Matthews

There seems to be a misconception among some of Chris Matthews' guests. Because they have been invited on "Hardball" and put in front of a microphone, they think they will not only be asked questions, but also get a chance to answer them. If they had been paying much attention, they would know that MSNBC's fantastically frenetic host often uses questions like a tennis player uses a backboard. Once he gets the ball back in his own court, he spins it, slices it, pounds it, to his heart's content.

Officials at Bloomberg, the New York financial news and information service, scrambled to deal with an unfolding customer privacy scandal after admitting its journalists had snooped on business clients for years through its network of terminals ubiquitous on Wall Street. Seeking to calm Bloomberg's 315,000 subscribers worldwide, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News said Monday: "Our reporters should not have access to any data considered proprietary. " "Last month, we immediately changed our policy so that reporters now have no greater access to information than our customers," Matthew Winkler said in a post on Bloomberg's website.

Doesn't Gary Matthews Jr. know that nothing screams "I'm Guilty!" more than hiring Robert Shapiro as your lawyer? MOSHE MEIR Los Angeles

You might not expect to find a glorious, uninhabited island in the middle of the Mississippi River. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't expect to find an unkempt and unsmiling Matthew McConaughey hiding out on it. That such a thing feels credible in the new film "Mud" is a testament to the skill of young Austin, Texas-based director Jeff Nichols, whose new coming-of-age adventure is rich with geographic specificity yet concerned with...

The Angels will pay their highest salary this year to Torii Hunter. They will pay their second-highest salary to a guy who could be on the bench for the New York Mets, and so the Angels might not be done spending money to assemble this year's team. Gary Matthews Jr. asked out of Anaheim after the season, but the Angels could not find a taker until the Mets suddenly needed an outfielder because of Carlos Beltran's knee surgery. The Mets acquired Matthews on Friday for middle reliever Brian Stokes, but not before the Angels agreed to pay all but $2 million of the $23.5 million remaining on Matthews' contract.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- His left shoulder, which was so damaged and weak last season he hit .175 from the right side, felt strong, and his left knee, which "wasn't feeling real great a couple weeks ago," was beginning to come around. Gary Matthews Jr. was having a great spring, getting a single in his first at-bat Monday to raise his Cactus League average to .449 and stealing second, his fourth stolen base. Then, on a play so innocuous most in Tempe Diablo Stadium probably didn't see it, Matthews twisted his right ankle as he pulled up before third base on Garret Anderson's inning-ending strikeout, fell to the ground in pain and had to be helped off the field.

Three key Angels headed for free agency -- Chone Figgins, Bobby Abreu and Vladimir Guerrero -- have publicly expressed a desire to return to Anaheim, and center fielder Torii Hunter, after talking to free-agent pitcher John Lackey, is convinced the right-hander wants to remain an Angel. Gary Matthews Jr.? Not so much. The disgruntled outfielder with two years and $23 million left on his contract wants no part of the Angels in 2010, and he reiterated his request to be traded -- or released -- while cleaning out his Angel Stadium locker Tuesday.

Howie Kendrick drove in five runs with a home run and a triple, and Gary Matthews Jr. drove in three runs with a single and a home run to power the Angels to a 10-5 victory over the Texas Rangers today. By winning two of three games at the Ballpark in Arlington, the Angels pushed their American League West lead over the Rangers to 7 ½ games and reduced their magic number for clinching the division title to seven. John Lackey survived a three-run first inning to gain the win, allowing five runs -- four earned -- and seven hits in six innings while improving to 11-8, and relievers Jason Bulger, Matt Palmer and Kevin Jepsen blanked the Rangers over the final three innings.

DETROIT -- You remember Gary Matthews Jr. Switch-hitter. Pretty good center fielder. Used to play for the Angels. OK, that last part is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Matthews has virtually disappeared in the second half, his playing time drastically curtailed by a knee injury, a bruised batting average and the summer emergence of Juan Rivera. But there was Matthews in Comerica Park on Thursday afternoon, doubling to left field to open the game and scoring the Angels' first run. Then he singled and scored in the third inning, doubled in the fourth and reached on an infield single in the seventh.

