Angeles Times

The International Olympic Committee, concerned about the way matches are scored and officials are selected in boxing, has frozen about $9 million in payments due the International Boxing Association, according to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. A letter, signed July 9 by IOC president Jacques Rogge, says the funds will remain frozen until the boxing association, known as AIBA, provides a "clear timeline and planned actions." At issue is $1.153 million remaining to be paid out from the 2001-to-2004 Olympic cycle and about $8 million for the 2005-to-2008 term.

LOS ANGELES - John S. Carroll, who led the Los Angeles Times to 13 Pulitzer Prizes in the past five years, resigned as editor of the newspaper yesterday, continuing a decade of change in top management of one of America's largest newspapers. Carroll, 63, who will be replaced by Times managing editor Dean P. Baquet, 48, was known to be unhappy with continuing efforts by the paper's parent corporation, the Tribune Co., to reduce expenses and trim staff in a tough economy. (The Tribune Co. also owns The Sun.)

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court yesterday said that four journalists could be held in contempt for not revealing their sources in writing about Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist targeted as a possible spy. The ruling was the second in as many days in which a court has sanctioned the media for protecting confidential sources and comes at a time when the media are facing increased questions about bias and accuracy. Lee - who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico - was the subject of an FBI and Energy Department investigation in the late 1990s into the possibility that the nation's weapons secrets were being passed to China.

LOS ANGELES -- Sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more likely to be the case than my old stomping grounds in Southern California. Here's a slightly jaundiced look at some real headlines from the left coast. Headline: Callaway's Operating Chief Resigns Facts: The president and chief operating officer of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf, Patrice Hutin, resigned this week after the company posted a $35 million loss for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. My take: How in the wide, wide world of sports can a company that charges $599 for a single golf club lose money?

The Los Angeles Times won five Pulitzer Prizes yesterday for journalistic work that included a series examining Wal-Mart's business practices, quirky car reviews and gripping photography from the Liberian civil war. An investigation by the New York Times into companies whose disregard of workplace safety led to employee injuries and deaths captured the Pulitzer for public service, journalism's highest honor. No award was given for feature writing, a first since the category was established in 1979.

A scientific report released yesterday revealed serious flaws in FBI testimony involving evidence on the chemical composition of bullets presented in hundreds of criminal cases. The report stopped short of condemning the forensic method outright, but it proposed changes in how the bureau portrays bullet-lead evidence that would significantly undercut the technique's usefulness in a criminal trial, forensic science experts said. The report called FBI testimony that crime-scene bullets could be linked to bullets found in a box owned by a suspect, or to similar boxes manufactured at the same time, "seriously misleading" and "objectionable."

Flat-out denials from representatives for Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono and a Los Angeles recording studio have not persuaded the curator of an auction Web site that a tape box doesn't prove the Beatles held a secret reunion in 1976. "Anything other than denials from the Beatles camp would be shocking," says Gary Zimet of the Moments in Time site (www.momentsintime.com). The Ampex tape box with the titles of five songs, a date (11-2-76) and performers listed as John, Paul, George and Rich, remains on the site.

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles judge ordered the return of $1 million in cash to Robert Blake yesterday. The actor, accused of murdering his wife, had posted bail for his co-defendant, handyman Earle S. Caldwell. Prosecutors also announced they would not appeal a decision to drop criminal charges against Caldwell. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp, who will preside over the Blake trial next year, ordered Caldwell's bail returned during a brief hearing. Deputy District Attorney Shellie L. Samuels told the judge that her office had decided against challenging Schempp's Oct. 31 decision to dismiss one count against Blake and the only criminal charge pending against Caldwell.

WASHINGTON - A House committee moved yesterday to block media giants from owning television stations that reach more than 35 percent of viewers nationwide, boosting efforts to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's loosening of media ownership rules. In a 40-25 vote, the House Appropriations Committee attached the media legislation to a larger spending bill that is expected to pass. The amendment prohibits the FCC from using its money to implement its proposed changes to the national ownership cap. The move came only six weeks after the FCC's party-line vote to increase the cap to 45 percent.

John S. Carroll, editor of The Sun, will be named editor of the Los Angeles Times, according to published reports and newsroom sources. Carroll, 58, will replace Times editor Michael Parks, after Chicago-based Tribune Co. officially takes control of Times Mirror Co., the parent of The Sun, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and other papers. In addition, John Puerner, publisher of the Tribune Co.-owned Orlando Sentinel, will become publisher of the Times, replacing Kathryn M. Downing, according to the reports.