2,000 residents of L.A. County are expected to take advantage of free HIV testing services as part of HIV Counseling and Testing Week. "Of the more than 53,000 AIDS cases were reported in Los Angeles County as of December 2007, nearly 31,000 of the patients have died, according to the county Department of Public Health's Office of AIDS Programs and Policy," says cbs2.com. The report states that AIDS cases in the county remain clustered around......

Los Angeles has a lot of interesting places with interesting histories. Take, for instance, Dodger Stadium and how it came to pass in Chavez Ravine. But just adjacent to Dodger Stadium is another place that has an interesting history and purpose in the CIty, and around the world. Located at 2000 Stadium Way, Barlow Respitory Hospital was founded in 1902 as the Barlow Sanitarium to treat the tuberculosis epidemic that swept the nation. In fact,......

A puppet show without Kermit: Concrete Folk Variations at The Manual Archives / Photo by Susan Simpson MEET THE PO-PO The public’s invited to meet the police and talk about safety issues at a neighborhood meeting between the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council, the Glassell Park Safety Committee and LAPD. Senior Lead Officer for Atwater Village Gina Chovan, gang detectives and City Attorney Donna Wong will be in attendance. 4 pm // Glassell Park Community......

UPDATE: Damn it, it's confirmed: A press release issued by the actor's spokesperson Wednesday said: “Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. Patrick’s physician Dr. George Fisher states The Good news? ‘Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far. All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We......

Photo by [Kwasi B.] via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Just when you thought they had faded into obscurity, Segways are reappearing on the scene. This time they'll be the mode of transport for patrols in LA-area Target stores' parking lots. The company says they like to use them because they add 8 inches of height for the rider, and run on batteries. Some passengers at LAX were evacuated for about two......

UPDATE: Looks like the forces of Truth, Justice and the Irishican Way prevailed everyone - It's not hard in here for a Once after all: "The Academy’s music branch executive committee has met and endorsed the validity of 'Falling Slowly' as a nominated achievement. The committee relied on written assurances and detailed chronologies provided by songwriter of 'Falling Slowly', the writer-director of Once and Fox Searchlight." So there you go - The good guys......

Why do all these prisoners love our governor? Because in his budget cuts that were released today, it proposes just that -- an early release for 22,000 low-risk inmates. "The governor says the cuts are necessary to erase a $14 billion revenue shortfall over the next 18 months. Schwarzenegger's new budget would spend 3 percent less than the one he signed last summer," according to the AP. Here is some of what is also......

Yesterday the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved additional steps for Project 50, a three year pilot program that will help get some of the most vulnerable people living on skid row into permanent housing. Volunteers completed hundreds of early-morning interviews to identify the 50 people who were in the most trouble -- people living on the streets with chronic illnesses, like liver disease and AIDS, many of whom are also mentally ill. Now a......

How apropos; today on LAist it's Sex Saturday, but today also happens to be World AIDS Day. Several events took place yesterday and will happen today in order to remind the world community that HIV/AIDS remains a global threat. The LA Times reports today on President Bush's public appearance yesterday at a church in northern Maryland, and that his speeches did not propose new plans or funding, but rather focused on humanitarianism. According to the......

Dr. Sharon Mitchell of Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Healthcare Foundation talks to audience members at Zócalo's Cocktail Hour With all the talk of the economy and morality (see Part 1) at last night's panel, Dirty Business: Should the Porn Industry Be Saved?, one subject prevailed during cocktail hour among the audience that as comprised of the curious, the perverts, health officials, and industry folks: sexually transmitted diseases. And that tone of that was set......

It is estimated that 200 firms, 6000 workers and 1200 actors produce 4000-7000 adult films a year in Los Angeles. Yes, there are more porn-related, adult industry jobs than software jobs in this town. With $4.3 billion in sales and rentals (which is still nothing compared to the $12 Billion made from toys and books), the Adult Entertainment Industry puts $4 billion in revenue back into the local economy. “It’s in an industry producing......

By William S. Burroughs For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts — thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison — thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger — thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot — thanks for bounties on wolves......

Attempting to pull sticky, er, bubble gum out of your hair was as vain as trying to banish Hanson's "MmmBop" from your brain ten years ago. A decade ago, that was your little sister's Hanson. Fast forward to 2007 and you've got three grown men who have purposely done nothing to shed their image of the past but have somehow emerged as a band for today. Unlike comparable, so-called boy bands, the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based......

Hollywood Hellhouse (you know, witness an aboration, be in a school shooting, etc, see the report from earlier today) was amazing. Check out some of the pics, then go see for yourself: My first tour guide, Pastor Ed My second tour guide -- I thought she was a mannequin when I first walked in but she sprang to life More photos after the jump.........

Jessica got rufied and gang-raped. A Harry Potter-loving nerd beat up his sister then killed himself. And a deranged student fired off a semi-automatic weapon into the cafeteria of a high school. Yes, it was a busy day in hell, as told by the cast of Hollywood Hellhouse. But it was all in a day’s work. Created by Maggie Rowe, Hollywood Hellhouse is a spoof of Christian-themed haunted houses that are put on by......

