BRIEFLY CITY ORDERS `LIVING WAGE' STUDY DONE.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday called for a study into raising the city's ``living wage'' to $10 an hour with benefits for employees of city contractors.

The council authorized spending $200,000 for the study, which will examine the effects of raising the wage from its current level of $7.39 an hour with benefits and $8.64 an hour without benefits.

The council did not set a figure for what the new pay level would be if benefits are not offered.

- Daily News

Courts juggled during convention

Judges outside downtown Los Angeles are being asked to set moderate calendars during next month's Democratic National Convention so cases can be moved to their courtrooms if necessary, authorities said Friday.

Los Angeles Superior Court officials said they also plan to significantly reduce the number of new jurors called in the downtown Los Angeles court system for the week of Aug. 11-17 and give criminal courtrooms priority access to jurors.

The moves are in anticipation of expected traffic congestion and transportation disruptions resulting from the convention, officials said.

- City News Services

Landmark sites get Getty funds

More than 20 landmark sites, from a historic house in San Fernando to the Griffith Park Observatory, will share a $1.4 million conservation grant from the J. Paul Getty Trust.

The money was given to preserve buildings and sites of architectural, cultural and historical interest that have helped define local communities.

Among recipients of grant money were the Lopez Adobe, built in 1882 in San Fernando; the Oaklawn Bridge, built in 1906 to link the Oaklawn Tract in South Pasadena with Fair Oaks Avenue; and the Art Deco-style Griffith Park Observatory built in 1935.

- Associated Press

Settlement in CBS show imminent

Two men who pitched a 1990s version of ``Kids Say the Darndest Things'' are close to settling their lawsuit with one of the defendants, an attorney said Friday.

Robert Besser, who represents defendant Eddie Kritzer, said he is working out a confidential settlement with Howard Zuker and Peter Jacobson that should be final within the next two weeks.

The lawsuit, filed in 1998 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleged that producer Art Linkletter and others agreed to collaborate on the show, but that the defendants sold the idea to CBS without including the plaintiffs.

The show, hosted by Bill Cosby, is an outgrowth of a segment Linkletter made famous in the '50s and '60s during his long-running ``Art Linkletter's House Party'' show.

- City News Service

Quake rumbles near Frazier Park

PASADENA - A magnitude-3.0 earthquake struck near Frazier Park tonight, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The temblor was recorded at 8:01 p.m. and centered 14 miles south southwest of Frazier Park, according to USGS Seismologist Bob Dollar.

No damage or injuries were reported. Frazier Park is in the mountains of northern Ventura County, just south of the Kern County border.

- City News Service

Injured man found along freeway

PARAMOUNT - A man found shot along the northbound Long Beach Freeway in Paramount was hospitalized tonight, a sheriff's deputy said.

The wounded man, found near Rosecrans Avenue, was reported to sheriff's deputies about 1:15 p.m., Deputy Belinda Johnson said.

``He was a pedestrian on the freeway, but detectives don't know if he was dropped off there or what was going on,'' she said.

Paramedics took the man to a hospital, where he underwent surgery, Johnson said. The wounded man's name and condition were unavailable.

- City News Service