Morning Buzz: Wednesday 12.7.11

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's press deputy said the mayor did not know until Friday that his appointees at the Housing Authority" quietly gave a nearly $1.2-million payout to a top executive fired several months ago." LAT

The housing authority's lavish spending really doesn't make sense from the vantage point of the Jordan Downs housing project. Steve Lopez/LAT

Three months after the arrest of campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee on suspicion of mishandling political funds from a state lawmaker’s account, federal prosecutors said Tuesday they need more time to complete their investigation to determine whether other politicians lost money. LAT, Register, Capitol Alert

The DWP board gave its approval to a water rate increase that would add about $5 a month to an average residential user's bill. LAT, DN, City Maven

Personal information about more than two dozen members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s command staff has been anonymously posted on an Internet website, officials said Wednesday. Police are investigating. LAT

Councilman José Huizar will join muralists, art conservationists and Tanner Blackman with the City’s Planning Department Wednesday at Self Help Graphics and Art in the Boyle Heights Arts District at 9 a.m. to release copies of the city’s new draft mural ordinance.

Actor Alec Baldwin's removal from an American Airlines flight at LAX for being verbally abusive to flight attendants and not turning off his electronics, copiously reported by him on Twitter and by media everywhere, was also observed by boxer Oscar de la Hoya. LAT

How and why Ari Emanuel and friends came to break away from ICM and start Endeavor, the Hollywood agency "that grew rapidly, moving from a cramped office above a hamburger restaurant to a building a stone's throw from the Beverly Wilshire hotel," then eventually merged with William Morris. Financial Times

George Lewis of NBC's Los Angeles bureau is in Hawaii reporting on the 70th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has declared some sort of jihad against OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano. Catholic League

La Opinión columnist Pliar Marrero has a book coming in May from Penguin Group's Spanish-language imprint C.A. Press, El Despertar del Sueño Americano

Kathleen Turner will portray the late reporter Molly Ivins in "Red Hot Patriot: The Kick Ass Wit of Molly Ivins" opening January 11 at the Geffen Playhouse. GP

Stanley Robertson, a former editor at Ebony and the Los Angeles Sentinel who broke barriers as a black program executive at NBC in the 1960s and '70s and later as a movie studio production executive, died at home in Bel-Air. He was 85. LAT

Larry Rickles, who received an Emmy Award in 2008 for co-producing "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project," an HBO documentary about his father, died Saturday in Los Angeles from complications of pneumonia. He was 41. LAT

The 45 most powerful images of 2011. Buzzfeed

The Discovery Channel show "Mythbusters" accidentally fired a cannonball into the home of a couple in the Northern California town of Dublin. KGO-TV

What is the role of developer and newspaper publisher Sev Aszkenazy in the city of San Fernando soap opera? LAT

The city of Redondo Beach unveiled plans for a major redo of its waterfront. Daily Breeze