A prominent AIDS advocacy group has filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging that county public health officials have failed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the pornographic film industry.
The petition, filed Thursday by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, asks the court to order the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to enforce regulations that require condom use in adult film production or take other reasonable steps to stem the spread of disease.
A missing Van Nuys violinist at the center of a desperate search effort by his family has been found dead, authorities said this morning.
The family of 68-year-old Robert Alan Korda had been asking for help on the Internet and combing the streets near his San Fernando Valley home since last Wednesday when he went missing. But it now appears he had been in the county coroner’s office all along.
According to police, Korda was last seen about 3 p.m. Wednesday at his home and never showed up that evening at Gower Studios in Hollywood, where he was scheduled to work. Coroner’s officials said Korda was actually found unresponsive shortly before 7 p.m. that day at a home in Glendale. The violinist was rushed to the hospital, and was pronounced dead less than an hour later, said Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Ed Winter.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said this morning that it was the city’s responsibility to provide police protection and crowd control for the memorial of pop star Michael Jackson last week and that no one else should pay the cost.
The mayor, who had been on vacation in South Africa during the event, said he disagreed with his staff’s decision to put up a website requesting public donations to help cover the city’s cost.
“I thought it was ridiculous,” the mayor told reporters during a visit to Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.
Villaraigosa said Los Angeles is a large metropolitan city where major events occur routinely, and that the city is obligated to protect public safety. He added that no one would have expected New York or Chicago to ask others to donate for basic city services during a major event, and said he is not going to ask AEG, the owner of the Staples Center, to either pay or raise money to offset the city’s expenses.
Last week, city officials estimated that the memorial cost the city $1.4 million -- with $1.1 million directed toward police equipment and overtime costs. Several City Council members have called for a full accounting of the costs and new policies to govern the city’s response and financial obligations for extraordinary events.
More questions about Michael Jackson’s medications arose Tuesday when a nurse came forward to say that Jackson had asked her in April for a power sedative.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who operates a Los Angeles-based nutritional counseling business, told CNN that Jackson was complaining of insomnia and pleaded for her to get him some Diprivan (propofol), a drug usually used to start or maintain anesthesia during surgeries.
Lee said she told Jackson “the medication is not safe.”
Four days before Jackson’s death, Lee said, a Jackson staffer called and said the pop star was complaining that one side of his body was hot and the other side was cold .
“You need to go to hospital,” she told the staffer, with Jackson apparently in earshot.
An injection of Diprivan can induce hypnosis within 40 seconds from the start of injection, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The drug’s product label says that propofol should only be administered by people “trained in the administration of general anesthesia.” Sedated patients should be continuously monitored, the product label says, and equipment to provide artificial ventilation, administration of oxygen and instituting CPR “must be immediately available.”
The product label warns that use of propofol for sedating adult and pediatric intensive care unit patients has been associated with organ system failures that have resulted in death.
--Richard Winton, Rong-Gong Lin II and Kimi Yoshino
Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said today that he was taking "appropriate personnel action" against the principal and athletic director of Birmingham High School for allowing comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to use the school's football team in a photo shoot.
Cortines declined to say what the action was, citing confidentiality rules. Depending on the nature of the discipline, it could become somewhat moot tomorrow when the Board of Education is scheduled to vote on Birmingham's petition to become an independent charter school. If that passes, Principal Marcia Coates and Athletic Director Rick Prizant would no longer be employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Cortines has been incensed by a photo shoot of Cohen, in his role as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno," that appeared in the latest issue of GQ magazine and on its website. It showed the scantily clad comedian in poses with the Birmingham football team, including one on top of a player on the ground.
"I don't believe that there is a place on any high school in America, including Los Angeles, for photos such as these," Cortines said in a news release issued by his office.
Cortines said he recognized that some people believe he has overreacted to the shoot, which might be seen as tame in today's entertainment landscape.
“I think those that think it’s no big deal generally don’t have children on campus," he said. "I’ve gotten e-mails from grandparents, all sorts of adults … who are embarrassed by this and believe this shouldn’t have happened.”
