Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls will be formally announcing her run for the top spot in Cincinnati on Thursday.

Qualls’ campaign site has been up for some time already, and the vice mayor’s team had a meeting with political writers and bloggers on Nov. 26.

The vice mayor will be joined by current term-limited Mayor Mark Mallory, implying his support for her mayoral run. The event is taking place at 10 a.m. at Core Clay, Inc., a small women-owned business in Walnut Hills.

Qualls, who is endorsed by both the Democratic Party and Charter Committee, previously served as mayor from 1993-1999 after serving in Cincinnati City Council from 1991-1993. She returned to council in 2007.

Former city councilman John Cranley, also a Democrat, is also running for mayor. Cranley served on council between 2001 and 2007. His campaign will officially launch in January and former mayor Charlie Luken will serve as the honorary chair.

Republican Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners President Greg Hartmann is also considering a run for mayor, but hasn’t made a formal announcement.

Cincinnati has an open mayoral primary, which means that the top two vote-getters will run against each other in the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

As Cincinnati officials consider deep budget cuts to avoid a $60 million deficit, one of the early proposals calls for possible layoffs in the Police and Fire departments.

The Charter Committee, Cincinnati's de facto third political party, will host a forum Nov. 17 to outline the problems facing the city. Featured speaker will be Lea Eriksen, Cincinnati's budget director, who will provide background information on municipal finances, and outline the city's revenues and expenses.

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A longtime Cincinnati councilwoman who also was the city's first female mayor recently was inducted into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame.

Bobbie Sterne, 91, who served for a quarter-century on City Council, was given the honor during a ceremony May 26 at the Capitol Theatre in Columbus. She joins more than 350 people inducted into the Hall of Fame since its creation in 1977.

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Plans to put a culture tax in front of voters have been put on hold due to a potential conflict with a Cincinnati Zoo tax renewal levy that will be on the 2013 ballot. Backers of the culture tax — a 0.25 percentage-point sales tax increase that would raise $30 million annually — fear that overlapping the tax increase and levy could be confusing and potentially hurt the chances of either to be approved. The culture tax will likely be put on the 2014 ballot.

City Council this fall will consider a new form-based development code that will allow individual neighborhoods to create their own codes that supporters say will reinforce neighborhoods' existing urban fabric while aiding in development. Supporters include the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Cincinnati Inc. “For developers, there is more predictability and basically no battles. And once they know the parameters, (developers) can really turn their creativity loose,” David Ginsburg, president and CEO of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., told The Enquirer.

The Enquirer on Sunday checked in on the state's higher education situation, finding that many recent college graduates and families of potential college students are wondering if college is even worth it considering the high cost — “total student loan debt is nearing $1 trillion, or more than $20,000 for each graduate” — and lack of guaranteed return — “government data this year show that fully half of graduates 25 or younger are either unemployed or working in a job that doesn’t use the skills they learned in college." No word on whether Enquirer-endorsed Gov. John Kasich thinks his kids should skip college and go straight into the service industry.

A record number of participants ran in this year's Flying Pig Marathon over the weekend. The winners were Californian Sergio Reyes, who also won the men's race in 2009, and Rachel Bea, a Kenwood resident.

Joe Biden says he is “comfortable” with same-sex marriage, though he doesn't know the answer to the question of whether a second-term Obama administration would come out in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

Europe's election results have gone and spooked the markets, due to political uncertainty in Greece and the defeat of French President Nicolas Sarkozy by Socialist Francois Hollande.

Vladimir Putin is back in business in Russia, amid protests.

Al-Qaeda has released a video of an elderly American hostage who says he will be killed if President Obama doesn't agree to Al-Qaeda's demands, which include ending military strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

An ad campaign linking global warming believers to terrorists only lasted a few hours before public outcry forced the Heartland Institute, a libertarian organization funded by a bunch of corporations who don't want to stop polluting the earth, to take them down. One billboard included Ted Kaczynski's mug shot with the words: “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?”

Poll watch: “Romney polling well with independents as Obama campaign kicks off.”

The supermoon was in full effect over the weekend, reportedly “wowing” viewers.