Mirthala Salinas makes news again

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

KUSC really, really, really wants your support

Is it just me or is there a more, well, desperate note than usual to KUSC's latest pledge drive? Not just the normal urging and gifting and guilting, but also some outright begging along the lines of please, please, please don't let us go down the tubes.

It has been a year since the 62-year-old station outlasted KMZT to become the lone bastion of full-time classical programming on FM radio in L.A. But with gas prices spiking, home prices tanking and recession talk all around, the race for donor dollars is tighter than ever.

Tim Cavanaugh looks at classical radio's hit parade, a list topped by composers who could have used a pledge drive or two of their own. But it's not all dead white guys at KUSC, the L.A. Downtown News points out.

Besides, who wouldn't pony up the price of a weekly latte just to keep Jim Svejda -- seen at right -- coming back to work?

-- Veronique de Turenne