Told that some who have commented to The Times had suggested he might have reacted as he did because the character played by Cohen is gay, the superintendent strongly disagreed. "It has nothing to do with whether one is heterosexual or homosexual," he said. "There is just no place for this kind of scene on a school campus using students.”
Birmingham was paid $500 for the shoot, according to the superintendent, and the players turned in parental consent forms. However, the district said an investigation determined that the forms did not specify the nature of the shoot. The district also said the photos violated California Interscholastic Federation rules, which prohibit students from wearing football uniforms out of season.
Prizant, who is the school's filming coordinator as well as its athletic director, was present when the photos were taken, according to the district.
Authorities have safety concerns over apparent plans for a memorial for Michael Jackson at the Neverland Ranch, saying that the narrow hillside road could be overtaxed by thousands of vehicles.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Lt. Butch Arnoldi said two-lane Figueroa Mountain Road is not designed for a crush of cars and that his department is discussing how to make the route to Neverland as safe as possible.
There have been reports that the Jackson family would like to have some sort of ceremony for Jackson at the ranch, located north of Santa Barbara in Los Olivos, perhaps after a public ceremony at Staples Center. Although the plans remain unclear, sheriff's officials have been planning for such a contingency for a few days.
“We have not been approached by any family members of the Jackson family about an event that’s to occur in our county,” Arnoldi said. “We don’t want to be caught behind the eight-ball here.”
News vans and media vehicles have started to line up along the road outside Neverland Ranch. Notes, balloons and flowers for Jackson have also been left at the gate.
On a piece of cardboard, someone wrote “Thank you for being such a ‘Thriller.’ ”
On a lined piece of white paper, a fan wrote “ Michael, you will never be forgotten! We love you! You are an idol and will always be the king of pop!”
The gates have opened for some vehicles, including a fire vehicle. Only a few fans waited outside the ranch. Many people drove up, took pictures and left.
--Ruben Vives, and Ari B. Bloomekatz in Los Olivos, Calif.
This is one of those only-in-L.A.-and-even-then-it's-a-little-too-weird-to-be-true stories.
The latest issue of GQ features a cover story about comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his new guise as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno." What brought it to our attention was that GQ includes photos shot at L.A.'s Birmingham High School, featuring the barely clad Cohen cavorting with the Birmingham football team. An online slide show shows Cohen wearing shoulder pads, tight red shorts, an athletic cup and little else while engaging in "drills" with the team, in one case lying on top of a player he has evidently just "tackled."
At most, we're talking about a PG rating (for the photo shoot, not the new movie). But inasmuch as it did involve minors at a public high school, there are those who are not amused. In particular, the stunt has incensed Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, adding fuel to a debate over whether Birmingham, in Lake Balboa, should be allowed to convert to a charter school. The charter conversion is up for a vote before the school board Wednesday. "This recent GQ thing has not helped matters," Cortines said today. "We’ve allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances, either."
The Daily News on Saturday quoted the superintendent as blaming Birmingham Principal Marcia Coates and Athletic Director Rick Prizant, both of whom have been among those spearheading the drive to remove the school from day-to-day district oversight and become a charter. But Cortines said today that Coates is responsible, not Prizant, and he has asked local district Supt. Jean Brown "to take the appropriate action." He did not say what that would be. (A mandatory viewing of "Borat," perhaps?)
Coates said she had been told not to comment on the matter, and Prizant said he similarly would not respond. Brown did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
— Mitchell Landsberg
[Updated at 5 p.m. with comment from Jean Brown and a clarification from Cortines:
Brown called to say that "Local District 1, on behalf of Birmingham, is very embarrassed by what has happened, and very disappointed in the judgment that allowed the students to participate in this activity.” She said she was attempting to determine who was responsible, after which "we'll decide what our next steps are going to be." She added that she was unfamiliar with Cohen and his movies but found the "nature of the poses" to be inappropriate.
