Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

As if the Clippers haven’t had enough challenges this season, the team was thrown another obstacle when Shaun Livingston went down with a dislocated knee cap during the first quarter of the Clips’ 100-93 win over Charlotte. Livingston was going up for a layup and landed awkwardly on his left leg, causing a hush to fall over the Staples Center crowd as he was helped off the floor on a stretcher. If you happened to......

Who says the seventies (and bad taste) are dead? Not the City of Los Angeles, which has been testing artificial grass in a median on Sherman Way. Yes, while you're sitting in your car waiting for the light to turn green, you can look to the median for a glimpse of verdant, plush, refreshing plastic grass, and drive away feeling... well, there's no other word for it: renewed. If this pilot program is successful,......

We've been on Darren Dreifort's case a lot lately, but you can't help but feel for the guy. For the fourth consecutive year, Dreifort will stop pitching early because of a season-ending injury. Sure, signing Dreifort to a 5-year $55 million contract in 2000 was pure lunacy, but even the most pessimistic fans could not have foreseen that Dreifort would have a second address at the hospital. Here is the Dreifort file over his......