Major congratulations are due to Mark Hansen (pictured), a statistics professor at UCLA. He just landed one of plummest assignments in U.S. journalism academia.

Hansen has relocated to New York to oversee the east coast half of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, a new joint venture between Columbia’s Journalism School and Stanford University’s School of Engineering. From a report in school newspaper the Columbia Spectator:

As director, Hansen will conduct research, award fellowships and grants, and teach journalism courses that integrate data, algorithms, and computation.

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It’s all fun and games until somebody gets shot.

So reads the fifth paragraph of Big League Stew Yahoo blogger David Brown’s summary report about a scary incident Wednesday involving Los Angeles Angels outfielder Torii Hunter and a pair of OC police officers responding to a tripped burglar alarm. But that sentence really should be the lede; it succinctly and cleverly frames the seriousness of the encounter.

As first reported last night by LA Times writer Lance Pugmire, the nine-time Golden Glove winner was getting ready to watch a movie at his Newport Beach home after a morning workout at Dodger Stadium when he heard noises at the front door:

“I grabbed a knife and was about to start Bruce Lee-ing on whoever was there,” Hunter said. Good thing Hunter didn’t take the steak knife outside, where police were waiting with guns drawn after the outfielder’s home alarm had accidentally been activated by a door that was opened in the house.

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On Thursday, the band Brazzaville will be performing at the Crystal Hall in Kiev. In honor of this latest Russian tour date, Kiev Post editor James Marson retraces the group’s unlikely gaining of a foothold in Russia and the Ukraine.

Led by 44-year-old former Beck sideman David Brown (pictured), Brazzaville was discovered in 2000 by leading Russian music critic Artemy Troitsky. In the eleven years since the scholar picked up a CD in London, the band has become a Russian staple, even recording a tweaked version of beloved local Kino anthem “Star Called Sun.” Per Marson’s piece:

Brown speaks a little Russian and said he enjoys travelling in second-class kupe train compartments. He also picked up here the idea of holding kvartirniki, small performances in apartments with audiences of 20-40 people. The band even took the format to the U.S., performing 25 kvartirniki.

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Geoff Miller, longtime editor and one of the original founders of Los Angeles magazine, passed away on Saturday at his Beverly Hills home after a prolonged illness. He was 74.

Miller and David Brown launched the magazine in 1960, which was originally called the Southern California Prompter. A year later, they changed the title to Los Angeles magazine. As The Wrap obit notes, it was a pioneering publication:

Los Angeles was the first “city magazine,” and Miller is credited with helping to create the genre. His publication predated New York magazine by eight years.

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