Through a spokesman, Cortines called to say he hadn't intended to say that Prizant wasn't responsible, only that Coates was ultimately responsible.]
Although it was relatively quiet this morning at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, that was not the case Thursday, when hundreds of Michael Jackson fans danced late into the night, chanting "Michael! Michael!" and singing songs such as "Thriller," "ABC" and "I'll Be There."
They held up signs that read "King of Pop" and "Michael Jackson Lives Forever." They lit candles and laid yellow roses at a nearby tree, where someone had outlined his name in in red flower petals.
A few people cried, but most danced, smiled and did their own versions of Jackson's dance moves. Vendors ran up the sidewalk with hastily printed T-shirts commemorating his death. Two men sold hot dogs, water and Gatorade from a white pickup parked near several news vans.
Fans carried vinyl records and some wore just one glove. Henry Gonzalez, 20, a student studying neuroscience at UCLA, carried a boom box on his right shoulder that blasted the pop star's hits. A crowd of fans danced around him and followed as he walked up and down Westwood Boulevard.
"I'm the DJ," Gonzalez said at about 9 p.m.
He had been in Westwood most of the day after learning of Jackson’s death. He smiled and bobbed his head to the music.
"I was sad, and then I decided to support him," Gonzalez said. "I'm a dancer. He inspired me a lot."
Is whale-watching a recreational activity or a form of protest against commercial whaling? Environmentalists say it can be both.
Whale-watching generates $82 million a year in California alone, according to a new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The profitability of whale-watching provides ammo in the philosophical battle against whale hunting countries such as Japan, said Patrick Ramage, IFAW Whale Program Director.
"We should be shooting whales with cameras, not harpoons," Ramage said. "Clearly, living whales in their environment are worth a lot more to us than they are dead.
In California, more than 1.3 million people went on whale- or dolphin-watching expeditions in 2008, according to the report. On the sale of tickets for whale-watching boats alone, California generates more than $14 million a year. The number rises to $82 million when IFAW adds in expenses such as hotel stays and food. Whale-watching expeditions now sally forth from shores in 119 countries worldwide, employing 13,500 people, Ramage said.
Leading members of the Iranian American community in Los Angeles gathered today at the corner of 7th Street and Broadway to celebrate the dedication of the first city intersection to be named after one of their own: real estate magnate and noted philanthropist Ezat Delijani.
For many of those attending, the event offered a brief respite from days of worry about family and friends in Iran, which has been rocked by the worst unrest in 30 years.
“In the midst of sadness and tragedy and bad news, we need a shining moment like this,” said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at USC.
Although the timing of the event was a coincidence, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked for a moment of silence in honor of those killed in the days of protests against a disputed election, which saw hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned to power.
“Half a world away, at this very moment, there are freedom fighters speaking out and standing up for democracy and the rule of law, some of whom have died for their conviction,” said Villaraigosa, who formally dedicated the intersection Ezat Delijani Square.
A cardiac arrest is a disruption of the electrical signals that trigger heartbeats, causing the heart to beat erratically so that it does not pump blood effectively.
The treatment is to use a defibrillator to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm, but that must be done very quickly — within about four minutes.
“Without a defibrillator, you are going to die,” said Dr. Douglas Zipes of Indiana University, a former president of the American College of Cardiology.
“The problem and the tragedy is that it has to be witnessed for the patient to survive,” said Dr. Leslie Saxon, chief of the division of cardiovascular medicine at USC.
Most are not.
“Survival rates outside of hospitals are less than 2%,” Saxon said.
A crowd of about 75 people gathered in front of a Michael Jackson star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this afternoon, but it was actually the wrong star--this one was for the former KABC radio personality of the same name.
Jackson's real star near the front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard was covered by scaffolding in preparation for the "Bruno" movie premiere so fans gathered at the other Michael Jackson star to light candles and place purple flowers.
Helene Kress, 43, of Los Angeles described the time her daughter auditioned for a Disney dance troupe to Jackson’s “Rock With You.”
