Jim Moran’s nascent beard on September 20. Now it’s nearly a full Santa Claus. Photograph by Carol Ross Joynt.

A few of the stories you may have missed while paying too much attention to dreary news that Congress and the White House continue to not be able to make a deal.

• Virginia congressman Jim Moran is growing an Edwardian mustache and beard, which first appeared about a month ago and is now nearly full Santa Claus. You can catch it on C-SPAN.

• Rielle Hunter, best known as “John Edwards’s mistress” from when he was a presidential candidate, wrote an essay for Huffington Post called, “I, Rielle Hunter, Apologize.”

• Arianna Huffington may have made a bad deal with AOL, according to the Smoking Gun. The sleuth site says it has a court filing showing that when AOL paid a reported $315 million to buy the Huffington Post, Huffington only scored about $21 million, some of it in stock options.

• Joe Biden found time to shop at Brooks Brothers, and our own Melissa Romero caught the action:

• A new restaurant opened on Capitol Hill, of all places. What excellent timing, right? We’re sending good luck wishes to Rose’s Luxury at 717 Eighth Street, Southeast.

• Jim VandeHei, a cofounder of Politico, was promoted to CEO.

• Washington’s own Katie Couric still has her talk show, despite hot rumors that the ax is falling.

• Tom Hanks stopped by the Newseum for a premiere of his new movie, Captain Phillips.

• Bob Costas and Glenn Beck both joined the Redskins name fray. The LA Times headline might say it best: “Bob Costas versus Glenn Beck in Washington Redskins nickname flap.” We can’t help but wonder, who’s jumping into this debate next?

• An engaged couple robbed of a Jefferson Memorial wedding tied the knot on The Colbert Report.

• Twitter introduced more relaxed rules for direct messages: You can now received message from any followers (if you want).