Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

--Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is opening an animation studio in Los Angeles.

--Gerald Schoenfeld, the longtime leader of the Shubert Organization, dies.

--Gap founder Don Fisher won't be allowed to plant a 100,000-square-foot museum in San Francisco's Presidio national park, but there may be alternatives.

--"Sex and the City's" Kim Cattrall strips to help save Titian's "Diana and Actaeon" from being sold abroad. The Guardian's Charlotte Higgins blogs about the reaction.

--Despite all the closing notices, it's not all bad news on Broadway: "Billy Elliot" and "White Christmas," which was seen in Los Angeles in 2005, make a good showing at the box office.

--London-based Metropolitan Workshop, a collective of architects founded in 2004, has won a closed competition to design the Museum of Conflict in Libya.

--Museum director Jeremy Strick skips a rally in support of his Museum of Contemporary Art for other duties.

--Opera mourns the death of British conductor Richard Hickox.

--After years of financial and leadership trouble, the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul plans to box up its collection and temporarily close in January.

--A portrait of a London society lady by her lover, artist Sir Anthony van Dyck, is to go on display for the first time in over a century.

--Matthew Risch lives every understudy's dream as he permanently takes over the lead role in the Broadway revival of “Pal Joey,” replacing Tony winner Christian Hoff, who injured his ankle.

--Even the world’s richest artists are feeling the pinch of tough economic times: Damien Hirst is forced to lay off employees.

--Lisa Fung

Photo: Takashi Murakami at his Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition in Los Angeles last year. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times