Getting to a school district budget

As the L.A. Unified school board started to talk today about the budget and the "work to fill a gap of $353 million," board President Monica Garcia said that she wanted to note that "we are managing a financial crisis."

After she spoke, the superintendent, David Brewer, started to set out his plan.

"This is not LAUSD's recommendation," he said, but one driven by the governor's budget. "We are doing the best we can."

His plan, he warned, "has a lot of pain, a lot of pain."

-- Mary MacVean

Three Californians in spelling bee finals

And then there were three.

In the semifinal round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the pool was whittled down to 12 finalists, three of them from California: Austin Pineda of Perris, who correctly spelled torii; Justin Song of San Diego (trophallactic); and Tia Thomas of Coarsegold (canicular). Josephine Kao of Roseville got tripped up on sphendone. The round before, Easun Arunachalam of La Crescenta bowed out on cyathiform.

The finals are on ABC-7 tonight at 8 p.m.

The meaning of the words? Keep reading ...