Time to regroup?: Well, perhaps, but credit worries that have plagued the markets these last few sessions are not going away. The weekend brought with it a batch of discouraging punditry, but this morning a number of analysts have upgraded financial stocks. In the first 90 minutes of trading, the Dow is up a couple of points.

One Wilshire sold: The downtown office building that's one of the nation's largest communications switching hubs (handling traffic between Asia and North America), has been sold by private equity firm Carlyle Group to Houston-based Hines Real Estate Investment Trust Inc. for $287 million. One Wilshire was built as a standard office building in 1966, but later it became one of several buildings to become data-transfer centers. (LAT)

Milberg hearing on kickbacks: Defendants are expected to argue today in Los Angeles for a dismissal of criminal charges of paying kickbacks to clients. Their argument? That no one was harmed by their alleged behavior. The defendants deny paying kickbacks, but they also argue that even if payments were made, the money came out of Milberg's fees, not class members' pockets. The government counters that the more money diverted to lawyers, the less for the pool of plaintiffs. (WSJ)

Celeb scuffle scores 50K: It was holiday shopping time and Michael Buchanan happened to be in an aisle of a trendy L.A. store called Maxfield. So were Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck (trailed by paparazzi). The management asked Buchanan to leave, and when Buchanan refused, the store’s security guard turned him over to the sheriff’s deputies, who handcuffed him and took him to the parking lot. That's right, the paparazzi started snapping – and later, it was suggested that he had been stalking the two stars. Buchanan sued, claiming that the incident damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. It took several years, but a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered Maxfield Enterprises and its security company to pay Buchanan $50,000 after a jury found them guilty of false arrest. (LegalPad)

Corporate welfare?: That's the buzz-phrase being used to describe the city of Long Beach's practice of giving back some of its sales tax revenues to retailers. "Tax sharing" is seen as a way of attracting or retaining retailers to Long Beach, but opponents say that it gives some merchants an unfair advantage over others. Last month, the city made its latest tax sharing agreement by bringing Best Buy to the Marina Pacifica shopping center. (Press-Telegram)