Gavin

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the breakup of his 20-year marriage, saying he was responsible for the split even as he refused to talk about what caused it. In a somber meeting with reporters at City Hall, Villaraigosa declined to answer questions about whether the break with his wife, Corina, was triggered by another romantic relationship.

SACRAMENTO-- Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom called for the legalization of marijuana on Saturday. “It's time to decriminalize, tax and regulate marijuana,” he told delegates at the California Democratic Party convention. “It's time we own up to the fact that our drug laws have done far more harm than good. The war on drugs is an abject failure.” Newsom, who is known to have an eye on higher office, poked fun at the fact that he is the state's acting governor because Gov. Jerry Brown is in China on a trade mission.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will announce Friday that he is running for California lieutenant governor, according to people who were contacted by him. Newsom, a Democrat, has been lining up support and collecting donations for the statewide run. Sources say he will unveil a list of endorsements that includes many of the state's top Democratic leaders. The sources requested anonymity to allow Newsom to make the announcement. On Wednesday, Newsom took out papers to run for the office from the San Francisco County elections department and paid a $2,600 fee. Asked if Newsom would announce his candidacy Friday, spokesman Jason Kinney said, "You'll just have to wait until tomorrow."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi got Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom-- the former San Francisco mayor whose actions launched the litigation -- a seat in the courtroom Tuesday. “I don't want to overstate it, but literally when I walked in, I had a feeling I had never had before. People talk about a rush of motions. You literally feel this rush through your body. It was very powerful.” He said the arguments were technical and legal but he came away with the sense that same-sex marriages would resume in June in California, and that the high court's ruling would be narrow.

U.S. Ambassador John Gavin said Friday that he has been told by Mexican authorities that more policemen will be arrested in the coming days for their role in the kidnaping and murder of U.S. narcotics agent Enrique S. Camarena. He spoke with reporters at a news conference about the arrests earlier in the week of 13 police-related suspects in the case, then added, "Unfortunately, there will also be some other elements supposedly defending the law, wearing badges, that will be brought in."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officially jumped into the race for lieutenant governor Friday, explaining why he now wants a job he once disparaged as a ceremonial post without any real responsibility Newsom, a Democrat, is known nationally, so his entrance changes the dynamics of the contest. The office he wants, after dropping his run for governor last fall, is low-profile but significant: Its occupant runs the state if the governor leaves California or cannot fulfill his or her duties.

At 10:30 one morning, hotel manager Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) steps out on to the ledge of a tall building facing an old church with a clock on its tower. He plans to jump before noon. Hollis (Terrence Howard), a policeman trained to deal with such situations, quickly discerns that Gavin is being forced to commit suicide. Drawing out Gavin triggers a series of flashbacks. Such is the promising premise of writer-director Matthew Chapman's "The Ledge," a film that's ultimately sabotaged by its own heavy-handed screenplay.

Gold has lost some of its gleam among small investors who once saw it as a financial salvation. The precious metal suffered its sharpest price drop in three decades, as the frenzy that drove gold to fantastic heights in recent years reversed course with a vengeance. Gold shriveled more than 9% on Monday, its worst drubbing since 1983. It's down more than 13% in the last two trading days. The loss in gold preceded Monday's bomb attacks in Boston. The losses have been agonizing for individual investors who poured in during recent years.

The mood was electric that crisp, clear February day as couples lined up at San Francisco City Hall to be among the first to get licenses for same-sex marriages in California. Nine tortuous years followed: The state high court halted and invalidated the San Francisco licenses, then later ruled gays and lesbians could marry. Some 18,000 couples rushed to do so before voters put a stop to the ceremonies by passing Proposition 8 in 2008. Then a federal judge and an appeals court threw that ballot initiative out. On Tuesday, the two sides rested.

NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched, space agency officials said Thursday.