“She got the job because of that,” Kress said, choking back tears. “He was so positive, how could you not love him? There’s never going to be another Michael Jackson.”
Kress said she learned of Jackson's death while her daughter, Cheyenne Haynes, 13, was at an audition and did not tell her until after they left.
“I didn’t want her to know because I didn’t want her to get upset,” Kress said.
Afterward, they headed for the radio personality's star to join a prayer circle and sing “We Are The World.”
“He’s still here. He isn’t going anywhere,” Cheyenne said as she cried.
At the star for “The Jacksons” someone had scrawled “5” on top of the “S.” A helicopter hovered overhead and people gathered on patios nearby, snapping photos. LAPD officers directed passersby to join the circle or keep moving.
-- Gerrick Kennedy in Hollywood
Fans of pop star Michael Jackson sit vigil at talk radio host Michael
Jackson's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June
25, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images)
Use The Times interactive map
to see significant sites in the life and death of Michael Jackson,
including Neverland Ranch and his boyhood home in Gary, Indiana.
Florence LaRue, one of the lead singers of the 1960s pop group the Fifth Dimension, stopped by the Jackson family home in Encino with pink azaleas and placed them at an ever-expanding memorial.
Dressed in black, with a red beret and sunglasses, her face wet with tears, LaRue talked fondly of Jackson and her memories of him.
"Not only is he the greatest performer in the world, but he's a very loving soul," said the Grammy-winning singer. “He has helped so many people not only financially but also with love.”
“He has helped so many people the world will never know about,” she continued. “He was a loving soul. We all talk about being generous but he lived what he talked."
She said Jackson gave LaRue ideas for her group. He invited her to his hotel one day and said the Fifth Dimension should sing old hits and dress in Mod clothes for their performances.
She was anticipating Jackson's comeback.
"That's why it came as such a shock," she said.
"We're in such a doom and gloom time. The world needed to be lifted up. He could do it."
LaRue said she was making a DVD for her group when her sister called her with the news.
"She didn't want me to hear it on the radio," she said.
He was an inspiration to her, she said.
"He brought a lot of love through his music," she said. "He wasn't selfish unlike so many entertainers."
Brian Oxman, a Jackson family attorney, spoke to reporters this afternoon outside the emergency room at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
“Everyone is just crying," Oxman said of the family. "I hugged Randy. He just cried. I hugged Jermaine. He just cried.”
“Michael is my friend, my compatriot,” Oxman said, his voice breaking. “The fans here – they loved this man. I loved this man.”
Oxman said all the family was at the hospital, except father Joe Jackson, who was on his way. Oxman described the family as heartbroken.
“The hurt is overwhelming,” said Oxman, one of Jackson’s attorneys in his 2005 molestation trial. “There’s never been anyone like Michael Jackson. I was with Michael at the darkest hour of his life when these charges were made, which I knew were false.”
Back in the 1970s, Denise Williams-Wyatt's family was one of three black families that lived in the same Encino neighborhood as Michael Jackson's family.
"When my parents moved down the street from them, it was just the best thing," she said.
She said she has three autographs from Jackson -- one on a torn sheet of white paper, another on a paper plate and the last one on an 8x10 color glossy photo.
She said remembered how Jackson used to ride his 10-speed bike around the neighborhood before he became a superstar.
"He was the first celebrity I fell in love with, as a performer and as a boy," she said.
Williams-Wyatt, whose mother still lives down the street, said she was in shock.
"It's just really heartbreaking to live to see that headline," she said.
Flava Flav, a reality television star, stopped by to see Michael Jackson's family at their compound in Encino about 4 p.m. today but left shortly afterward.
"Music has lost a king, music has lost an icon, music has lost a friend," he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
"It's unbelievable, but we don't have any choice but to believe it."
He said Jackson was the muse for music that's being created today.
"God needed an extra angel, so he came and got Michael to work for him,"
Flav said.
He said Germaine Jackson, Michael Jackson's brother, took him to his first black rodeo.
Those close to Michael Jackson say he had been working diligently to get back in shape for his planned comeback next month in London.
