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Back from some holiday travel and going through the piles on my desk.
- First Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner told the New York Times' Adam Nagourney that he is indeed thinking about running for mayor when Villaraigosa is termed out in 2013.
- Finding someone to take Dan Glickman's (and Jack Valenti's) place as head of the Motion Picture Association of America is hard to do, it turns out.
- Residents of the "Platinum Mile" high-rise condo corridor in Westwood aren't on board with the whole Wilshire bus lane idea.
- While you were out, Frank and Jamie McCourt became officially divorced. A resolution in their larger dispute remains pending.
- There's a flaw with L.A.'s new Little Bangladesh district: very few Bangladeshis.
- Community College District trustees Georgia Mercer and Sylvia Scott-Hayes said they won't run for reelection in March.
- UCLA Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Robert Cargill helped track down an Internet impersonator who attacked rival scholars to boost a scrolls theory pushed by the impersonator's father. UCLA Newsroom, Jewish Journal
- The Los Angeles Master Chorale and KUSC announced a two-year broadcast partnership in which 14 Disney Hall will air on the station, starting December 19.
And two local obituaries of note:
The son of retired L.A. Times news editor Barry Zwick posted on Facebook Sunday morning that his father died at home of diabetes-related cardiac arrest. Nice turnout of responses from his former colleagues, plus a Times obit.
Joseph Raymond, former associate director of UCLA Medical Center, died Friday. The death was announced by his daughter, L.A. radio journalist Anthea Raymond.