• Increasingly free of gang violence, it may be getting safer to walk the streets of Watts, the Daily News reports. Homicides in the area have dropped from 24 in 2006 to just 11 last year and many residents are pinning hopes for further neighborhood revitalization on economic opportunities. Hey Magic Johnson, that's your cue!
  
• A man died last night after sliding down an escalator at the Hollywood Highland shopping pit of hell today. Apparently the dude was drunk and lost his balance, plunging several stories to his death.
  
• In other fatal news, a minor was shot to death near the Beverly Center last night. Police responded to reports of a fight and responded after the boy, believed to be 17 or 18, was shot.
  
• A year-long exhibition of oils and watercolors, ink sketches and murals from the so called "the Artist of Olvera Street," Leo Politi, will begin Jan. 26 at the Pico House near Olvera Street. This is the centenary of his birth.
  
• David Beckham and Cordozar "Snoop Dogg" Calvin Broadus, Jr. have teamed up to recruit inner city Los Angeles teens to play soccer in an attempt to divert them from a life of selling drugs and gun crime. Guess you have to find something to do when soccer isn't working out as well as you would have hoped.
  
• ABC chimes in with their list of LA's top 7 landmark restaurants. The list, which includes Bob's Big Boy and Pinks, is pretty predictable, but at least they cover a wide swath of LA County.
  
• If you're busted for possessing pot, you may not be in the wrong. Los Angeles Criminal Lawyers frequently encounter cases where the possession of marijuana is legally justified under California’s Medical Marijuana initiative. The reason these cases are criminally filed is that the investigating police officers either ignore or do not understand the law justifying the legal possession of numerous ounces of marijuana, the LA Criminal Lawyer blog said. Either that, or cops like pot too.
  
• The Screen Actors Guild directors mulled severing ties with AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Sunday. The ongoing WGA strike has strained relations between SAG and AFTRA directors, with SAG directors unhappy that key AFTRA members such as Ellen DeGeneres have crossed writers' picket lines, with AFTRA's backing, CBS said. Any bets on who the last man/union/show/awards show standing will be?
  

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr