tomcruise.com

Folks are buzzing once again about Tom Cruise's sexuality following his reported divorce from Katie Holmes, which he's on the record saying she initiated.

We're not saying Tom Cruise is gay. In fact, we're saying he's not. That's official. He's been married three times -- to some of Hollywood's sexiest women.

But if he were gay -- and, again, we're saying he's not, people! -- here would be five signs pointing the way:

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YouTube / KTLA / CatchATiger4

A man was being questioned by police today after a video (see it on the next page) of two young boys engaged in a brutal fight in San Bernardino County went viral.

The man, who was not identified, was detained this afternoon at the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's Adelanto station, spokeswoman Cindy Bachman told the Weekly.

It's not clear what crimes are being investigated:

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Eric Fresch, the former Vernon city administrator who once raked in $1 million a year, was found dead Thursday evening at a Bay Area state park -- the same day the state issued a scathing audit of the city's finances.

Fresch had been bicycling with his wife at Angel Island State Park, but the two became separated, said Ed Lynch, battalion chief of the Tiburon Fire Department. When he did not return to the ferry terminal, his wife reported him missing.

Searchers found Fresch's body in the water, at the bottom of a 150-foot embankment. It appeared he had suffered head trauma from the fall, Lynch said.

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buzz.edfunders.org

We eat municipalities like you for breakfast.

Whenever out-of-towners complain about how hard it is to get anywhere in Los Angeles, we try to tell them: It's no more difficult than trying to traverse the entire Bay Area in a single shot. Because this city is HUGE. Like, half the size of Rhode Island. And because of that, we've got a whole series of mini-centers, all with such strong and differing identities as to be worthy of their own cityhood: Hollywood. Venice Beach. Silver Lake. The San Fernando Valley.

But we pay for this incredible diversity with the miles and miles of sprawl between.

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Google Maps

Apartment houses on Mansfield Avenue near Hancock Park.

A gay man was severely beaten near Hancock Park this morning in what police are investigating as a hate crime.

The attacker uttered anti-gay slurs as he "struck him, kicked him and beat him up" shortly before 1 a.m. in the 100 block of N. Mansfield Avenue, LAPD spokesman Richard French told the Weekly.

The pummeling put the victim in a hospital ...

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Move over, Fairey: There's a new Obama Illuminati in town.

Compared to President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, his second run has been lagging in hip factor. No free "Yes we can" ads from Will.i.am; no Shepard Fairey prints; no hot YouTube chicks with a "Crush on Obama."

Mila Kunis, rebel patriot, to the rescue!

Although she's not on the list of young Hollywood stars and studio execs expected to attend tonight's fundraiser at the Soho House in West Hollywood, she's giving her favorite politician a boost where it counts:

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Torben Hansen

Added at the bottom: Americans for Safe Access argues that the decision doesn't outlaw cannabis sales just yet.

Medical marijuana is legal in California. But you can't sell medical marijuana in California?

It's a contentious issue, one that even the author of California's dispensary legislation argues to this day: Former state Sen. John Vasconcellos told us the law was intended to allow pot sales. The L.A. city attorney's office, the L.A. district attorney and the LAPD say otherwise: You sell it, you're violating the law.

A new court ruling (or, actually, a lack of one), is being hailed as a huge victory by the side that says selling is drug dealing:

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Santos Kreimann: In for the long haul

Assessor John Noguez stepped aside last week to attend to his criminal defense, but he made it clear that he plans to return once he is cleared of the corruption allegations against him.

But his replacement doesn't expect that to happen any time soon. In his first interview since taking the helm of the Assessor's Office, Santos Kreimann said he is "planning on being here the remainder of the term" -- that is, until December 2014.

Kreimann is also studying to become a certified appraiser -- another sign that he plans to be around for a while. Kreimann is a veteran L.A. County employee, not a politician, but in the interview, he did not rule out running for assessor in the 2014 election.

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NoHo Communications Group

North Hollywood resident Barbara Black was fined $336 for hiring students to decorate this fence.

Thanks to the L.A. mural ordinance -- under construction since last October, and creatively promoted by street-art coverboys like Shepard Fairey and Saber -- attending City Hall meetings became cool again in 2011-12.

Even Tanner Blackman, the Department of City Planning employee who's led the public input process for the legislation, has become somewhat of a local celebrity. He's been great at breaking down all the city's legal obstacles into layman's terms...

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The luxurious Beverly Hilton.

One week after a middle-aged couple died mysteriously in their room at the Beverly Hilton -- the same fancy hotel where Whitney Houston recently OD'ed and drowned, and where President Obama stays whenever he's in town -- Beverly Hills police have finally determined their cause of death.

