It's late Friday afternoon, and Tribune CEO Randy Michaels sends a note to the far-flung Sam Zell empire notifying everyone that Lee Abrams era at Tribune is over. Looks like it went out precisely at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

From: Tribune Communications
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 2:00 PM
Subject: Message from Randy Michaels/Resignation of Lee Abrams

As you know, earlier this week we suspended Lee Abrams from his position as Tribune Company's Chief Innovation Officer for distributing an email and video link that some employees found offensive. Today, Lee offered his resignation and I accepted it. Effective immediately, Lee will no longer be an employee of Tribune.

Randy

Overheard in the L.A. Times newsroom: "Video killed the radio star." Here's a quick link to our many Lee Abrams posts over the years. We'll miss the big guy.

Rebecca Keegan and Nicole Sperling are joining the L.A. Times movie staff, writing for print and online. Keegan, currently freelancing, is a former Hollywood correspondent for Time and is married to writer-director Marty Keegan. Sperling comes over from Entertainment Weekly. The morning's memo from assistant managing editor Sallie Hofmeister is after the jump. Meanwhile, two former LAT writers who were laid-off in the past couple of years' cost-cutting, Scott Martelle and Scott Timberg, have blogged separately about how tough it is out there post-layoff. And yes, there is chagrin in the journo world about the Times basically exchanging good people for lower-paid good people.

Further media note: Elina Shatkin, laid off last year by the LAT, has been named the #2 restaurant critic at the LA Weekly.

Hofmeister memo:

Brown and the death penalty, Whitman on KABC, Props. 23 and 26, lowest homicide rate since 1975, and rough sex in the Jewish Journal. More inside.

The L.A. County sheriff's department, under fire since 2008 for having more than 4,000 untested rape evidence kits, says it now has sent its entire backlog of kits out for testing. "I can remember a time when we couldn’t even get them to acknowledge there was a backlog,” said Sarah Tofte, the Human Rights Watch researcher whose request for records put the spotlight on the department.

If you were thinking of coming on the Neon Cruise this Saturday night, come on down. New route, same classic double-decker bus, and the always fresh commentary of Eric Lynxwiler. Details.

Before tonight's monthly Art Walk in Downtown, the unofficial downtownartwalk.com said the event was off and the official downtownartwalk.org and Facebook page insisted it was on. With all the notoriety, of course people were going to show up. The galleries were open. The Times says the streets overflowed and that the turnout "appeared slightly heavier than normal, though exact figures were not immediately available."

With the news out that President Obama will be coming back to L.A. on Oct. 22 to campaign for the Democrats at USC, we can all look forward to a nasty Friday afternoon traffic snarl. Well, there is precedent. This view looks south on Broadway from about 5th Street during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first visit to Los Angeles on October 1, 1935. His motorcade was making a sweep through Downtown after leaving the railroad station. Note the Roxie Theatre marquee on the left side (click the photo to see bigger.)

Photo from old L.A. Daily News at UCLA Library Digital Collections

The CBS show 48 Hours Mystery has been following Bruce Lisker since shortly after his release from prison last year. (As have we.) The show's segment airs Saturday night at 10 p.m., with reporter Erin Moriarty. Here's a quick preview (short ad at the start.)

NOW says it never demanded a "whore" firing, why so many restaurants don't post letter grades, Barry Minkow in the news, and Carmen Trutanich too. Plus much more after the jump.

The answer: in Santa Clarita. There are more than 35 of the "singing apes" at the Gibbon Conservation Center at the mouth of Bouquet Canyon. Pretty good story: center founder Alan Mootnick has been taking care of the endangered gibbons there for 30 years now. His annual Breakfast with the Gibbons event this Sunday is one of the few times during the year when the public can get a tour and see the apes, babies and adults, up close. It's a fundraiser to help the center relocate away from all the growth in Santa Clarita, where construction activity stirs up microorganisms in the soil that can sicken the animals. Tuk, the female on the left in the photo, gave birth last year.

Previously: Vegan breakfast with the gibbons

Northern white cheeked gibbons Tuk and Domino share food. Photo by Gabriella Skollar.