It is the best musical you’ve (probably) never heard of. It boasts music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, and lyrics by Tim Rice. Its rich songs fuse classical Broadway influences with sprinklings of disco. And it’s the only musical gutsy enough to include songs like “One Night in Bangkok” alongside the beautifully patriotic “Anthem.” The musical is “CHESS,” which tells the story of Victor Korchnoi and Bobby Fischer-esque competitors in a......

LA’s theatre scene is packed with good stuff this week: Dolly Parton serves as muse; a Korean family’s road trip goes wrong; and a bunch of people sing about chess at the Ford. So without further ado, here are LAist’s five theater picks for this week: Journey to Dollywood Jolene is a small-town waitress who idolizes obsesses over Dolly Parton. When a stranger’s car breaks down in town, her life, a rival co-worker’s, and their......

Up for a little do gooding and want to meet some good people along the way? Check out Philanthro Productions event at the Cabana Club tonight. Called "STRUT: A PARTY AND FASHION SHOW BENEFIT FOR CAMP HEARTLAND," it's $15 donation at the door. Philanthro Productions is a new company that is working on engaging people to find out how to give back while still having fun. So they throw events around town, you have......

Quotes of the week: “There are two kinds of people in this world, the givers and the takers. The takers eat better, but the givers sleep better.” – Danny Thomas "A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." - Benjamin Franklin “The time is always right to do what is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Good Art California Design Biennial 2007 August 19 – September 30, 2007 Pasadena Museum of......

In the face of DEA raids, and LAPD cooperation with the feds, the California Patients Group (one of the 10 raided dispensaries) released this statement to it's patients: The campaign to defend safe access to medical cannabis is a risky one, and we have always known we could face the wrath of our federal government for taking a principled stand for people suffering from AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other serious illnesses. Yesterday [July......

- Stubborn week old fire in Northern Santa Barbara County still not contained. - Fire in Banning took 19 acres before it was under control after 45-minutes. - Orange County bus strike could be now over. - "The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of L.A. will reportedly fork over the largest payout to date in the church's sexual abuse scandal." - "At least 33 infants were infected in the 1980s by HIV-tainted transfusions at Cedars-Sinai." -......

LOGO, the nation's first (and only) openly gay television network, is set to host the next Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles on August 9. The moderators will include Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, and Melissa Etheridge, the Academy Award (for her rendition of An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up") and two-time Grammy Award-winning rock musician and prominent gay rights activist. So what specific topics will be on the......

Matt Silverberg rode from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a bike with 2300 other cyclists earlier this month to raise money and awareness for AIDS and he filmed his experience. This year, AIDS/LifeCycle 6 surpassed goals and raised 11 million. What will ALC7 do next June 1st through 8th? We don't know, but we're planning on riding along on the adventure.......

- Sunday Morning Travel Alert: Caltrans will close the northbound San Diego Freeway (I-405) connectors to the east and westbound Ventura Freeway (U.S. 101), Sunday from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. for maintenance work. -UK based Tesco will launch Fresh & Easy Neighbourhood Markets in Los Angeles stocking healthy, chilled food in 10,000 sq. ft. spaces. - The Parker Center, LAPD HQ, was evacuated today over a bomb scare. It was just a suitcase.......

Some may consider Bill Clinton a liability to Sen. Hillary Clinton's bid to be the first female U.S. President, but the most famous porn star of all time says that when she looks back at Bill, she smiles. At the end of a long interview conducted by a press release website and posted today, Jameson is not asked about her struggle with cancer that lead to a miscarriage, instead she is asked about politics:......

Now that the dust has settled out in Indio, the world famous KROQ today announced its lineup for its annual spring fling, and just like any weenie roast there are some dogs in the bunch. So the question is, is it worth it to venture down behind the Orange Curtain and put up with annoying high schoolers in order to see The Killers, Bad Religion, Rise Against, Social D, Tim Armstrong and the Silversun......

Photo by sassylittlepunkin via Flickr. Looking for an excuse to try the lobster roll and pug burger at Hungry Cat? Now you have a certifiably altruisitc motive for your gluttony. Tomorrow is the 13th Annual Dine Out Los Angeles, a one-day event where participating Los Angeles area restaurants will donate 20% or more of their day's proceeds to Aid For AIDS, a charity that works to improve the quality of life for people who......

Laura Silverman, the delightful co-star of The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central and sister of comic Sarah, answers questions about Jews in New Hampshire, Jimmy Kimmel, and being a bad-ass. How is working with your sister on a daily basis? Do you ever have to call each other on diva like behavior? Well, I can't really call her on it, cause technically she's my boss. It's totally fun, we get along really well in......

In the wake of yesterday's LA raids by the DEA, about 100 protesters marched in front of the West Hollywood City Hall this morning. Clearly the state of medical marijuana in America has become the line in the sand between state's rights and the power of federal law. Yesterday the feds flexed their muscle: They confiscated several thousand pounds of processed marijuana, along with weapons and money. A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration......

Five Santa Monica Blvd. medical marijuana dispensaries were raided by the feds today, pretty much harshing the mellow of the WeHo city council. "The state of California voted to allow marijuana for medical purposes," says West Hollywood City Councilmember Abbe Land. "The City of West Hollywood along with other cities across the state have established regulations to govern the dispensing of medical marijuana, so that people whose lives depend on this drug can be......