JUNGLE DINING: When Michael Crichton’s “Congo” opens...

JUNGLE DINING: When Michael Crichton’s “Congo” opens at theaters June 9, expect to see a lot of jungle-type promotions--not from the movie people, but from Taco Bell. The Irvine-based fast food company says it will pour $35 million into advertising and merchandising support for the highly anticipated movie. . . . You can expect your local Taco Bells to look like jungles soon. And in the commercials, expeditions will discover light chicken burritos in places even Tarzan never dared to go.

NEW PULPIT: Fourth of July events are usually family-oriented. This year’s will be a special family treat for the Rev. Bruce Templeton of the First Christian Church of Huntington Beach. Templeton and his 18-year-old son, Curtis, were both among the handful selected after auditions to be public address announcers at the Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade. Templeton said he liked his chances, since they needed people whose voices would project. His does. . . . Why did he want the job? Because, he says, it’s “the best seat in the house.”

NOT SO BRIEF: “Murder in Brief,” a new mystery selling briskly here, is about a law school murder, and is based in Orange County. The author, Carroll Lachnit, knows the setting well. She spent six years as a journalist here, and her husband, Los Angeles lawyer Alec Barinholtz, helped with recollections of law school stresses. . . . This isn’t the first murder for her heroine, Hannah Barlow. Lachnit, who begins a book tour at the Green Door in San Juan Capistrano Saturday, has already completed a second Hannah Barlow book and is researching a third.

WALL STREET EAST? The Financial Times of London had planned an Orange County operation before the bankruptcy debacle was made public last December. But now the local news seems made to order for the international newspaper. With new printing operations here, this month its market outlets zoom from a handful to more than 200. . . . Says a spokeswoman: “A lot of people in Orange County may not know us. We hope to change that.”