SoCalConnected

NY Times: A judge sentenced ''Girls Gone Wild'' founder Joe Francis on Friday to time served and a year of probation for filing false income tax returns. - SoCalConnected

LAist: That's because nationwide, unemployment in October shot up to 10.2 percent, a 26-year record high. 190,000 jobs were lost with the largest amount found in the construction industry. - SoCalConnected

Time: "As always, federal decisions have lots of unintended consequences, and many of them are good. As dispensaries wipe out pot dealers, teen drug use will fall dramatically. Instead of buying pot from a dealer, teenagers will have to struggle with the same imperfect methods they use to get alcohol: begging older siblings, stealing from their parents and waiting outside a dispensary until they find a guy creepy enough to accept a $20 bribe." - SoCalConnected

KPCC: Last year, voters in California and Maine were besieged with images of what would supposedly happen if same-sex marriage were legal: Students on a field trip to a lesbian wedding, elementary kids gobbling up books featuring gay couples, kindergartners learning about homosexuality from their teachers. And the strategy worked. The strategy worked. - SoCalConnected

LA Times: The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board agreed late Thursday to ban septic systems in central and eastern Malibu, a move that would end years of fierce debate over the wastewater devices still commonly used in the community - SoCalConnected

LA Daily: Only after some persistence did Los Angeles County allow the USC journalists to take a peek at its H1N1-related death certificates. The result? According to Neon Tommy 57 people have died in L.A. since the latest outbreak of swine flu in April, including 13 people since early October. - SoCalConnected

Oprah might be moving her show to Los Angeles, reports Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke, who doesn't name a source. - SoCalConnected

A volunteer coalition of bicycle advocates, transportation experts, artists and academics, cicLAvia wants to make Sundays in Los Angeles virtually car-free -- transforming the city's streets into giant bike lanes and creating a public space that connects every neighborhood in the city. - SoCalConnected

NY Times: The water package is the most comprehensive to emerge from the state since the 1960s, when California last upgraded its system for what was a far smaller population of users. - SoCalConnected

LA Times: The seven-year initiative is among the largest philanthropic efforts aimed at improving education in the United States and, as described, could both complement and challenge aspects of the Obama administration's education reform efforts. - SoCalConnected

On his blog, Walsh Confidential, Walsh has written that Villaraigosa "was out like a light for a few minutes" during the MTA board meeting, which prompted the activist to tell the mayor to wake up. - SoCalConnected

LA Times: An apparent exodus of students to charter schools, combined with an overall enrollment decline, is disrupting Los Angeles-area schools and exacerbating an ongoing budget crisis. - SoCalConnected

Pasadena Weekly: African Americans using the oft-maligned weed are at far greater risk of arrest than their white counterparts. - SoCalConnected

The New Yorker: "For nearly twenty-five years, Jonathan Gold, the high-low priest of the L.A. food scene, has been chronicling the citys carts and stands and dives and holes-in-mini-mall." - SoCalConnected

Truth Dig: Waldie reviews a baseball book that "is a lot like Los Angeles. Its about desire and its consequences, some of them awful." - SoCalConnected

LAist: Morning, noontime and afternoons will now carry daily shows with news shows covering local to international topics as well as economic and environmental ones. - SoCalConnected

LAist: There was no such luck for San Francisco this year, but the Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood beat out popular gay spots in Rio, London, Amsterdam, Chicago and Montreal this week in a contest put on by MTV's Logo Channel. - SoCalConnected

CBS2: The man seemed to be "severely malnourished," according to sheriff's Deputy, Lillian Peck. - SoCalConnected

Newsweek: A 10-acre stretch of land just outside Los Angeles is pit-bull Nirvana. It's called Villalobos Rescue Center and it's run by Tia Maria Torres, an unabashed pit-bull lover. Torres has found homes for thousands of pits since the rescue opened its doors 15 years ago. - SoCalConnected

A Southern California man who aimed a laser beam at two airliners as they approached an airport has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for disrupting the flights. - SoCalConnected

LA Daily: County unemployment, at 12.7 percent, is the highest it has been in a generation. Southern California is the capital of home foreclosures. The economy is the worst it's been since the Great Depression. And less people are on the street? - SoCalConnected