After reports that 10 members of congress, including California Senator Dianne Feinstein, received letters and photos in the mail that possibly claimed responsibility for yesterday's bombing in Times Square, the FBI did the obvious thing: go to the man's house who was listed on the return address. Nothing turned up when they questioned the man. "We're continuing to investigate, but right now there is no evidence linking the individual being questioned to the incident in New York or the letters themselves," Eimiller said to KNBC. more ›

Now here's the quote of the day via the Daily News: ""I think if there were laws that required mayors to take transit, you'd see transit systems improve remarkably." That's Ted Balaker, a policy analyst for the Reason Foundation who spoke to transit beat writer Sue Doyle, who wrote a piece on Mayors across the country and their public transit use. more ›

The Lost premiere is the biggest TV event of this very young year, hands down. more ›

• With exactly one year to go until a new president is inaugurated (and one more year of Jon Stewart's hilarious Bush headlines), the field of Republican hopefuls just got smaller. After poor showings in, well, every primary, caucus and poll, San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter is ditching the presidential race. No word on what he will do now, but rumors are flying that Hunter will continue to build that fence along the Mexican border he started months ago.
• And speaking of the election, Gov. Arnold is holding off on endorsing a Republican candidate, preferring to stay "neutral." For now. Some are postulating that Schwarzenegger is waiting to endorse someone in the Republican field to see if his friend and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an Independent, will enter the race.
• It's been a rough Saturday night/Sunday morning in LA County as 11 people have been shot at two separate parties in Long Beach and Compton. The first shooting happened late Saturday at a birthday party in Long Beach, when several gang members apparently crashed the party and started a fight. The second shooting took place early Sunday in Compton, when four or five men turned up to a party and started shooting partygoers, shooting eight and leaving three in critical condition.
• Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to address the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch State of the Community Breakfast next month. It's the first time the mayor will speak to the group about issues affecting the area. Yawn. The interesting thing about this is that in the the Daily News headline, they referred to the mayor by his first name: "Antonio to speak to area chamber." I didn't know the Daily News and the mayor were such good friends.
• The Dodgers will play two March exhibition games against the Padres in Beijing. While some veteran players are privately saying they don't want to go, Matt Kemp sounds downright giddy about the trip. I hope the old versus young rift that ripped through the clubhouse late last season does not carry over into this season. Isn't this why we go Joe Torre?
• Several gay porn sites have posted pictures of under age water polo players from Orange, LA and San Diego counties without them knowing. Authorities think a campus police dispatcher may have played a role in taking the pictures. Gives a whole meaning to block that ball, doesn't it?

LAist had the opportunity to catch up with Jacob Soboroff, Executive Director of Why Tuesday to talk about WT, their upcoming projects and politics. Jacob has worked as a part time advance man for NYC Michael Bloomberg and briefly played the same role for presidential candidate Howard Dean. He moved back from NYC to his hometown of Los Angeles last year, when I first met him, and since returning has video blogged for LA... more ›

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. more ›

... but there's not much Los Angeles in the latest issue of Plenty, a bi-monthly magazine on environmental news and commentary. There's a feature story on the negative environmental impact of surfing and good tips for going to the farmer's market (use it with the new Farmer's Market Google Map), but our dear home is not but a mere mention in a small, but fun brief. With the fact that "urban areas are responsible for... more ›

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. more ›

- El irony: Mayor Tony cancels media appearance b/c media will ask him about the fact that he's been playing hide-the-taquito with... the media - Daily News - LA Times' advertising and cash flow sunk by 27% last quarter - Bloomberg - It really is a gorgeous building, Remembering Bullocks Wilshire - Franklin Ave. - Tijunga alleged burglar ends up in a standoff with cops in Glendale - Daily News - Pro-lifers are calling... more ›

Can you eat 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes? Well, Joey Chestnut of Vallejo, CA can - he was this year's champion of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest , beating out six-time winner Takeru Kobayashi for the Mustard Belt. Our good friends over at Gothamist liveblogged the whole affair, which took place yesterday at Coney Island (natch); even Mayor Bloomberg himself showed up to check out the dog-tastic proceedings. more ›

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This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. more ›

Jack Valenti dies. Does this mean the end of those annoying 'downloading movies is like stealing your grandmother's purse' previews before every dvd ever made? - Bloomberg Eve crashes her gold Maserati on Hollywood Blvd. - TMZ Sexual battery charge filed in Los Angeles against ’Girls Gone Wild’ founder Joe Francis. Look out for 'Some Dude Goes Wild on Joe Francis' on dvd, real soon. - Boston Herald Dad who was released from prison... more ›

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. more ›

Metro Rider LA noticed a pattern in our "20 Under 30" series. They saw similarites in some of the answers to this question: “ If you could make one thing be different in LA for your 30th birthday, what would you change?“

”I’d probably like a comprehensive, convenient, and affordable public transportation system…” -Meghana Bhatt more ›

If you're running south to avoid the La Canada-Flintridge fire, we reccomend that you don't run too far south, since Compton looks like it's about to become the Murder Capital of America. Last night on The West Wing, SoCal residents found themselves running for their lives, but not knowing which way to run. While LA isn't about to have radioactive steam vented into the atmosphere (it's bad enough already, thank you very much), the news today is liable to make even the calmest Angeleno worry where they can find a safe haven in our fair city nowadays. more ›

Whatever you're playing at Bloomberg, stop it now. We don't even watch The Tonight Show with Jay Leno but there's no reason why when Conan takes over the show at the end of the decade that the show should leave its cushy Burbank studio. We think Conan will do just fine out here on the left coast. In fact, the pasty talk show host could use some sun. And what does New York's Mayor Bloomberg care for anyway? He won't be in office in 2009 so there's no political capital in stealing the show away from Los Angeles. more ›