|
|
 If you can stand to read about how the Lakers blew the biggest first-quarter lead in NBA Finals history, then wrote their names in the record books with the biggest breakdown in the NBA Finals in the last 37 years, and how Kobe Bryant walked off the court with time on the clock, then by all means, read our coverage. Bill Plaschke's righteous rage will actually make you feel better. T.J. Simers blames Phil Jackson. The game story pulls no punches. The photos, well, they'll just break your heart. Thank God it's Friday.
And now onto the real world:
L.A.'s top cops have a turf war of their own going. L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca says race plays a big role in gang violence, while LAPD Chief Bill Bratton says it's actually about drugs and money.
Manson acolyte Susan Atkins may be released from prison because she has brain cancer.
Judge Alex Kozinski wants you to look at some porn -- his own. Specifically, he's called for an investigation into the fact that he kept hard-core images on his website to determine whether he's considered fit to judge obscenity cases.
The Japanese gangster who wanted a liver transplant at UCLA tried to pay $1 million for a U.S. visa.
Got a Q about same-sex marriage in California? Chances are, we've got the A.
Meanwhile, the Kern County clerk says she's hurt by the criticism at her decision to halt all civil marriage ceremonies.
Feeling a particularly vicious pinch in your wallet? You're not dreaming: May's jump in inflation was the biggest in six months.
Check out our coverage of the "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle" exhibit now in the San Diego Museum of Art. What's Hillary Clinton got to do with it? Ironic, in light of today's piece in the NYT.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times
 Michael Jackson gets to keep Neverland Ranch. LAT
Must-haves for the girl about town from Caroline on Crack.
Kaiser is opening a $370-million hospital in Irvine. OC Reg
Gerry Garcia of Long Beach is 5 foot 6, weighs 150 pounds and is (almost) named for a rocker. He's also on the new season of "American Gladiators." Press-Telegram
MTV wants to hire a really, really young blogger. Fishbowl LA
Locke High trying to recover from brawl and lockdown. LAT
Are there any secrets any more? A leaked video clip of the Sex and the City movie suggests that Carrie is ... nope. We're not going to blow it for you. But Defamer will, if you insist on knowing.
Monrovia puts residents on squatter watch. Foothill Cities
Remembering the last hours of KHJ Boss Radio. Van Nuys Boomers
Baskin-Robbins goes soft-serve. Fast Food Maven
-- Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Photos: Los Angeles Times
 Another win for nature lovers as the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council buys the 192 acres that complete the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve. Daily Breeze
Ryan Seacrest in talks to replace Larry King? Fishbowl LA says yes. No word yet on who gets custody of all those suspenders.
Campaign signs for a candidate for Superior Court judge are breaking city laws, says Will Campbell at LA Metblogs.
Former Pasadena City College prez (and current state senator) Jack Scott has been named chancellor of states community colleges. CoCoTimes
A book about a penguin family with two dads tops the American Library Assn.'s most challenged book list. Again. Details from Nick Owchar in our fab litblog, Jacket Copy
The head of Mexico's federal police, who had taken on the war against the nation's drug cartels, was gunned down today. Mean Streets
The Salvage Fashion show - getting creative with recyclables. LA Taco
You don't want to mess with moms who are this mad about the state's education budget. The Homeroom
Retreat to a simpler time with lawn bowling in Redlands. SB Sun
--Veronique de Turenne
Photos: AP, LA Times
 Before the hoi polloi crowd into the grand opening of Rick Caruso's grandiose retail project, Americana at Brand, L.A.'s elite had a party of its own, held on the parking lot roof. Our own Cara Mia DiMassa was there.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn, at least three L.A. City Council members and L.A.'s top cop, Bill Bratton, joined 2,000 other guests and VIPs. Wolfgang Puck fed the crowd filet mignon with wild mushroom-leek tortelloni and grand marnier souffle.
The Four Tops and the Temptations performed together, Natalie Cole sang, and so did Tony Benett. Jay Leno was the emcee. Oh - and did we mention the fireworks?
All about Rick Caruso's lavish shindig in Cara's full story.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Here's the scene at a rally yesterday, held to urge that more money be spent on gang intervention programs. That's former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, left, joined by Families to Amend California's Three Strikes and the Youth Justice Coalition. They want more jobs for youth and are against the repeal of Special Order 40, which keeps LAPD officers from asking about immigration status.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
 Wiki - short for "what I know is". What they know at Wilson High is the school's page in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, open to virtual editing by virtually anyone, was used for more than a year to hurl insults and make violent threats, mostly against Asian students. Molly Hennessy-Fiske has the story:
The writer, who said he was a student, hid behind an ... e-mail address to threaten by name Asian students at the San Gabriel Valley school, hurl racial slurs at the school's primarily Asian badminton team and allude to possible attacks.
