Orange County Register: South Coast Plaza shoppers are oblivious to President Obama's visit two miles away. If they can still afford South Coast Plaza, they are oblivious to his message, too. . . . Another Kobe Bryant court appearance, another dismissal. This time he was getting out of jury duty. Whew! No need to buy the wife a diamond. . . . Aliso Niguel High School security supervisor and part-time basketball coach Thomas Cole pleaded guilty to having sex with a teen girl and is expected to get a year in the pokey. Check out McDreamy's photo, ladies! Looks like hunky comic Jim Norton. . . . Fong Tran, a 36-year-old Westminster man suspected in the slayings of two Southern California Gas Co. employees, shot himself outside an Anaheim police station and is in critical condition with a head wound. . . . Memorial services are set for clothier Charles “Mask” Jewis Jr. at Crystal Cathedral in April. That will mark the first MMA-related event at the glass house since the epic battle between Schullers Sr. and Jr.
Los Angeles Times: Check out the real McDreamy's photo, ladies! And he's available! . . . The U.S. won't prosecute medical pot sales as Attorney General Eric Holder reverses the Bush administration's zero tolerance for get-well cannabis. Why that calls for another–cough-cough–polite golf clap? . . . An11-year-old Mexican girl residing illegally with her mother in Huntington Beach will be allowed to stay in the country during a custody battle. The sound you just heard was Barbara Coe's head exploding. . . . Vo Duong Tran, a 41-year-old former FBI agent from New Orleans, was convicted in federal court on charges related to the botched home-invasion robbery in Fountain Valley. . . . Bobby Shriver, the Santa Monica city councilman, key player in the successful battle to stop the Foothill-South toll road extension over state parkland and brother of California first lady Maria, is thinking of jumping in to the state's 2010 attorney general's race.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.