Morning Buzz: Friday 3.9.12

The City Ethics Commission voted 3-1 Thursday to raise the campaign contribution limits for candidates in the current Los Angeles election cycle, allowing incumbents and their challengers to go back to their donors and ask for more. The limits in citywide races went to $1,300 from $1,000, and for the City Council to $700 from $500. Advantage incumbents. LAT
Is the mayor behind the redrawing of school board member Bennett Kayser's district? Maybe. LAT
The mayor's office sent out a schedule listing a meeting this morning between Villaraigosa and "Los Angeles Fire Chief Millage Peaks," then quickly sent out a fix: the meeting is with "Los Angeles Fire Chief Brian Cummings." Peaks retired last summer.
A major plot turn in this weekend's "Desperate Housewives" was revealed in court Thursday during the civil lawsuit by actress Nicollette Sheridan over her firing from the show. LAT, E Online
The Los Angeles Times has won the Nieman Journalism Foundation's $20,000 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for the six-part series “Billions to Spend,” on the LA Community Colleges' wasteful and corrupt building program.
Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook who was one of Mark Zuckerberg's roommates, has purchsed the New Republic and says his focus will be to make the magazine's writing available on tablets such as the iPad. Romenesko
LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne opines from Japan that the tsunami recovery "has stalled at the cleanup stage" and so far lacks a vision.