LA mayor’s fling with former Miss USA

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been dating a California television reporter for several months - two years after his affair with another local newscaster led to the break-up of his marriage. The mayor was spotted at the weekend in a bookstore with KTLA-TV Channel 5 journalist Lu Parker, a former Miss USA.

"Witnesses say they did not hold hands or kiss, but appeared very chummy," the NBC Channel 4's LA website reported. "Parker was seen touching the mayor's chest and stomach while they spoke. She was also seen looking at a book about Kenya and overheard saying to Villaraigosa, 'We should buy it for our trip.'"

"Deja vu!" quipped the Los Angeles Times in its report, noting that both affairs raised the question of a conflict of interest in local politics reporting. Parker, who is both a general news reporter and weekend anchor, will no longer be allowed to cover local politics. As recently as Sunday, she announced a story about Villaraigosa's ambition to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California in 2010. Now this ambition of Villaraigosa, who was LA's first Latino mayor since 1872, could be in jeopardy. 

Parker, who won Miss USA in 1994, has been seeing the LA Mayor since March, KTLA executives confirmed on Monday. Station officials said she had a limited number of interviews with Villaraigosa while working as a reporter in October and November. "There is no concern as to the ethics whatsoever," said KTLA-TV general manager Don Corsini. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal matter." Meanwhile the mayor's spokesman, Matt Szabo, declined to comment "on the mayor's personal life."

It is almost exactly two years ago since news of Villaraigosa's extramarital affair with Telemundo KVEA-TV Channel 52 reporter and anchor Mirthala Salinas tainted his first term in office. On June 8 2007 the Mayor announced he would be separating from his wife Corina.

The 56-year-old had also been tipped as a possible running mate for then-Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton but the firestorm of publicity over the affair with Salinas quashed those ambitions. Earlier this year Villaraigosa spent much of his successful campaign for reelection apologising for his affair with Salinas. ·