Illustration courtesy of the artist. We saw in this week's Los Angeles Downtown News that Doug Davis, the paper's former art director and current contributor of the "Urban Scrawl" political comic strip, has his first gallery show. It opens tonight in Downtown LA and runs until April 30. In "Urban Scrawl," Davis captures the essence of the city with his pen and ink -- skewering government officials, projects and Downtown life in general. At......

In an effort to bring solar power to those who will benefit from it but simply can't afford it, a new partnership created between the nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners and BP donates one solar panel to a low-income residence for every solar panel purchased by a celebrity. As the Downtown News reports, Downtown's St. George Hotel, a housing facility operated by the Skid Row Housing Trust, is the first multi-unit project to receive panels through......

Downtown's historic Broadway Theater District could soon be getting a boost from the City. The Downtown News is reporting that a press conference on the area is planned for tomorrow morning, and that City Coucilman José Huizar (14th district) and Mayor Villaraigosa will be on hand to share with local business and land owners their goals and intentions. As revitalization takes place throughout LA's downtown area, many are seeking to extend the developments and improvements......

Downtown Los Angeles is fast becoming one of the city's new "it" places to set up a permanent address and play house. But a new worry is plaguing residents of the high-rises and converted lofts that dot the one-way streets of LA's civic center: What happens when we have kids? The big concern is chiefly becoming options for daycare, which is part of the overall issue of whether Downtown is a good place to raise......

You probably relate David Hockney's name with his famous California photograph called "Pearblossom Highway #2." But one of the contemporary artist's early loves was opera and he's back, for the third time ever with Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" with the LA Opera, a "great ode to sexual ecstasy," the production company writes in the tag line of the title. It's a five-hour piece, but you can guarantee people will come out in droves for......

A different kind of web-server: Los Angeles based social networking site MySpace is getting served with subpoenas in the case of the teenager who committed suicide following a friend fake-out that was allegedly helmed by a classmate's parent. All I wanna do is BANG BANG BANG BANG! and take your...Fritos? Two Lancaster gang members have been convicted for killing a kid over his junk food. Laquane Keith and Reno Williams shot and killed 18-year-old LeMarcus......

Dear Tony Pierce, can you please tell your new employers at the LA Times to fix their streaming American Express advertising pop-up so that it does not crash my brand-new computer every five minutes? Thank you, signed, LAist.com. When we are not struggling to cope with adverse side-effects of inexorable technological progress, we are keeping track of the striking writers' negotiations with venture capitalists to begin producing Internet programming. Baby needs a new pair......

If you happened to miss the December 3 Downtown News, you haven't seen the personal ads Jon Regardie suggested to help Mayor Villaraigosa get a New Year's Eve smooch. They're pretty hysterical from top to bottom. My favorite one begins with the perfectly awkward hook: "Looking for My Energizer Lady Bunny: Hot bilingual mayor has an opening on his staff - for love!" In the same edition, peep Evan George's report on the uneasy relationship......

The LA Times is reporting today that the city has a near $77.5 million unspent in Quimby fees that it has been collected from developers for park space and improvements. The fees, from the California 1975 Quimby Act (not that quimby folks), require developers to help mitigate the impacts of property improvements and new development by paying a fee that goes into a city parks department fund or set aside land on the development.The......

Could you do the 100 Yard Diet? Oakland blogger YourCityFarmer spent the entire month of July eating only things she grew, raised, and made herself: and that includes meat. New Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, coming in November! Also, he shares some of his favorite reads with Newsweek. EaterLA is reporting that the kitschy German restaurant Lowenbrou Keller will be closing "when the food runs out" - but the owners plan to reopen......

By week's end, LA is littered with dozens of free rags. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below. Downtown News dedicated about half of its July 30 issue to the long-awaited opening of Ralph's at Ninth and Flower. The cover story is here with more here, here, and here. Kathleen Nye Flynn examined the......

Last week after receiving the Hottest Politician award from Downtown News, 13th District Councilman Eric Garcetti headed up to the Valley where he grew up. "You can the kid out of the Valley, but you can't take the Valley out of the kid," he told a the San Fernando Valley Jaycees at their monthly membership meeting. Garcetti, a Jaycee alumnus himself, spoke eloquently about the history of Los Angeles and how we got to where......

The Downtown News is out with its annual Best of list. In the spirit of the awesome map that appears each week in the Downtown News, we're mapping the DTNews Editors' "Best of" picks. Play along by clicking on any placemarker below and adding your rating/photos/comments. MapKit.display();......

We saw a news brief in today's Los Angeles Downtown News that caught our eye: Also of note, the average drink in L.A. is $10.66, higher even than New York's $10.12 a beverage. Ouch. And you mean, people elsewhere don't pay $12 for a cosmopolitan? The drinks in this town are up 11.5% from last year. Now what do we blame that on? Republicans? Gas prices and the war in Iraq? Lindsay and Paris......

