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Curated news, notes and observations most weekdays from LA Observed.
Former Govs. Gray Davis and George Deukmejian and former D.A. Steve Cooley will announce a signature-gathering campaign today for a ballot initiative that would allow California to resume carrying out death sentences. LAT, KPCC
President Obama will travel to Rancho Mirage on Friday to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan at Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg estate.
Republican congressman Gary Miller won't run for reelection in his Inland Empire district. Bee, KPCC, LAT
Long-simmering animosity between AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky surfaced in a footnote attached to a federal judge's ruling. LAT
Why is the L.A. Times Obsessed With Mark Ridley-Thomas' Garage? LA Weekly
City Hall's public image-inspired move to bar sanitation workers from taking naps on their breaks may cost the city $26 million in a lawsuit payout. LAT
The Los Angeles City Council is considering whether to make it easier to keep bees in the city. DN
Republican campaign consultant Allan Hoffenblum looks back at the Waxman-Berman political machine of old: "how it came about, why it became so effective and my experience in going up against them." Fox & Hounds
The county's plan to maximize amenities, improve traffic flow and control development in Marina del Rey would redraw the harbor’s existing landscape to make room for up to 200,000 square feet of new retail development and as many as 940 new hotel rooms. Argonaut
Comcast says it will acquire Time Warner Cable for $45 billion in an all-stock deal that "will combine the biggest and second-biggest cable television operators, in a radical reshaping of the country’s media landscape." NYT, LAT
Is KCET going bankrupt? The station lost $12.5 million last year, according to the financial statement recently posted on its website, and has only $25 million in net assets. LA Weekly
Daily Journal Corp. is "a very weird company." Bloomberg Opinion
Freedom Communications, parent of the OC Register, said Wednesday it's expanding the distribution of its newspapers into five desert communities, including Palm Springs, with a new weekly publication called the "Desert Enterprise." KPCC
Jimmy Fallon’s crime against California: Moving ‘The Tonight Show’ to New York robs our state of its biggest stage. Joe Mathews/Zocalo
Roger Angell writes about what it's like being an old man. He is in his nineties. New Yorker
Elena Stern has accepted the newly created position of Associate Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at Cal State LA.
Patt Morrison interviews Sheriff John Scott. LAT Op-ed
Downtown LA is getting a new mixed-use parking structure at 8th and Francisco and downtown booster Brigham Yen approves: "I usually wouldn’t consider a new parking structure newsworthy, but this project is being designed with a lot more thought and concern for aesthetics." BY
The world's largest solar plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, started creating electricity today in the California desert. Gizmodo
Chinese visitors are turning San Gabriel into a boomtown. LAT
The Stratocaster, created by electric guitar innovator Leo Fender in his Fullerton workshop, turns 60 this year. Never gets old for musicians, says Randy Lewis. LAT
L.A. Chapter at the Ace Hotel "might be the future of Downtown." LA Weekly
Huell Howser's mid-century "dream home" in Twentynine Palms is up for sale for $395k. http://t.co/2cJRig2Wyn
— CurbedLA (@CurbedLA) February 12, 2014