After months of speculation, Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators confirmed Thursday they believed missing Fox movie executive Gavin Smith was killed and publicly named a convicted drug dealer as a person of interest in the case. The revelation came as investigators announced that the 57-year-old's Mercedes-Benz, missing since his May disappearance, was found last month in a Simi Valley storage locker. Authorities said the storage locker was linked to James Creech, now serving an eight-year sentence for an unrelated drug conviction.

There's a subtle arc to Jim Gavin's first book, "Middle Men" (Simon & Schuster: 224 pp., $23). Gathering seven stories largely set in Southern California, it opens with a high school basketball player and ends with Marty Costello, a plumbing supply salesman who "averages 50,000 miles per year, vast territories, circles of latitude, Inglewood to Barstow, sailing across SoCal, all day every day. " In between, we meet men of different ages, from Costello's...

SACRAMENTO -- California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom continued his book tour on "The Colbert Report" on Thursday night, taking his fair share of abuse to plug his new tome on the future of governance. As Newsom began his spiel about how technology can “level the playing field” in government, media and other fields, Colbert interrupted asking, “What the [heck] does any of that mean? … Every single one of these things could be carved on a stone and put in someone's garden as like a mantra, but I don't know what they mean.” Newsom broke through the skepticism to make his point.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Feb. 10 - 16, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     CBS This Morning Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.); Nancy O'Dell; Mike Piazza. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Naomi Campbell; Julianne Hough; Blake Shelton. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC Rachael Ray Paula and Bobby Deen. (N) 8 a.m. KCAL Live With Kelly and Michael Emmy Rossum; Jane Lynch. (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View 10 a.m. KABC The Talk Grace Park.

Citizenville How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government Gavin Newsom with Lisa Dickey Penguin Press: 272 pp., $25.95 California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has a lot more time on his hands than he used to. When he was San Francisco mayor, from 2004 to '11, Newsom was busy, busy, busy. He (briefly) legalized gay marriage. He helped reform the city's generous welfare cash payment program. He worked on universal healthcare. His messy personal life provided endless fodder for a mercilessly snarky local press.

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the mortgage industry, Wall Street and a major federal regulator of colluding to pressure local governments into rejecting a controversial proposal to seize mortgages and restructure them. Newsom on Monday sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation into statements by some groups representing Wall Street investors and the mortgage industry that mortgage lending may become costlier in parts of the country where municipalities are weighing eminent domain proposals.

WASHINGTON - An influential network of some of the country's wealthiest liberal political donors is steering resources to an advocacy group backing President Obama's agenda and to organizations working to pass immigration reform, providing a surge of money that could boost the president's legislative goals. Democracy Alliance, an invitation-only group that makes funding recommendations to its members, selected the pro-Obama Organizing for Action and immigration reform groups such as the National Immigration Forum as some of its top 2013 priorities at its spring conference in Laguna Beach last week, according to leaders of the organization.

The nation's most famous "country club prison," once the domain of such celebrity felons as inside trader Ivan Boesky and Watergate figure H.R. Haldeman, is shutting down. The Lompoc Federal Prison Camp is being converted into a higher security federal prison. A prison with fences and razor wire instead of small "off-limits" signs around the property. A prison where inmates have to wear khaki uniforms instead of shorts and T-shirts. A prison where inmates can't play tennis in the afternoon.

Eight Summer Olympics ago, it was Los Angeles' turn. We did well with the Games (traffic and weather cooperated). We built no monuments, no starchitect stadiums or the like. But a progressive Olympic Arts Festival gave a lasting boost to our modern dance and international theater scene and stimulated the creation of Los Angeles Opera. Then there was director Robert Wilson's "the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down," the centerpiece of the festival. It was meant to be the grandest of grand operas and proved the Olympics' great letdown.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said early Thursday that he will run for governor in 2014 if Jerry Brown does not seek reelection. “If Jerry Brown doesn't run, I have every intention of running. If he does run, I have every intention of supporting him enthusiastically,” Newsom said, adding that there was no indication that Brown does not plan to seek reelection. He brushed aside questions about whether he would also be interested in a U.S. Senate bid if one of the state's two Democratic incumbents were to retire.