Brian

When the writers of "30 Rock" sent Brian Williams lines earlier this fall for his latest cameo, the NBC News anchor had a couple of suggestions. A scene in which he auditioned to be on the show's fictional comedy sketch series was "too blue" for his taste. In another, in which he approached Tina Fey's Liz Lemon about trying out for the program, Williams adopted an alter ego that paid homage to his late uncle Tony Mortarulo. "I'm not saying I want to audition, but Nicky Mortarulo from Scotch Plains, N.J., might be interested," Williams said with a broad grin and his best Jersey inflection.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Brian Cummings rejected a request from members of the City Council to postpone Sunday's start of a controversial plan to shift dozens of firefighters to ambulance duty. Council President Herb Wesson asked Friday that the Fire Department delay the changes, which are designed to address an increase in 911 medical calls, for three days so lawmakers can consider the effects of the reassignments. The council has scheduled a hearing Tuesday to address what critics say are safety issues surrounding the new staffing plan.

Maybe Brian the dog is just a better conversationalist than Steve Lopez's marauding raccoons. Lopez enlisted an animal psychic to persuade the raccoons destroying his yard to lay off. Psychic Dana Miller is trying to reason with them -- as Lopez relayed in his Wednesday column -- but conversing with raccoons isn't as easy as chatting with dogs, it seems. Miller had no trouble connecting with Brian, a tiny white Maltese who disappeared three years ago from his Tujunga front yard.

SANDY, Utah — Mike Magee and Charlie Rugg scored early in the first half, and the Galaxy coasted to a 2-0 victory over Real Salt Lake on Saturday night. Brian Rowe became the first goalkeeper to earn a shutout in his MLS debut for the Galaxy (4-1-2) since Brian Perk in a 0-0 draw against Seattle on July 4, 2011. Magee scored on a header in the sixth minute. Juninho fed him a cross off a free kick into the center of the box and Magee put a perfect touch on the pass as he headed it inside the right post.

Ask Brian Viloria how his boxing career has gone and he's likely to mumble something about Death Valley and Mt. Everest. He has been a world champion twice, the first time for a year, starting in September 2005, and now, starting last April. In between was the pits, known in boxing as the Alameda Swap Meet in South L.A. The facts: Viloria is 29, the International Boxing Federation champion at 108 pounds, and will defend his title in Manila on Saturday night against Carlos Tamara.

Betty Lou Batey, the fundamentalist who once stole away with her son Brian for 19 months rather than let him live with his gay father, said Wednesday that Brian plans to live with her now that his father has died. Her claim--made in a call to The Times a week after she again disappeared with the 16-year-old--contradicted the contention of Craig Corbett, the longtime companion of Brian's father, Frank Batey, who has insisted that the youth wants to continue living with him in Palm Springs.

'What I did was, mostly it was very little, it was amazingly little. I listened to the radio. To go to the bathroom or to get bathed in any way was like a life risk, because you stop breathing. As much as he can sense the ocean's presence from his cottage atop the Malibu bluff, Brian John May is unable to look upon it from his aging steel hospital bed. As morning creeps in through his windows, Brian knows that he cannot, on his own power, rise to meet the day.

Brian Burke's office is surprisingly small for a man of his physical and professional stature. Windows offer a view of a chilly, gray Toronto afternoon but the gloom is brightened by his children's drawings and family photos on his walls. The personal side of his move from Anaheim, where he led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup in 2007, to Toronto and the job of president and general manager of the Maple Leafs has worked out fine. One daughter from his first marriage visited from Boston last weekend.

Betty Lou Batey, the Pentecostalist who disappeared with her son for 19 months rather than allow him to live with his homosexual father, left court a free woman Monday, cleared by a judge of charges of felony child stealing.

Even 25 years later, "Monty Python's The Life of Brian" resonates as a thorough skewering of Christianity -- at least, if you're the type who can laugh at such things. Director Terry Jones tells the story of Brian, an average guy who is born on Christmas and spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah, and the movie features what could be the happiest musical crucifixion scene on film. -- Patrick Day Academy 6 Cinemas 1003 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena Midnight Friday (805) 558-1408

Los Angeles Fire Chief Brian Cummings said Thursday he was pressing ahead with a controversial plan to move dozens of city firefighters from fire engines to ambulances, despite warnings from labor groups that the change would put lives at risk. In the coming days, the chief plans to deploy 11 new ambulances by reassigning one firefighter per shift from 22 firetrucks across the city. Cummings says the department must adjust to fewer fires and a growing number of medical emergencies, and has limited funding to make the change.

