As the World Turns.

It's all over between the mayor and the reporter:

"They broke up earlier in the fall. They've both moved on. And Antonio is focused on his relationships with his kids," said one person who said he learned about the breakup in October.

The other source -- who described himself as a longtime friend of Villaraigosa's -- said the relationship ended two or possibly three months ago.

"I think it was a tough summer. I think it was hard on his family. And I think he's trying hard to get past everything that was that summer," the friend said.

Like that was ever going to go anywhere after all of the negative publicity.
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And now with one southern California fire now being extinguished, another one takes its place.

I am sure readers will not get my drift.
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Oh, brother, the British tabloids are trying to get Paul McCartney married off even before he gets divorced.
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Somebody has the nerve to ask whether men are necessary.

Unfortunately, the article is rather wishy-washy despite the provocative title.
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As the World Turns.

Mirthala Salinas has parted ways with her employer.
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After years of lawsuits and near-obscurity, musician and songwriter John Fogerty, 62, is doing just fine, thank you.

If he ever returns to Reno, I'll go out of my way to attend his show. He's so talented.
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Mayor V.

wants to move on with his career and his latest squeeze, but he keeps getting pulled down into the quicksand of scandal.

Mirthala Salinas

didn't get sacked for jumping in the sack with a mayor she was covering in her line of work, but she did get suspended.

I'll note this bit of trivia:

Her affair with Villaraigosa was an open secret in KVEA's Burbank newsroom and in the mayor's office at City Hall. Salinas also dated former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) when he was divorced from his wife as well as former Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla, now a state senator.

"Everyone knew -- cameramen knew, the producers knew and the reporters all knew," said one Telemundo executive, who spoke on the condition he not be identified because he was not authorized to comment. "This is a very small business."

As the World Turns.

Mirthala Salinas' career appears to be fucked up thanks to her extracurricular activities.

More Gossip.

Mayor V. decides to show his disgraced face in public after it was revealed he was carrying on with a much-younger news reporter.

Unfortunately, nobody cared about his positions on the issues, but reporters cared about his ongoing affair with Mirthala Salinas.

In other news, the pope has done it again.

Mirthala Salinas

has been placed on leave while an investigation probes (no pun intended) whether she was ethical in covering somebody she was covering in real life.

As the World Turns II.

L.A. Mayor V. simply can't keep his pants zipped:

At 4 p.m. on June 8, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a terse statement announcing that he and his wife, Corina, were separating after 20 years of marriage.

Two hours later, Telemundo television anchor Mirthala Salinas delivered the story to her Spanish-language viewers on the Friday evening news.

"The rumors were true," she declared of the split after an introduction that described the story as a "political scandal" that had left "many people with their mouth open."

What Salinas, 35, did not say in the newscast was that she was the other woman. She and Villaraigosa, 54, had been in a relationship even though she had previously been the political reporter assigned to cover local politics and the mayor.

You can watch the press conference at the link.

The affair has been going on for quite a while:

On March 20, 2006, Salinas was in New York to cover Villaraigosa, who was visiting Mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss education reform.

Three months later, she went to Sacramento to cover Villaraigosa as he stumped for legislation to give him some control over Los Angeles' public schools. Salinas covered a news conference and appears alongside the mayor in pictures taken by a Times photographer. One of the photographs was published in the newspaper and caught the attention of Villaraigosa's staff, who knew of their building relationship and privately worried that word of the affair might leak out.

Then in September 2006, Villaraigosa played a direct role in the medical care of Salinas' mother, Yolanda Avila Fernandez, who was being treated for cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to sources familiar with her case. The mayor consulted with doctors on a regular basis and appeared in Fernandez's hospital room with her family on the eighth floor of the complex's north tower, serving as an emotional anchor and an unofficial spokesman for Salinas and her siblings.

Fernandez was eventually transferred to USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center east of downtown, where a doctor described the mayor as "a model citizen."

Fernandez died Jan. 4. Two days later, Villaraigosa flew to Phoenix to attend weekend memorial services for her at the Greer-Wilson Funeral Home.

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I guess Al Gore--the elder--is going to put off any notion of running for president for the time being, assuming he ever bothers to do it.
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