It's official now that Kim Murphy is moving to the London bureau of the Los Angeles Times, replacing the newly departed John Daniszewski. Memo follows:

To: The Staff
From: Marjorie Miller, Foreign Editor

It is my pleasure to announce that Kim Murphy, our Moscow bureau chief since 2003, will become London bureau chief.

From Moscow, Kim has covered an immense territory and a similarly broad range of topics. A group of outside judges once termed her coverage "eloquent" and "wide ranging." That was the Pulitzer board, which awarded her its prize for international reporting last year for a body of work that included her gripping coverage of the Beslan school-hostage crisis and its aftermath.

Kim began her journalism career in Biloxi, Miss., moved to North Dakota and Orange County before joining The Times as a staff writer in 1983. She covered the federal court beat for Metro before going overseas the first time as Cairo bureau chief. She has covered the Middle East, Afghanistan and wars in the Balkans and Kuwait. In between foreign assignments, she was a National correspondent based in Seattle.

Kim and her husband and two children will move to London this summer.