A year ago, he was gaunt and using a wheelchair, but in preparation for a 50-show run in London, he was exercising with a trainer in addition to daylong rehearsals with dancers half his age. He also was a strict vegetarian.
“He’s working out. He’s in great shape,” his manager, Frank Dileo, said last month.
In order for concert promoters to get insurance for the concerts, which were scheduled to begin July 13, Jackson underwent a four-hour physical in Los Angele this spring with an independent doctor flown in from New York.
Rand Phillips, the chief executive officer of promoter AEG Live, said in an interview last month that the medical screening uncovered “no issues whatsoever.”
“He declared him healthy,” Phillips said. “His cholesterol level is better than mine.”
But a physical may not have revealed a looming heart attack, Dr. John Harold, a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center cardiologist, said.
“This is the type of patient who could have a stress test the day before and it could be completely normal and the next day could have a plaque rupture and a fatal heart attack,” said Harold, who did not treat Jackson.
The attorney for a hip-hop artist accused of beating a jazz pianist to death in what’s been called a real-life version of the film “Crash” asked today that charges be reduced from murder to manslaughter.
In papers filed in L.A. County Superior Court, the lawyer suggested that David Jassy, a 35-year-old Swedish citizen who recorded with Ashley Tisdale and other pop acts, acted in self-defense when he punched and kicked John Osnes, 55, during a November confrontation in a Hollywood crosswalk.
“A motorist is not required to sit passively in his vehicle while a pedestrian strikes the vehicle and yells at him, and wait and see if the stranger’s anger escalates,” lawyer Alec Rose wrote.
According to witnesses, Osnes, a pedestrian, struck the hood of Jassy’s SUV after it came close to hitting him as he attempted to cross the street.The witnesses said Jassy exited his vehicle, hit Osnes with his fist, kicked him in the head and then drove over him.
A judge previously ruled that the kick alone demonstrated the malice required for a murder charge, but Rose wrote that it was part of Jassy’s larger attempt to protect himself, his female passenger and his vehicle.
“There is no requirement for a person exercising self-defense to stop and reassess after every single move whether the antagonist has given up,” he wrote.
Witnesses have told police that Jassy quarreled with his girlfriend just before the incident and became angry when Osnes touched his rented vehicle.
A judge is to rule on the motion next month.
-- Harriet Ryan
Photo: Rapper David Jassy, at a preliminary hearing in March, is charged with murder in the death of a pedestrian in a confrontation in Hollywood in November. Credit: Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press
If the Lakers win the NBA championship Sunday, it’s a good bet Angelenos will want a parade.
But with cash-strapped Los Angeles looking at the possibility of laying off municipal workers or forcing them to take unpaid days off to counter a budget deficit, some at City Hall are uncomfortable with the parade’s price tag, which could exceed $1 million.
"We can’t afford to cover the costs,” Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes Staples Center, said this afternoon. “How could we make a decision about people’s jobs and then sponsor the parade?”
Shouldn't the Lakers and the NBA pay for that, she asked?
Council members have been wrestling for years with a proposal for reducing the size of subsidies the city gives for special events, such as street fairs and 10K runs. A new proposal to do that is pending and could receive a final vote next week.
But it would not go into effect until after the best-of-seven championship series between the Lakers and the Orlando Magic. The Lakers lead three games to one, and after Sunday's 5 p.m. tip off in Orlando it could be all over.
Representatives of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is in Rhode Island at a conference, did not respond to a request for comment.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who heads the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, struck a more conciliatory tone, predicting that the city would ultimately absorb the cost of a parade.
Wonder who is filming what where in Los Angeles? Check out this cool graphic produced by The Times' Thomas Suh Lauder. More coverage is available at The Times' Company Town blog.
A Los Angeles woman who choked an ex-girlfriend of "American Idol: judge Simon Cowell outside the Nokia Theatre during the music talent show's performance finale pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery, authorities said today.
