Nothing like a little holiday advertising to drive up the page count and allow us to bring you even more local news. Today's 16-page A section is packed; here's some of what we've got:

SCHOOL CROWDING: The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schoools' new elementary won't open for another year and a half. New correspondent Brooks Dareff reports what the school board might do to ease crowding at Carrboro, Glenwood and Seawell in the meantime.

CONDO SITE SOLD: Developer Carol Ann Zin paid $1.14 million for the Aydan Court site off N.C. 54 in 2007. Find out why she sold it to UNC this fall for $410,000. (And she's not happy about it; read her guest column in today's opinion section.)

LONG LEAF GOODBYE: If you've got tickets to "Amahl and the Night Visitors" today (left), you're seeing one of our local opera company's final performaces. What? You didn't know we had an opera company? Read Dave Hart's story.

Anne Blythe says watch for the Lovette trial closing arguments tomorrow. Katelyn Ferral says watch for the town's report on the Yates Motor Co. raid this week. And police have arested a suspect in the mysterious shooting of a Chapel Hill man in his Ashley Forest home last weekend. 

Julie Moore is learning more things about Chapel Hill in today's My View, and Will Allen, Elias Schwartz, Roy Brock, Harvey Carnes, Jill Bone and Robert Dowling have letters in today's edition. What's on your mind?

Thanks for reading,

Mark