"I would love to see her shot right between the eyes with blood gushing out from her mouth begging for mercy as she clings onto a single shred of life," read a message about an Asian student posted May 28, 2007. "Haha now there's a great fantasy."
Wiki staffers warned the school and two weeks ago, school officials and sheriff's detectives started investigating. What came next was more threats, a cat-and-mouse game and, finally, an arrest. Read Molly's full story here.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Genaro Molino / Los Angeles Times
 More on that Miley Cyrus photo shoot brouhaha from the Huffington Post.
The Cheer Squad from La Puente's Bassett High wins a cheering title. The Homeroom
Yep, the mayor is staying in L.A. for May Day, says the Daily News.
L.A. is America's most-hated, says a poll in Travel & Leisure, via LA Metblogs.
Services held for the founder of Tommy Tucker's Playroom. Wave Newspapers
A 70-foot model locomotive suspended from a crane? No problem for a Valley art fabricator. NYT
The Biosilk Bandits strike again. Easy Reader (middle of post)
First the ficus, now the carob trees. Santa Monica plans to cut down 300 of them. The Argonaut
Love seats for sale: Former OC swingers sex club sells off furniture. OC Register
--Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Photo: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times
 It's been more than a week since the NY Post got worldwide attention with a tale of a sale of a Marilyn Monroe sex tape. A day later, Defamer offered the first debunking, which our own blog, Web Scout, had a bit of fun with. (Web Scout had to close comments on its post, and so did we.)
Then came The Smoking Gun and Radar, and the Philly Daily News, offering a recap of the purported sex tape scam. (The New York Daily News, the Post's arch-rival, seems never to have touched the story.) ... New York collectibles dealer Keya Morgan came forward earlier this week with a wild story involving a 15-minute "French-type" silent reel, the FBI, Marilyn Monroe, a secret $1.5 million sale and the thwarted vengeance of J. Edgar Hoover.
The story as told by Morgan: The film, of a pre-fame Monroe performing oral sex on an unidentified man, was in the possession of the son of a former FBI informant who had worked under Hoover during the Kennedy administration. Hoover obtained the film in the '60s, hoping that the unidentified man in the film was JFK and that it could be used against him.
The Marilyn tape may be imaginary, so far there's no way to know, but the men laying claim to the Monroe legacy are very real. Mud slinging, name calling, threats and counter-threats -- reading the comments on Defamer is quite the education. The one media outlet staying mum so far? The NY Post, who got the whole thing started. Hmmm...
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Milton H. Greene
 An Austrian PR firm sure hopes you think so, spinning the briefest of mentions of the fourth "Terminator" film on NBC's puff-fest, "Extra," into a full-blown rumor. A reporter, interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger, asked whether the governor will have a part in director McG's "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins":
Schwarzenegger: No.
Reporter: Not true?
Schwarzenegger: No, I have never had a dialogue about it.
Reporter: Would you do it?
Schwarzenegger: If they shoot the movie in California, yes.
Somehow, here's what the PR firm heard: He says, "I've never had a dialogue with anyone about it. But if they shoot the movie in California, I would (be a part of it), yes."
Filming starts next month -- in New Mexico.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
 Asked - and answered - in this week's issue of Newsweek. It's the second year in a row the weekly has taken on rabbinical pulchritude, pegged to (why, exactly?) the annual Passover holiday.
L.A.'s own Rabbi David Wolpe of Temple Sinai (pictured at right) takes top honors again. In fact, the City of Angels dominates the list. Are SoCal rabbis just cuter than the rest, or is that the list-makers are from LA?
To see Rabbi Wople in action, check him out in a debate about whether God exists. Criteria and this year's list are here.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Anacleto Rapping / Los Angeles Times
Now that's a close-up: LA and NYC airports start using revealing body scanners. AP via LAT
A reward for info about the slaying last month of a 16-year-old in Monrovia's "No Man's Land." Star-news
Panic room or wine cellar -- buyer's choice. Curbed LA
 It's the Poet's Beat Neon Cruise this Saturday, leaving from the (newly relocated) Museum of Neon Art.
Mommy's tummy tuck -- explaining plastic surgery to your toddler. (Can't make stuff like this up.) Jacket Copy
Still just one bid for the Santa Monica Ferris wheel. But now you can get six months with no payments. EBay
U.S. warns travelers about Mexican border violence. OC Register
Hacienda Heights high school will be closed a second day amid student threats. SGV Tribune
Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Your City Council at work: "If the nipple slips and it's not photographed, that's not going to break anyone's heart," says Dennis Zine, defending Britney's Law.
