A credit rating agency downgraded the creditworthiness of the country’s largest pension fund yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times. It’s the latest bad news for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System fund (CalPERS),  which has been beset by scandal this year with allegations similar to those buffeting New Mexico’s investment system tarnishing its reputation.

Also from the LA Times, lawmakers in the California Assembly — the equivalent of New Mexico’s House of Representatives — elected the first openly gay lawmaker to become Assembly Speaker, one of the most powerful posts in California government.

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the CIA’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, reports the New York Times.

Mark this under the category of ‘No movie stunt, tourists gawk over real gunfight in Times Square.” Yep, a NYPD police officer and rogue street vendor traded bullets yesterday in that busiest of tourist areas. The vendor died, the officer escaped injury. The shootout had its very scary moments, and not just for the two people involved. One tourist was parking his SUV at a nearby hotel about 60 feet away from the confrontation. His pregnant wife and two small children were in the vehicle. The Boston tourist was confused at first.

“At first I wasn’t sure: Was it real, or was it a movie?” the tourist said, adding that when he realized it was real, he was stunned.

From the media world, the New York Times, having gotten 74 newsroom folks to take buyouts, now turns to laying off as many as 26 newsroom employees to meet its edict to trim 100 positions from the newsroom, reports the New York Post. It’s a sad, sad day.

Continuing with that thought, I read the news yesterday that Nielsen was folding Editor & Publisher, a decades-long mainstay in newspaper industry coverage, and I got nostalgic for all the newsrooms I’ve labored in over the years. And right on cue, someone shared this story on Facebook, which I greedily devoured and then shared on my own FB page. Man, this story brought back memories.

Finally, two organizations that help set technical policy for the Internet are joining forces, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Internet Society and the World Wide Web Consortium promote what they call open technical standards, which are free for use by anyone, as opposed to technology developed and controlled by individual companies, the paper reports.

“The risk is without open standards, like ISOC and W3C produce, Internet applications that users have available won’t interoperate,” said Ralph Swick, the W3C’s acting chief operating officer.