⇒ The Daily News' Beth Barrett investigated complaints that the Tribune Company's philanthropic foundation counted about $3 million donated by Los Angeles charities as part of its own fundraising.

⇒ The Times on Sunday began a four-part, six-reporter series on why so many Los Angeles teenagers never graduate from high school. The series is set at Birmingham, once an elite Valley campus, now "by most measures a typical Los Angeles high school."

⇒ L.A. residents are signing up in droves to split the cost of repairing buckled sidewalks in front of their homes.

⇒ Former reporter Martha Sherrill's new novel based largely on her father, The Ruins of California, is set in part in fictionalized versions of Glendale and San Marino. The New York Times featurized it Sunday.

⇒ New L.A. Times hire Matt Welch wrote about the paper's drug test requirement on the front page of the Current section. Inside, Cathy Seipp expands on a thread from her blog about columnist-for-hire Michael Fumento.

⇒ Another odd firing of a team loyalist at Dodger Stadium.

⇒ Quinceañera, an indie film set in Echo Park, won the top drama award at Sundance.