Under the plea deal with the city attorney's office, 33-year-old Janis Thibodeaux was placed on 36 months' probation and must complete 20 days of Caltrans work and undergo anger management or a psychological evaluation, said spokesman Frank Mateljan.
Movie star and UCLA alumnus James Franco has withdrawn from a big real-life role at his alma mater in Westwood.
Franco will not be able to deliver the commencement speech he was supposed to give June 12 to UCLA’s College of Letters and Science graduates, officials announced.
"I deeply regret not being able to keep my commitment to giving the commencement speech at UCLA's graduation this year," Franco said in a prepared statement provided to UCLA. "Unfortunately the date conflicts with me needing to be on location to begin pre-production on my next film. I wish everyone in the 2009 class the best of luck in all of their future endeavors."
The City of Angels, its neighborhoods and things L.A. are getting new national attention thanks to Conan O’Brien’s arrival here.
In his debut as host of the "Tonight Show," O'Brien aired a segment in which he cruised through L.A. neighborhoods in his weather-beaten Ford Taurus. He hung out with low-riders, presumably in East L.A. He took in a Lakers game like the many celeb fans -- but from the penthouse of the arena, last seat of the nosebleed section.
On Tuesday, O'Brien said he even got NBC, with its diminishing budget, to pony up so he could do a Julia Roberts-style shopping excursion on Rodeo -- Road, that is, in the Crenshaw District (segment starts at about the 12-minute mark in above link). To the tune of "Pretty Woman," O'Brien went into Urban Underground Outfits for its grand opening and emerged from the dressing room in a variety of urban gear – he even unintentionally tried out the sag look, with his pants dropping to the floor at one point. Some of his outfits were met by a disapproving Richard Gere.
Later, the New York-“tanned” O'Brien entered Eden Beauty Supply and Salon to find “100% Human Hair and Wigs,” as a sign outside proclaimed. From flowing blond a la Abba to disco-fabulous Afro, he sported different ‘dos to the amusement of the sales assistants.
With a wig of cascading braids, he said he either looked like Rick James or the alien from “Predator” – the split screen showed how he actually favored the alien. Jane Lee, a manager at Eden Beauty, said she received several calls today from people who saw the episode.
“We don’t know if it means more business, but he made us laugh,” she said.
Since we natives want to help O'Brien assimilate more easily, we at L.A. Now want to offer him a few suggestion to continue to get a true flavor of Southern California:
1. See what’s brewing at the coffee shops in Little Saigon, where servers show more skin than Victoria's Secret models. 2. Lather up and get a glow at any tanning salon in the O.C., preferably Newport Beach. 3. Pump iron and maybe limbo at Muscle Beach in Venice. 4. Ride the rails to compare the subways of New York and L.A. 5. Hit the Coliseum dressed in ancient Trojan attire and ride USC’s mascot Traveler.
Tell us where you think O'Brien should go to get a true flavor of SoCal.
A parade of puppets strung along Los Angeles City Council members today long enough to persuade them to designate a West 1st Street marionette theater a historic cultural landmark.
The puppets danced and pranced around the City Council’s ornate horseshoe-shaped desk in the City Hall chambers before officials voted 14-0 to place the Bob Baker Marionette Theater on the city’s landmark list.
Baker, 85, was performing a series of previously scheduled shows in Paramount as the council recognized what it was told is the country’s longest-running puppetry showcase.
“At age 85, he’s still the star of his company,” explained puppeteer Steve Meltzer, owner of a Santa Monica puppetry center and president of the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. “There are performances where his presence is requested.”
Amid the Ghostbusters and Star Wars characters, pro skateboarders, surviving members of the Beatlesand "booth babes" attending the E3 Expo today was Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The mayor spoke briefly under a banner for a soon-to-be-released video game called Crime Craft that encourages would-be gamers to "join thousands of players online as you learn the rules of the street, build your own gang and do whatever it takes to survive amidst the chaos. Earn a reputation. Build a gang. Kill the competition."
The KTLA Traffic Blog provides regular updates of the Southern California traffic situation during the morning drive. This feed is live from 4 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.
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