While the sale of the parent of the Chicago Tribune is drawing interest from Lee Mitchell of private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC, a much smaller weekly paper in Boston plans to shut down for lack of a buyer.

Warren Buffett is “in favor” of increasing the tax rate on capital gains. “I’ve operated under all kinds of tax rates, including 39.6% on capital gains,” the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. told Carlyle Group CEO David Rubenstein.

If some venture capitalists have issues with the brazen style of the 34-month-old, Sand Hill Road firm Andreessen Horowitz, just wait. The firm’s six GPs have just committed to dedicate half of the income from their venture careers to charity.

Don’t expect a couple of recent big investments of private money into the banking industry to signal a resurgence of dealmaking in the sector, market watchers say. A pair of buyout funds, WL Ross & Co. LLC and The Yucaipa Companies, have made commitments to invest $50 million apiece in Amalgamated Bank, a $4.4 billion [...]

President Obama’s plans to change the carried interest tax is getting more attention today.

Obama on Monday pitched a plan, which uses tax increases and entitlement cuts, to slash the federal deficit by $3 trillion, according to the New York Times. In the PE world, it’s the President’s introduction of the so-called “Buffett Rule” — which aims to change carried interest — that is getting tons of play.

Obama called to overhaul the tax code, Bloomberg News reported Monday. His plan aims to eliminate the “special lower rates for the wealthy,” which were “meant to be temporary,” the story says.

The results of our David Sokol poll surprised me.

Yesterday, I asked what might happen to the former heir apparent at Berkshire Hathaway. Sokol, in case you’ve forgotten, bought Lubrizol shares and then pushed Warren Buffett to buy the company. Sokol, who was chairman of several Berkshire units, resigned after his Lubrizol trades became known.

Berkshire shareholders are expected to convene in Omaha tomorrow for the annual meeting. Buffett is sure to be grilled about his poor handling of the scandal. Right now, we don’t care about that. We want to know what will happen to Sokol.

Things aren’t looking too good for David Sokol, Warren Buffett’s former heir apparent at Berkshire Hathaway .

Yesterday, Berkshire slammed Sokol when it said he violated the company’s standards of conduct and its insider trading policies when he bought Lubrizol shares and then pushed Warren Buffett to buy the company. Sokol, who was chairman of several Berkshire units, resigned after his Lubrizol trades were made known.

This has been an embarrassing situation for Buffett and Berkshire. The Oracle of Omaha has always been big on ethics. He is sure to face some tough questions this Saturday when Berkshire hosts its annual shareholder meeting.

In this week’s Social Scene, Hollywood falls back in love with venture capital, the Google Ventures team goes Gaga, Don Valentine gets his closeup, Peter Wagner sees a sign of the Apocalypse, Jim Clark and his supermodel wife are expecting their first child, and lots more.

Have a personal tidbit you’d like to share about yourself or a friend/colleague? Email me at [email protected] I’m looking for birthdays, baby announcements, marriages, new car/boat/house/fill-in-the-blank purchases, funny quotes, vacation pics, snaps from industry events — you get the picture.

MAKING THE SCENE

In yet another ominous sign that we may be repeating the past, Hollywood is suddenly finding venture capitalists interesting again. To wit, comedian Adam Sandler is co-producing a CBS sitcom that will be set in a VC office, and the HBO drama

An ordinary American investor would probably not put money into a foreign electric car start-up suspected of openly copying competitors, let alone one whose franchised dealers occasionally put other companies’ logos on its own vehicles. But Warren Buffett is no ordinary investor, and China’s BYD is no ordinary company. At the depths of the financial [...]

Buying In: JPMorgan’s new fund seeks Twitter stake

Mall Rats: Blackstone eyes $9.4B mall deal

“Our elephant gun has been reloaded, and my trigger finger is itchy”: Buffett is serious about M&A again, bullish on America, in his annual letter to shareholders

Just in Case: You couldn’t hang until almost midnight, here’s the Oscars winners list