- You don't have to be in snow to say "mush." Try urban mushing in Costa Mesa. - "Cardinal Roger M. Mahony today apologized to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese." - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa skips his monthly appearance on KABC-TV's Eyewitness Newsmakers because of personal questions. - By the 1930s, the Los Angeles streetcar system had nearly 600 miles of track and used more than 1,200 cars. Downtown......

By week's end, LA is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation LA Times to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below.......

- Jimmy Carter has been in LA building houses for the needy. He's 82 - Voice of America - Brit and KFed settled their divorce: joint custody, he gets $1 million, sorta - Reuters - Economists at UCLA's Anderson Forecast predict a Californian economic slowdown in the near future, but no recession - Daily Bruin - Local woman sues Petco and the food company who made the dog food that killed her pet -......

By week's end, this town is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, pretty please let us know, or better yet, drop it in the comments section......

It's hard to find people as passionate about LA's underrated downtown as some of the folks at LAist, but we have to admit the readers of Los Angeles Downtown News might give us a run for our money in the downtown passion department. In particular a reader by the name of Frederick, who had a "glass half empty" response to the downtown BID's recently published (and very self-congratulating) 2006 Demographic Study of New Downtown......

By week's end, Los Angeles is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, pretty please let us know, or better yet, drop it in the comments section......

- The case of the Drunk Frat Boys v Borat has been rejected by an LA judge who basically ruled in such a way that it would cockblock pretty much any other "He embarrassed me while cameras were clearly rolling" case in the future - Defamer - However a California judge opened the flood gates for people who want to sue Big Tobacco - LAT - Good news continues to be in the economic......

LAist picked up this interesting tidbit in the Los Angeles Downtown News about four high-tech toilets coming to Downtown LA -- at a cost of about $1 million dollars. But just look what these babies, called Automatic Public Toilets, will do: Each APT's oval-shaped kiosk contains a small toilet and a sink. After every use, the door shuts and the toilet retracts into a behind-the-scenes cleaning area, where it is pressure-washed, disinfected and dried.......

- Not including our infamous gangs (why weren't they included? beats us) California is home to 52 hate groups, more than any other state. Suck it, Florida! - Southern Poverty Law Center - Man shot and killed in his parked car in Carson - CBS2 - Small plane crashes this afternoon in ocean near San Pedro, one dead - AP - Hello, Harley: You're more likely to die drowning than from a motorcycle accident.......

The former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa, visited Los Angeles planners and MTA employees last week to spread some words of wisdom on transforming Los Angeles into a transit paradise.  Downtown News reported that his introduction to the group was pithy: "We [LA] were talking about [the solutions] and then Peñalosa just went and did it."  He did it with 1,200 urban parks, restricted car use in downtown Bogotá, and pedestrian-only streets (one......

Remember the rolling blackouts in 2000? That really bit. If you want to read LAist today, try to conserve some energy before our screens go black. Crash a rare Ferrari in Malibu, have some friends claim they are Homeland Security, and do some more mysterious things. Can we claim this story as truly, only in LA? Simi Valley to get a new welcome sign. We like the happy face better. Downtown News interviews Brady......

David Hasselhoff rushed to the hospital after an alleged shaving/chandelier accident. Alleged because we live pretty large but we don't have chandeliers in our gym's mens rooms. - People Man who crashed car into CHP cruiser around 2am was allegedly drunk - CBS2 Paris Hilton allegedly brought 20 bags with her on the airplane - Dlisted 2nd Street trees to be chopped down so traffic can allegedly flow better - Downtown News Screw you......

show on the road - Mayor Villaraigosa heads to Sacramento today to make his case for a takeover of LAUSD. As his big push begins, the pushback is also getting started, with legislators making noises about opposing the Mayor. But they're making wussy noises: Jackie Goldberg tells the LA Times "A lot of people up here are former school board members who don't want to see a mayor take over the district," which sounds......

hello guvner Over the weekend, the California Democratic Party made Phil Angelides their choice to run for Governor against Arnie. Angelides, who is State Treasurer, appears to be a solid liberal democrat. We just wish he didn't look so much like Ben Stein. whose LAUSD? Superintendent Roy Romer is expected to depart LAUSD this fall. Does this mean Mayor Villaraigosa has the perfect opportunity to set his takeover plans in motion? Well, one watcher......

Fausto Vitello passing out Thrasher stickers circa way back when. get on the bus The Daily News gets happy with Orange Line riders. take the shuttle The Downtown News checks out the weeks-old Union Station Flyaway shuttle to LAX and finds it's drawing 500 people a day — pretty good, but you'll have no trouble finding a seat. ailing San Gabriel mayor Chi Mui has been hospitalized after less than 2 months at his post;......

Jaws: Say you're a pair of small-time crooks who decide to hold up banks in grocery stores. It's not glamorous work, and the take is kind of mediocre — one of you can't even afford to fix his teeth. So it's pretty darn cool when officials start calling you The 007 Bandits. Jaws II: CalTech scientists are working on implanting sensors in sharks' brains to control their actions. Mechanical engineer Joel Burdick tells the......