Jessica P. Ogilvie

Southwest Airlines is building up quite the track record for kicking passengers off planes based on rules that seem to be created on the spot. Within the past year and a half, they've booted Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong for wearing baggy pants, and Kevin Smith for taking up too much space in his seat.

Buongiorno, Kobe -- will you be playing for Italy this basketball season? It looks like the question is still up in the air. CBS News reports that after being offered $6.7 million for the season -- or nearly $740,000 per game -- to play for Italy's Virtus Bologna, Bryant and his agent came back with a counter offer.

A college Republican group at UC Berkeley is following in the footsteps of other campuses, including UC Irvine, and hosting a "Diversity Bake Sale." Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Except that the sale will feature goods sold at different prices depending on the consumer's race, ethnicity and gender. White men will be charged $2, Asian men $1.50, Latino men $1, Black men $0.75, and Native Americans $0.25. Women will get $0.25 off any purchase.

A derailed freight train in Pacoima means that some folks will have to take buses for their morning commute, reports NBC Los Angeles. No one was hurt when the train jumped the tracks at about 10:00 p.m. last night on the Antelope Valley line that runs between Newhall and downtown Burbank.

Kelly Thomas' father, Ron Thomas, has been through a horrific ordeal with the death of his son, who can reportedly be heard calling out "Dad! Dad!" in video recordings of his fatal beating at the hands of Fullerton Police. Now, Thomas is alleging that police in his hometown of Cypress are harassing him, reports KTLA.

You may remember Sloan Steven Briles, our number one Father of the Year, who allegednly tossed his son overboard during a Newport Harbor cruise and then insisted he had done nothing wrong. Well, apparently he's holding fast to that sentiment -- L.A. Now reports that Briles, 35, plead not guilty today to charges of felony child endangerment and abuse and one misdemeanor charge of resisting an officer.

Should Brad Pitt ever find himself suddenly alone, Kody Brown, the polygamous husband of "Sister Wives" fame, would like Pitt to know that there's a place for him in their family's Utah home. “If there was going to be a brother husband, I would ask Brad to join the family,” Brown told the Huffington Post.

Looks like someone is not a huge fan of our current president -- according to ABC News, Obama's West Los Angeles office was vandalized last night. A witness called the cops after reportedly hearing the sounds of breaking glass and seeing an object being thrown through the window. Officers think that a BB gun may have been used as well.

Manny Ramos, one of the Fullerton police officers charged in the death of Kelly Thomas, is being held in isolation in at the Orange County jail while he awaits arraignment, reports KTLA. Ramos' attorney is out of town, and he's being held on $1 million bail. Ramos is facing the most severe sentence in connection with Thomas' beating death.

The L.A. Sheriff's Department rescued a hiker who was trapped on the face of a Topanga cliff last night, according to a statement. The 24-year-old woman was stuck directly above a 300-foot drop. At about 6:30 p.m., a helicopter pilot and a paramedic lifted her up from the cliff.

The death of print might not be a vague ghost of the future, but rather a concrete fact, complete with a timeline. In an interview with former LA Weekly editor Steve Mikulan, LA Times pressman Ed Padgett tells Mikulan that the Times' senior Vice President has told him that the paper will only be printed for three more years

Ten Muslim students who interrupted a speech by Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren in February of last year at UC Irvine were found guilty of two misdemeanors today, reports L.A. Now. The charges against the students, who have come to be known as the Irvine 11 (eleven students were originally arrested), were two misdemeanors to conspire and then disrupt Oren's speech.