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who sometimes crossed his party in the powerful role of Finance Committee chairman, announced Tuesday he would retire at the end of his term - complicating Democrats' efforts to keep control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm election. The move caught many in Washington by surprise. Baucus had stockpiled $5 million - a fortune by Montana standards - and voted last week to oppose compromise gun control legislation, which some viewed as a calculation aimed at winning reelection in his libertarian-leaning state.

Brian Cashman , the New York Yankees' general manager, said this in spring training: "The story that we're too old gets written so much that at some point they'll be right. " This appears to be that point. The Yankees learned last week that Derek Jeter's left ankle had fractured once again, and he'll be 39 when he returns after the All-Star break. Then again, the Yankees thought he might be ready for opening day. Mariano Rivera is 43, and he says this season is his last.

Brian Eno fans might have to suffer a bit before they get to hear his new body of work.  According to the Independent , the producer-composer's latest project is two ambient soundtrack and light installations designed to soothe patients in hospitals. The works will make their debut at the new Montefiore Hospital in Hove, England. "77 Million Paintings for Montefiore” is a sound-and-light installation in the hospital's reception area, while "The Quiet Room for Montefiore"  is a custom separate space for patients, staff and guests to escape the sonic and emotional tumult of life in a hospital.

For some directors, it's a bolt of inspiration that prompts them to make their movie. For others, it's a serendipitous phone call outside the Lincoln Tunnel. It went down pretty much the second way for Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “L.A Confidential” who wrote, and was behind the camera for, the surprise baseball hit of the season, Jackie Robinson biopic “42.” The Massachusetts native was riding a bus on a roots trip of sorts to Brooklyn, where his father had grown up, when he received a call from the financier Thomas Tull.

The Long Beach Unified School District is suing a former female student who admitted to falsely accusing ex-Poly High football star Brian Banks of rape in 2002. The lawsuit against former Polytechnic High School student Wanetta Gibson was filed last November, just months after Banks' rape conviction was dismissed.  Banks had spent five years in prison and another five on parole. He recently signed an NFL contract with the Atlanta Falcons.  The school district said it is trying to recoup about $1.9 million that was spent defending itself after Gibson sued the district and collected a $750,000 settlement.

Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell on Friday sentenced Betty Lou Batey to 15 days in jail and fined her $3,000 on three counts of civil contempt she faced for disobeying court orders and taking her son out of Southern California without permission. However, McConnell suspended the jail sentence because the 40-year-old woman had served 13 days in jail in Colorado. The judge also suspended Batey's fine for one year on the condition that she follow court instructions.

The legal dispute over whether a 14-year-old boy should live with his fundamentalist Christian mother or homosexual father is apparently over after the father withdrew from the case, saying he will no longer try to contact his son.

"God built me to last," Jackie Robinson says at one point in "42," and, thankfully, his remarkable story is built the same way. It would have to be to survive the full-dress Hollywood biopic treatment it gets in this film, which is unabashedly subtitled "The True Story of an American Legend. " And survive it does. You almost can't blame writer-director Brian Helgeland for taking an old-fashioned, earnest-to-a-fault approach to the genuinely heroic narrative of the Brooklyn Dodger who in 1947 - in a move masterminded by team General Manager Branch Rickey -- broke the Major League Baseball color barrier, led the Dodgers to the National League pennant and won rookie of the year honors.

Brian Banks was inside a New York television studio, waiting to tape an episode of "The View," when he got a long-awaited call from a friend. For weeks, Banks had known that signing a contract to play with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons was a possibility. But he had tried out with several NFL teams the season before and did not come away with a contract. “You're holding your breath,” Banks' attorney Justin Brooks said.     Brooks was with Banks and his mother Tuesday when the exonerated former high school football standout heard the magic words: The Falcons wanted Banks in Atlanta the next day for a physical exam.