Weekend notes

♦ Getty trustees form a committee to look into all this talk of purloined antiquities and mis-Munitz of funds. They also bring in attorney Ronald L. Olson.

♦ Amanda Bronstad reports in the L.A. Business Journal that the Justice Department is unlikely to stop the New Times-Village Voice merger since no papers are being shut down and it's just an ownership deal.

♦ Brady Westwater cracks the LAT Current section with a prescription for reviving Broadway's grand theaters.

♦ The Times quietly launched a blog and a bi-weekly Calendar column about Las Vegas. Richard Abowitz of the Las Vegas Weekly writes both.

♦ Deporting our Mara Salvatrucha problem around the Americas, as a Times front-page centerpiece.

♦ Huizar and Pacheco get Times pieces; everybody else in the 14th district race goes into the infobox. Steve Hymon also notes that Herb Wesson is running hard with nothing at stake. (But he's shoveling some cash to consultants and printers: isn't that what campaigns are all about anyway?)

♦ The Dec. 3 showdown between USC and UCLA still looks like a go, after the Bruins rally from three touchdowns behind to beat Stanford. Both local football teams are 8-0.

♦ The Hallowed Haunting Grounds on Babcock Avenue has been a Halloween tradition in Studio City for thirty years. Gary Corb is doing up his house and manning the control room one final time, then signing off. Check out the elaborate website and Nicole Campbell's appreciation in the Daily News.

♦ The city of Gardena might be going bankrupt.

♦ Watts is enjoying its own little real estate bubble, the New York Times says.

♦ NBC Universal chairman Bob Wright's daughter got married Saturday in the Oviatt Building penthouse. Wonder how she got that assistant gig on "Saturday Night Live?"