Forgotten but not gone. That's been the status of Gary Matthews Jr. since early July, when a knee injury and poor performance reduced the outfielder to such a bit role he had all of 30 at-bats in 33 games from the All-Star break through Saturday. But Sunday in Angel Stadium, the afterthought moved to the forefront. Playing only because Garret Anderson left in the second inning because of a knee injury, Matthews hit a run-scoring triple to key a three-run eighth that gave the Angels a 5-3 come-from-behind victory over the Minnesota Twins.

"Do you love her?" Wistful and hoping for a yes, the rough-hewn Arkansas boy who asks that question can't quite hold the gaze of the stranger, but his voice is insistent. The question comes early in "Mud" and will haunt the 14-year-old and the movie until the final frame. The answer - to what loving means, to how urgent it feels the first time, to how easily it can slip away, like the Mississippi River that runs through this tale - is wily and willful. MOVIE REVIEWS: Latest reviews from The Times The movie itself, filled with miscreants, mysteries, a scandalous hero named Mud and a couple of boys as headstrong as Huck Finn, is one of the most creatively rich and emotionally rewarding movies to come along this year.

Matthew Keys, a controversy-plagued deputy social media editor at Thomson Reuters, tweeted today that he was fired by the news organization. His name has not been associated of late with best journalistic practices. Keys, 26, a one-time web producer for a Tribune Co. Sacramento TV station, was charged last month with helping folks associated with the computer group Anonymous hack into the L.A. Times and change a headline in 2010.  Last week, he was mentioned in a number of stories about social media missteps in the wake of the Boston Marathon explosions.

Actor Matthew McConaughey will launch a new clothing line called JKL . McConaughey partnered with Canadian-based Grand National Apparel on the mainly sportswear-based collection. A portion of the sales from JKL will go to benefit McConaughey's charity the just keep livin foundation, which supports after-school fitness and wellness programs at inner-city schools. [ Yahoo ] Macy's has launched a new Keds apparel line at Macy's stores nationwide and online at Macys.com and Keds.com.

Matthew Keys, the former deputy social media editor for the Reuters news agency who is accused of conspiring with the hacking group Anonymous, says he was fired because of the federal case against him, not his social media activities as the agency contends. In what appears to be a written warning from Reuters to Keys that he published on his Twitter account Monday, the company addressed a parody Twitter account Keys created last year that he used to mock the chief executive of Google.

News agency Reuters has fired deputy social media editor Matthew Keys after he was indicted on federal charges of conspiring with the hacking group Anonymous to breach a Tribune Co. website, changing a Los Angeles Times online story. Matthew Keys, 26, said on his Twitter account Monday morning that he “Just got off the phone. Reuters has fired me, effective today. Our union will be filing a grievance. More soon.” Reuters spokesman David Girardin confirmed the firing. Keys was charged last month with three hacking-related counts in the December 2010 incident.

Specktor will appear at the Festival of Books on Sunday at noon on the panel "Fiction: Inside Hollywood" with Adam Braver, Alex Espinoza and Nina Revoyr. More information: latimes.com/festivalofbooks Matthew Specktor knows the offices of talent agency CAA - past and present - like his own backyard. That's because, as son of top agent Fred Specktor, they practically were. He ran around in the hallways; he worked in the mail room. And although that it set him down the not unexpected Hollywood producer path, what he really wanted to do was write.

Baseball: A photo caption with Monday's story in Sports about Sunday's Angels-Yankees game said Gary Matthews Jr. scored on the play at the plate in the fourth inning. Matthews was thrown out on that play.

The Green Bay Packers locked up star linebacker Clay Matthews with a long-term extension Wednesday as the team took care of one of its top two stars in need of new deals. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is also in negotiations for an extension. Matthews posted a picture of himself on Twitter signing the deal, saying, "Trivial amongst the recent tragic news, but happy to continue my career in Green Bay!" The Packers did not announce terms of the extension, but NFL.com's Albert Breer reported the deal as a five-year extension worth $66 million.

So the thought has probably occurred to some of you: If I listen to this one specially chosen song while editing, does that mean I can edit a story in three minutes? Yes, I'm that good. OK, the real answer is that sometimes I listen to that particular song as I start working the story, and then move on to other music by the same band, or something with a similar mood. Or I go into full “High Fidelity” mode (see: near-perfect novel and movie of the same name) and listen to that song over and over and over (see: “Someone to Pull the Trigger,” for the Wednesday story.)