...bigwigs and, he claimed, 300 horses. But he also spent lavishly on charity. After a fire badly damaged the Los Angeles Central Library, he organized a telethon that raised $2 million. In 2002, Scott gave $20,000 to save the Museum in Black...

...terminals intended for research are now being hogged by patrons searching for another kind of education. In the Los Angeles Central Library, for instance, the machines are regularly steered to online photos of naked women, digitized videos of sex...