 45th assembly district special election, by 329 votes. Plus more.

Patrick Goldstein, the longtime Hollywood watcher for the LA Times and others, has a good feature piece in Los Angeles Magazine on the current state of the four main movie biz trades. One of the best parts is the disclosure of his professional entanglements with the players.

Like something from a bad B science fiction movie, the sudden appearance of Jerusalem crickets has caused fear and freaking out among humans who know little about this big-headed, bumbling and lumbering creature.

Jerry Brown raises $2 million last night in Bel Air. How city may have missed evidence of Hollywood quake fault. Hilda Solis to Cal Poly Pomona. Sony regroups in favor of television. Lara Logan's mystery husband. Four LAFD firefighters injured. Plus a lot of JFK anniversary coverage.

Couple of updates to previous stories from the local TV news sector.

KABC Channel 7 will begin airing a live one-hour newscast in primetime — seven days a week at 8 p.m. — in January. But there's a twist.

President Obama is finally making up for the September trip he cancelled and will attend fundraisers next week at three homes, including Magic Johnson's, and speak at the DreamWorks campus in Glendale.

"I met them at the elevator, stopping the jurors to thank them, to hug them," says the well-known LA labor activist. "One held me and murmured: It was our pleasure."

Freedom Communications, the parent company of the Orange County Register, today completed its purchase of the Riverside Press-Enterprise for $27.25 million.

Garcetti posters by Catherine Opie. Krekorian not running for Supes. City Hall may allow more cats. Jacob Soboroff goes to Tokyo. Proud Bird to stay open awhile longer. Photos of Inkwell beach. OC vs LA. And more.

The Sears building on East Olympic Boulevard has been a visual landmark on the Eastside skyline since the 1920s.

When we last heard about journalist Michael Krikorian, he had written a colorful and revealing op-ed piece about the night he shot some guy in a brawl near Compton. His first crime novel features an LA Times crime reporter who is shot after leaving a bar two blocks from City Hall.

Two decades ago, librarian Carolyn Kozo Cole found, time and again, that vast swaths of the city's people and ethnic story were not represented in the LAPL's photo collection. Out of her exasperation grew a project to copy thousands of family photos and take oral histories. It remains a signature achievement of the LA Public Library.

"For our current print subscribers nothing changes," says the publisher in an email to the staff. "As an employee you will have complimentary access."

"The Real Orange" with Ed Arnold has been on since 1997. Still no news about the station breaking from its OC roots to expand into LA and greater Southern California.

Several functions at Tribune's newspapers will be combined with new executives and about 700 jobs cut. CEO Peter Liguori says the cuts will be mostly not in newsrooms.

More iPad bumbling by LAUSD. DWP gets scrutiny. City Hall still begging for quake data from UC researchers. Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng announce settlement. New Washington chief for NYT. Lottery winner gives to USC Annenberg. Another bicycle advocate gets space from LAT opinion side. Digitizing LAPD murder books. Diane Disney dies. Plus more.

Tibby Rothman returns to the LA Weekly with a piece on all that has been lost as Venice transforms from "an island off the coast of Los Angeles" into what the locals endure today: "They went to bed one night living in a community and woke up in an ad."

The Miami Herald came to town to explore the prep-school roots of Jonathan Martin, the Miami Dolphins offensive lineman who recently left the team over intensive haranguing (and worse) by teammate Richie Incognito.

Kathy Thomson, the president and COO of the Los Angeles Times, sent around an email announcing her impending departure from the company. Also: projects editor Julie Marquis to Kaiser Health News.

I'll be going on live at 7:25 a.m. to talk with "Morning Edition" Steve Julian about our colleague Mark Lacter.

The Daily News and the rest of the LANG papers will get a metered pay wall as soon as Wednesday, an edict from the parent company. Details to come.

There is some unhappiness on campus that more students weren't invited to Tuesday's appearance by the ex-president and Laura Bush. But not a lot of unhappiness.

Ouch, it's been a bad run in whatever they call the Chyron department these days at KCAL 9.

Steve Winter's night photos of a deer, a bobcat, a coyote and a human out in the brush — as well as P-22 in front of the Hollywood sign — accompany the December story, now online.

Senator John F. Kennedy's helicopter lands on the front lawn at the Ambassador Hotel, possibly in 1960. (The Ames Brothers are on the marquee at the Cocoanut Grove.)

"Moments like these — emotional, contemplative, complicated — are why we watch the Academy Awards, or used to," writes Mark Harris about Saturday night's Governors Awards. "It's certainly not to see a 10th-anniversary tribute to Chicago or to watch Mark Wahlberg banter awkwardly with a teddy bear."

Relief pitcher Brian Wilson needs a job for next season but he has told the New York Yankees not to bother. He won't shave the beard.

Los Angeles photographer Sungjin Ahn has captured some marvelous images of Joshua trees against the desert and the sky and put them into a lovely Vimeo time lapse.

A.H. Belo Corp. announced today that its deal to sell the Riverside Press-Enterprise to Aaron Kushner's Freedom Communications did not close Friday as scheduled. Belo is looking at its options, while Kushner says the deal will go through.

Julie Chang is the entertainment news anchor on Fox 11's "Good Day LA" who joined the show about a year ago from New York. She explains that a surfing accident got her to the doctor.

DDT mystery off the coast. Garcetti to Sacramento. Rick Caruso on NBC 4. Metro station turnstiles won't be everywhere. Anita Busch back in journalism. Doris Lessing and Syd Field die. Police kill 75-year-old man with shotgun in Bel Air. Plus more.

The Angeles Crest 100 is a 100-mile endurance race through the mountains from Wrightwood to Pasadena. The runners take off in the dark and run on trails for 24 hours. Or so.

This painting of a freeway made in 1966 by the artist Vija Celmins is "a prime example of a California-based artist making work that engages the state’s famous highway system," writes arts journalist Tyler Green. He shows 25 examples.

Joseph Gatto is the longtime art teacher at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts who was found shot and killed in his Silver Lake home last week. Gatto was the father of state Assemblyman Mike Gatto.

His death was announced by KQED, the public radio station where he was executive director of news and public affairs. He previously was a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Examiner and the Oakland Tribune.

Amy Wakeland, the wife of Mayor Eric Garcetti, attended Thursday night's meeting of the Windsor Square Association to break the news. A new slate of events are on tap, she says.