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New smog standards, Facebook's guy in the AG race and crime stats keep getting better.
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has brought back the stricter health standards for smog that President George W. Bush killed and that will put Los Angeles out of compliance. AP
- Gov. Schwarzenegger's alliterative speech as a word cloud. CalBuzz
- Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, wrote a $2 million check to his campaign for the Democratic nomination to be state attorney general. Legal Newsline, San Jose Mercury
- Tucker Carlson launches The Daily Caller, his conservative-leaning news site meant to rival the Huffington Post, on Jan. 11. Washington Independent
- Major crime in Los Angeles fell in 2009 for the seventh straight year, the 314 murders down 18 percent from 2008 and overall crime at its lowest level in half a century, city officials said Wednesday. DN
- More than 100 SoCal customers of Apple stores have been victimized by follow-away burglaries. LAT
- Roman Polanski asked a Los Angeles judge to sentence him in absentia for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. A hearing on the request is pending. LAT
- Erin Aubry Kaplan writes that what really bothers her about the newly offered L.A. Gang Tours "is the slap this delivers to the idea of L.A. itself." LAT Op-Ed
- Former KCSN classical music host Laura Brodian is now an arts reporter for KUSC-FM’s arts magazine, “Arts Alive.”
- Mark Willes, the former CEO and publisher at the Los Angeles Times, will unveil a new mission statement for the Deseret News and other properties under Deseret Management Corp., the for-profit arm of the LDS church where he is CEO.
- Mark Lacter will step away from the LA Biz Observed news desk at 10:30 to guest on KPCC's "Airtalk" with Larry Mantle to talk about the economic ramifications of tonight's BCS title game at the Rose Bowl.