Thanks, Rick Orlov, for being awake at 5:52 (!) a.m. And remember, people, it's the Daily Show -- a little edgy, a lot sophomoric, and a teensy bit PG-13.
-- Veronique de Turenne
It's April 15 and the tax man cometh. Unless you file for an extension. Need a post office that stays open late tonight? The answer at (800) ASK-USPS. More tips and resources for procrastinators last-minute tax filers right here.
Speaking of money, that's exactly what Antonio Villaraigosa wants, lots of it, to put 1,000 more police officers on L.A.'s streets. How, exactly? With a 38% trash rate hike, for starters. And maybe a sales tax increase. And that's on top of the DWP hike already on the table. Just how deep into your pockets does the city want to reach? Our man in City Hall, David Zahniser, has the details.
There's a cancer-causing chemical in the air in Riverside, and the South Coast AQMD thinks it's coming from giant piles of clinker dust from a nearby cement plant. More from Janet Wilson.
More mayhem leaves two men dead in East L.A., Francisco Vara-Orta reports.
Listing prices down $130K from their peak. LA Land
A famous freedom fighter joins the cause in Little Saigon and protests a newspaper accused of communist leanings. My-Thuan Tran explains.
Northwest and Delta plan to merge, a move that won't affect us here in SoCal, at least not directly since the two carriers only account for a combined 11% of the market at LAX. But you might see some long-term effects on the airline industry, and we're not talking cheaper flights or better service. Peter Pae has the details.
Her daughter did it! That's the last-minute shift in the defense of one of the two 70-something women charged with taking out big insurance policies on homeless men, then killing them. Victoria Kim is following the trial.
Another high-profile court drama is coming to town -- the tax evasion trial of Joe Francis, of "Girls Gone Wild" infamy fame. Associated Press via L.A. Times.
-- Veronique de Turenne
 Yeah, Hollywood siren Marilyn Monroe made a sex tape. No, you'll never get to see it. According to the New York Post, Marilyn's tape recently sold for $1.5 million to a collector who plans to keep it all to himself. Out of respect, of course.
Who else knew about the tape, shot before Marilyn became famous? None other than J. Edgar Hoover the Post claims, no stranger to the seamy side of life. The footage appears to have been shot in the 1950s. When it came to light in the mid-1960s, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had his agents spend two weeks futilely trying to prove that Monroe's sex partner was either John F. Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy, according to declassified agency documents and interviews, Morgan said.
Joe DiMaggio apparently tried to buy the tape, the story says, but his $25,000 offer was turned down. So we could either reach for a Rob Lowe Pamela Anderson Fred Durst Colin Farrell Tonya Harding Kid Rock Paris Hilton joke, or just give you the link to the Post's full story here.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Richard C. Miller
Two blog views of whether David Geffen is this close to buying the L.A. Times, via fishbowl LA.
That killer asteroid? Not so big after all. LAT
New state tax proposal would raise the price of beer by 30 cents per can. Whittier Daily News
Another blog post about extreme food, from Deep End Dining.
Nostalgia for $2 gas from Franklin Avenue.
A sneak peek at the L.A. Times Book Awards. Jacket Copy
Philip Roth commemorated on his 75th birthday. NPR
Jazz producer Ozzie Cadena dies. LAist
A passion for piping: UC Riverside offers a degree in bagpipes. Press Enterprise
--Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Snooping into medical files -- old news, to UCLA anyway. Officials there have known of the problem since at least 1995, says Charles Ornstein.
Have you heard the name Roger Snoble? He's head of the MTA (a.k.a. the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and Fabian Nuñez, speaker of the assembly, wants him gone. How, why, and what are the chances, from Patrick McGreevy.
Which is a perfect time to let you know what George Skelton is thinking these days: TIME FOR BIG CHANGES AT THE CAPITOL! (Well, he doesn't shout like that, but lawmakers might, if Skelton ever got his way.) The column is here.
Are local news anchors an endangered species? Greg Braxton thinks maybe so.
Tiny, yellow ducklings, stuck in a storm drain in Garden Grove. We've got video -- and a happy ending. (Might not be a bad idea to take a look, enjoy some good news, before moving onto the next item.)
What if the Chino slaughterhouse responsible for the largest beef recall in U.S. history can't come up with the $67 million the feds say it costs to handle the mess? Taxpayers (a.k.a. you and I) will get stuck with the bill. (And guess what -- it could climb as high as $117 million.) AP via LAT.
Beverly Hills says yes to a huge condo-and-retail project that has some residents saying, "Oh no..."
Want to know more about people so rich, a yacht is an "impulse buy"? Then Susannah Rosenblatt has a story for you.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Rosscoes House of Chicken and Waffles in Chicago agrees to change its name after Roscoes House of Chicken and Waffles in L.A. (is it too soon be be getting hungry?) complains. Via a lawsuit. Daily Dish, Chicago Trib.