Robert Egan, 69, and Barbra Egan, 56, who were reportedly married, both shot themselves to death last weekend...

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Martin Luff

If the Big One hits, we're f---'d. You're saying, Yeah-yeah, tell me something I don't know.

But here's the thing: Experts say our only hope of getting power back 72 hours after a huge earthquake in Southern California is the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. As you might have heard, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been down for months.

No-nukes activists like this, of course. But consider what we'd face if the San Andreas Fault were to explode today:

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Aoshi_88 / Flickr

So Courtney Scaramella didn't want to wear a sexy schoolgirl skirt, so now she's in the news, alleging in a lawsuit that the Westwood bar (O'Hara's) where she was waitressing fired her after she objected to the dress policy in writing?

Well, Courtney, you might have a case. (The bar says she doesn't.) But you might also have to stand in the sexy-outfit complaint line. Because your former place of work is one of many in the L.A. area that appear to require, or at least encourage, sexually suggestive work clothes.

Here's a top 5:

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celebuzz.com

Kim Kardashian in her Buckley School uniform.

Updated at the bottom: The City Council granted a similar loan to Loyola High -- the private school where the mayor sent his own kids -- in 2005.

Originally posted at 7 a.m.

Of all disintegrating LAUSD campuses that need a tax-exempt loan to build new facilities, the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks isn't even in the top 700.

This place attracts the richest of the rich. It's like Candyland meets Secret Garden meets Enchanted Forest: Buckley describes itself as "a beautiful 18-acre campus, nestled away in a wooded canyon," where "the most serious distraction a student might face on campus is watching the deer descend the hillside in the search of an afternoon snack." (And not the paper-mache kind.) Alumni reportedly include...

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Associated Press / Twitter

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker John Boehner today.

Republicans are acting like the blue-haired lady at a four-star restaurant who spies what's on the table of a minority couple nearby:

"I'll definitely not have what they're having."

What Republicans once ate up like Charlie Sheen at a Peruvian farmer's market they now reject as wholly un-American because their nemesis, President Barack Obama, has embraced it. Witness our five examples, including today's Supreme Court-upheld health-insurance mandate:

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CBS2

Not so much.

Haven't we all learned, after Manny Pacquiao was falsely quoted last month as saying all gays should be "put to death," that the Examiner is not a source to be aggregated?

CBS2 didn't get the memo. "Lebowski fans, lift up your white russian!" the local news site wrote this morning. "The much-anticipated sequel to the 1998 hit "The Big Lebowski" is set to start filming in October, according to the Examiner."

And where, pray tell, did the Examiner get its information?

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occupywallst.org

Obamacare: Just another money-making scheme of the 1 percent?

Who knew? Occupy Wall Street (and its Los Angeles faction) hates Obamacare.

That's because, though your run-of-the-mill Westside liberal is likely to applaud the "health care for all!" initiative, the more skeptical end of the 99 percent sees it as just another victory for corporate America:

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"The Official Los Angeles Condom" via Facebook

A panel of judges including Perez Hilton has picked a winner in the official Los Angeles County Department of Public Health condom design contest (which, uh, happened):

The stark and simple design features an image of a black bowtie, accompanied by the words "Suit Up" in Mad Men-ish font. Classy! Maybe even classier than the official Louis Vuitton rubber. And because the contest was called "L.A.'s Next Sex Symbol"...

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Serrano.

If, after the Bell salary scandal, you began to think of Southeast L.A. County as a hotbed of corruption, you were right.

Only a week after allegations that three city officials from Cudahy, including Mayor David Silva, took bribes from someone who sought to open a marijuana dispensary in town comes word that onetime Santa Fe Springs Mayor Joseph Serrano took cash from a pot shop that wanted to stay open in that city.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said this afternoon that Serrano ...

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LAPD

Sketches of the Teardrop Rapist.

Speak of the devil.

The same week that the LAPD unveiled a reward has been offered for information leading to the capture and conviction of the Teardrop Rapist, who had been linked to as many as 28 attacks since 1996 (more on that expanding number, below), detectives announced that they believe he has struck again.

The LAPD today linked a June 15 attack just south of downtown to the sexual predator:

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KPCC

Mark Berndt, the Miramonte Elementary teacher who allegedly fed his semen to kids, was a tough dude to fire.

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Paicoma) is fuming this morning over yesterday's decision by the Assembly Education Committee to throw out SB 1530 -- that famous Miramonte-inspired bill that would have made it easier for school districts to fire teachers accused of "sex, violence or drug offenses involving children."

Any bill involving sex offenders or pedophilia is usually a shoo-in, because no politician seeking re-election wants to be the guy who stood up for the rights of some drooling child-snatcher. In fact, only one re-election power in Sacramento is greater:

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