Photo by atomicshakespeares via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

• Suffering from an Oscar hangover? Then check out the next generation of hot filmmakers at The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival, which begins tonight and runs through the weekend.
• The studio that brought you such blockbusters as the "Lord of the Rings" franchise will soon become only the merest shadow of its former self: Warner Brothers will be absorbing New Line Cinema, which employs more than 600 people in L.A. and New York.
• Babies are so expensive nowadays! People Magazine pays Nicole Richie and one of those tattooed guys $1 million for the rights to pictures of Baby Harlow Madden.
• Blogs help stop crime! Thanks to his thoughtless blogging, police have been able to nab a criminal who's been on the lam for almost 27 years, wanted for the murder of his wife.
• How's this for sobering: 1 out of 100 Americans is behind bars. America now ranks as the world's number one incarcerator. So glad we're keeping all those dangerous, violent pot-smokers of the streets, ya hear!
• Density and city planning: LA Weekly is asking why "are why some corners of the city are taller and more congested than 10 years ago, even neighborhoods whose legally binding zoning plans were supposed to achieve the opposite."
• Los Angeles Democrat Karen Bass has been elected Assembly Speaker, the first African American woman ever to hold the position.
• Free Chipotle burritos in Westwood today! You can still get your burrito until 8pm today.