Former Times staffer Cecilia Rasmussen talks to Adrienne Crew at Native Intelligence.
Our own Peter Spiegel fires back at critics of the LAT. Romenesko
Oprah's fans not thrilled by her foray into politics. Top of the Ticket
L.A.'s jazz community says goodbye to Ozzie Cadena. LAist
Tupperware parties go green. (But there's still burping, right?) Daily News
What does the Daily Mirror in London think is news in L.A.? The fact that David Beckham (they call him Goldenballs) got nabbed for speeding. Story here.
A drunk driving checkpoint on Saturday somewhere in Pomona. (Why do they announce these -- isn't the surprise element part of the point?) SGV Trib
Where's Mirthala getting married? Curbed LA
-- Veronique de Turenne
 Mirthala Salinas, who no doubt thinks of herself as a journalist, gets ID'd as Antonio Villaraigosa's former mistress on the cover of the May issue of LA Magazine. It's her first interview since her affair with Villaraigosa, revealed last year by the Daily News, led to a swift and steep downfall.
Salinas talks to Shawn Hubler about love, marriage, infidelity, Telemundo, and what it was like ("horrible") to make news instead of break it. She's got a new gig now, as co-host of the morning talk show, "Hoy por Hoy", which airs Monday through Friday on W Radio, XETRA 690 AM.
The story (which says Salinas in engaged to marry a former boyfriend) will go live online at LA Mag's site tomorrow.
More from from our own David Zahniser here.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Los Angeles Magazine
ABC's Bob Woodruff received the Daniel Pearl Award from the L.A. Press Club. LADN
It was inevitable, no? Top Chef, the cookbook. LAT
Ramon C. Cortines, approved yesterday as LAUSD's No. 2 honcho, cuts his own pay. The Home Room
The O.C. leads the nation in job losses during third quarter. OC Reg
Classic car thefts on the rise. Mean Streets
What would you do? Two men return $140,000 found on a Cerritos street. Daily Breeze
L.A. County supervisors delay final vote on new taco truck rules. SGV Tribune LAT
No survivors found in small-plane crash near Big Bear. Press Enterprise
Election day results from El Segundo, Lancaster, Long Beach, Sierra Madre, Walnut, Whittier
Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Nope, the LAT didn't win this year. Six to the Washington Post, two to the NYT, one to the Chicago Tribune and, well, the rest of the list is here on the Pulitzer site.
 We did have finalists: the photo staff for its work in last year's devastating fire season, and Thomas Curwen, whose remarkable piece about a grizzly bear attack was recognized in the feature writing category:
Johan looked up. Jenna was running toward him. She had yelled something, he wasn't sure what. Then he saw it. The open mouth, the tongue, the teeth, the flattened ears. Jenna ran right past him, and it struck him — a flash of fur, two jumps, 400 pounds of lightning.
It was a grizzly, and it had him by his left thigh. His mind started racing — to Jenna, to the trip, to fighting, to escaping. The bear jerked him back and forth like a rag doll, but he remembered no pain, just disbelief. It bit into him again and again, its jaw like a sharp vise stopping at nothing until teeth hit bone. Then came the claws, rising like shiny knife blades, long and stark.
Oh my god, right? Read the rest of Curwen's story here.
Also announced today - the Times business staff won the General Excellence award of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for newspapers with circulations higher than 325,000.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: National Geographic
 Remember the uproar that derailed plans to encase an endangered Asian elephant named Tai in a giant soap bubble? A move is afoot to try the stunt in private, at an invitation-only event, reports Unleashed, our animal blog, which debuts today.
The location of the invite-only performance, set for next Tuesday, is being kept under wraps.
Yang, pictured above with Tai, hopes to set a world record for the largest land mammal in a bubble.
Last month's planned attempt at Santa Ana's Discovery Science Center was canceled after organizers received hundreds of e-mail complaints and protesters threatened to disrupt the event, calling it cruel and unscientific.
The full story here. To read Unleashed in all its fluffy, furry and feathery glory, here's the home page. (I hear the clicking of a thousand bookmarks.)
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo courtesy of Fan Yang
| |
If you can stand to read about how the Lakers blew the biggest first-quarter lead in NBA Finals history, then wrote their names in the record books with the biggest breakdown in the NBA Finals in the last 37 years, and how Kobe Bryant walked off the court with time on the clock, then by all means, read our coverage. Bill Plaschke's righteous rage will actually make you feel better. T.J. Simers blames Phil Jackson. The game story pulls no punches. The photos, well, they'll just break your heart. Thank God it's Friday.
