Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina faces ethics charges on 37 counts of using his office for personal financial gain, according to a list of allegations issued by the state ethics commission, The New York Times reports.

Struggling actors have lost a vital safety net.
As Footnoted.org reports, the Starbucks payroll has dropped by 34,000 jobs, most of them in the U.S.
The reason this is far more devastating than a comparable loss in waiter jobs is that Starbucks, unlike the corner deli, offered health insurance.
As Footnoted.org asks: “What’s left? Whole Foods?”

Kansas Democrat Dennis Moore will not seek re-election to Congress in 2010, reports the Kansas City Star.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned Monday that a second financial bailout would threaten democracy, the London Times reports.

U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy has told the Providence Journal that Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned him from receiving holy communion because of his stance on abortion rights.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas announced Saturday she would vote to allow the health care bill to proceed. Her assent gives the Democrats a 60-vote supermajority.

Tommy Hilfiger has sold his mansion in Greenwich, CT, for $20 million, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The Senate ethics panel admonished Sen. Roland Burris on Friday, but decided against pursuing ethics charges for the way he obtained an appointment to the Senate.

Two unknowns stepped onto the world stage Thursday.
Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy was named president of the European Union. Baroness Ashton was nominated as EU foreign policy chief.
Certainly a Muckety Up for the appointees, but perhaps not for the EU.
The choices, as reported by the Financial Times, ended weeks of acrimony.
However, critics charged that […]

The Oprah Winfrey Show will end in September 2011, Variety reports.

In an interview airing Thursday on Nightline, Martha Stewart says her criminal prosecution and imprisonment probably cost her company more than $1 billion.

Rudy Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor, The New York Times reports.

The Senate has confirmed President Obama’s nomination of David Hamilton to a federal appeals court, Associated Press reports.

Another way to see Muckety: Pedro Cruz’s video on the rise and fall of European empires. (View full screen.)

With the green movement going mainstream, Greenpeace may be getting jaded.
In the early days, members grabbed headlines with outrageous tactics. AP called them “the shock troops of the environmental movement.”
Activists hung anti-nuke banners on Big Ben, scaled smokestacks, boarded cargo ships.
Now the face of the environmental movement is not the protester in handcuffs, but Al […]

President Obama met with his half-brother, Mark Ndesandjo, Monday during his visit to China, reports the Associated Press.

Tom Daschle is leaving Alston & Bird to join DLA Piper, the National Law Journal reports.

Lazard Ltd. has named Kenneth Jacobs as chairman and CEO, Bloomberg reports. He succeeds Bruce Wasserstein, who died in October.

A body found in the Chicago River has been identified as Michael W. Scott, president of the school board, reports the Chicago Tribune.

CNN was so eager to get rid of Lou Dobbs that it paid him an $8 million severance package, reports the New York Post.