Mayor. Eric Garcetti will be L.A.’s youngest mayor in more than a century.
With every precinct in the city reporting, the 42-year-old City Councilman has 54 percent of the vote, to 46 percent for City Controller Wendy Greuel. Greuel called Garcetti to concede around 2 this morning, and she’ll make it official later today.
The mayoral race generated a record $33 million in spending and dragged …

Campaign’s end. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel are leaving no stone unturned as they engage in a last-minute scramble to sway undecided voters. The mayoral candidates were in constant motion yesterday, canvassing the city from Sherman Oaks and Westwood to East L.A. and San Pedro in a final push for votes.
Today, the campaigns turn their attention to mobilizing supporters to go to the polls. …

Election’s eve. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel will be criss-crossing the city today in a last-dash effort to sway undecided voters. After two years of campaigning, the hard fought and expensive campaign for mayor of L.A. comes to an end tomorrow.
A new USC-L.A. Times poll gives Garcetti a seven-point lead over Greuel – 48 percent to 41 percent – with 11 percent of likely …

Top prosecutor. The city attorney’s race came to “Which Way, L.A.?” last night as KCRW’s Warren Olney conducted separate interviews with the candidates in Tuesday’s run-off election. The incumbent, Carmen Trutanich – or “Nuch” as he’s commonly known – finds himself in an uphill battle to keep the job that he won in a surprise victory four years ago.
After pledging not to run for another …

 
Campus threat. A 19-year-old student has been detained as a “person of interest” in connection with threats to Santa Monica College and East L.A. College and lockdowns have been lifted at the schools. 

Police got a call around 8 o’clock this morning from a man identifying himself as a student, saying he was going to bring an assault weapon to the schools and shoot up …

Governor’s budget. Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest budget proposal includes more money for schools, and less money for just about everything else. Even with state revenues surging, Brown’s revised budget trims $1.3 billion from the plan he presented in January.
Brown says there’s no guarantee the surge in tax revenue will last. And he says California’s finances remain unstable because of the federal sequester budget cuts …

Dealing with defiance. The L.A. Board of Education is due to vote tomorrow on a landmark resolution that would ban suspensions for what’s called “willful defiance.” The move comes amid a growing belief in some quarters that suspending students for disruptive behavior is counterproductive.
“Willful defiance” can involve anything from cursing at a teacher to incessant talking or failing to wear a school uniform. The …

Neck and neck. A new poll finds a virtual dead heat in the L.A. mayor’s race with less than two weeks to go before Election Day.
The results are good news for Wendy Greuel. The City Controller trailed in earlier surveys, but the new poll by the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. gives her a one-point lead over City Councilman Eric Garcetti – …

Green light for rail yard. Depending on whom you ask, the $500 million port railway yard that’s planned four miles from the docks will either solidify the local ports’ position as the key West Coast hub for international shippers and reduce pollution – or unnecessarily put tens of thousands of South Bay residents at risk of noxious emissions.
Despite objections from environmental groups and neighboring …

Immigrant tally. A new study confirms that the national debate over immigration reform is as important in Los Angeles as anywhere in the country.
One in 10 adults in L.A. County either crossed the U.S. border illegally or overstayed their visa, according to a report by USC researchers. In some parts of Koreatown and South L.A. that number is 1 in 3.
The report by USC’s …

Pot shots. Now that the state Supreme Court has upheld the right of cities and counties to ban pot shop shops – what’s next for medical marijuana in California? And what about the three medical pot initiatives that will be on the Los Angeles city ballot two weeks from now?
The court’s unanimous decision means that a 1996 California ballot measure approving medical marijuana notwithstanding, …

Home stretch. They weren’t exactly making nice, but when pressed both candidates for mayor of Los Angeles said their opponent was basically honest. Still, City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilman Eric Garcetti found plenty of other things to disagree about during their latest debate.
Moderator Jim Newton of the L.A. Times noted the sharply negative tone of the campaign in recent weeks and asked …

Fire danger. Warnings of an early and severe fire season are proving to be prescient.
The fast-burning, 10,000-acre Springs Fire in Ventura County is threatening up to 4,000 homes, with just 10 percent containment this morning. And there are fears that could it explode in size as a result of high heat, tinder-dry conditions and Santa Ana winds that are expected to blow until this …

Prison pinch. The clock is ticking for Governor Jerry Brown: Federal judges have given Brown until midnight tonight to explain how the state will further reduce its prison population.
California has already released tens of thousands of inmates or transferred them to local jails as part of Brown’s realignment program. But the courts say California needs to shed another 9,000 inmates to insure that remaining …

Remaking LACMA. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will unveil a planned $650 million makeover next month that would require demolishing much of the current museum.
LACMA Director Michael Govan says a new design by Dutch architect Peter Zumthor – a Pritzker Prize winner – will redefine the encyclopedic museum for the 21st Century. To do that, the L.A. Times reports LACMA plans to …

Prison problems. California is going to need to find a place to put more than 3,000 inmates currently serving time at the Pleasant Valley and Avenal prisons. The federal official responsible for overseeing healthcare in state lockups says prisoners who are at high-risk for contracting valley fever will have to be housed elsewhere. That includes inmates with chronic illnesses, such as HIV infection, but …

Jackson trial. Michael Jackson has been dead and buried for nearly four years. But the answer to the question of who bears responsibility for the pop star’s overdose on the narcotic propofol could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, or a billion, if you believe the Jackson family. Arguments are scheduled to begin today in L.A. in the family’s wrongful death lawsuit against concert …

Who’s in first? A new poll finds a dramatic turnaround in the L.A. mayor’s contest – with City Controller Wendy Gruel edging ahead of City Councilman Eric Garcetti by three percentage points. But not everyone is convinced it reflects the true state of the race. The poll by Survey USA It shows Greuel with 45 percent support, Garcetti with 42 percent, and 13 percent …

Bloomberg bucks. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is throwing more money into the L.A. School Board race. Bloomberg gave $350,000 this week to the Coalition for School Reform. The political committee is led by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and supports the policies of L.A. Schools chief John Deasy. Prior to the March primary, the New York’s billionaire mayor donated $1 million to the committee. …

Safe(r) at home. Foreclosures in California are way down. The improving economy and rising home prices are factors in the downturn. The real estate firm DataQuick says lenders are also struggling to adjust to a new state law known as the “Homeowner Bill of Rights.” During the first three months of the year, the number of defaults in the Golden State dropped by more …