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Updated with new entries at the bottom
⇒ Copies of the first West magazine issue were seen at the Times' Travel Show over the weekend. The cover piece in the Feb. 5 debut is said to be on the Central Valley by Mark Arax; I'm told there's fiction from Daniel Handler, a piece by Anne Lamott and a style thing on the Grammys. Editor Rick Wartzman guests on Talk of the City with Kitty Felde today at 2 pm.
⇒ The New Times-Village Voice marriage has spawned a new website.
⇒ The Times elevated Mike James to acting deputy sports editor.
⇒ Phil Spector's life is at the center of a new "impressionistic history of the past half-century of rock 'n' roll" by Nick Tosches that sold the past week to Doubleday, says Publishers Lunch. Also, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis sold It's Not News, It's Fark to Gotham Books.
⇒ Former KPCC senior editor Anthea Raymond is the new president of the L.A. Press Club. She's apparently the first broadcast journo to head the club in a couple of decades. Among the recently elected board members is Daily News managing editor Melissa Lalum.
⇒ Lores Rizkalla is KRLA's new Sunday midnight talk host "from a Christian worldview," starting this weekend. She also blogs at Just A Woman.
⇒ The Times' Sunday Calendar has dropped the "Pop Eye" column written most recently by Steve Hochman.
⇒ For a look at what's being done elsewhere to spice up the visual appeal of newspapers, scroll down through Newsdesigner.com.
⇒ The L.A. Times series on guardians by Evelyn Larrubia, Robin Fields and Jack Leonard is a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Ex-LATers James Risen and Eric Lichtblau are also up for their coverage of domestic spying in the New York Times.
⇒ Tribune Company profit last quarter fell 38% from the previous year. The company blames the cost of buyouts, layoffs, closing the LAT's Chatsworth plant and other one-time charges.