The Mayor has been running these CommUNITY Days of Service since he got into office. Basically, a region is chosen and thousands of volunteers pour into that sector of the city to clean and beautify the neighborhoods. From tree plantings to picking up litter to free community workshops, there's lots going on. Tomorrow's area is in what the Mayor calls the "Heart of the City," aka Koreatown, Thai Town, Historic Filipinotown, MacArthur Park, Hollywood,......

Actor Kirk Douglas gives children at the Lillian Elementary School a high five in Los Angeles Wednesday, May 28, 2008 (AP Photo/Nick Ut) Since 1997, actor Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne have donated about one playground renovation per week to Los Angeles area schools. Yesterday at Lillian Elementary School in South LA marked their 401st and last. The playground project began in 1997 "while Anne Douglas was reading in the Los Angeles Times......

Hambone is home! | Photo courtesy Eric Leemon Amazing, right? The little dog that became our Hambone was found - safe and sound. Here's the email that went out to Hambone followers last night. Read on:......

One commenter on Digg asked "Was that jesus?" | Filmed by Zach Behrens/LAist At last Saturday's Anonymous protest in Hollywood, LAist took this above video. Before we could even got a chance to post it on LAist late Saturday afternoon, it had already been found on YouTube and dugg on Digg.com, garnering over 12,000 diggs under an appropriately written headline, "This is how police SHOULD react to protesters." It has not even been 48......

First Nova Express Cafe? Now Largo? The good news, however, is that Largo's alleged closing is about opening a new space on La Cienaga according to bulletin board threads on www.fairfax-avenue.com and the Ditty Bops' website. A February 21st post on Fairfax Avenue repeated what Sara Watkins (of the Watkins Family Hour) wrote on a MySpace bulletin: "Largo will be closed and moving to a great new location during May (to open in June) so......

Still the champ but diminished | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema It's usually good news for a movie when it wins the weekend box-office race. When the movie severely underperforms expectations, however, that win feels like more of a Pyrrhic victory. Such was the case with Semi-Pro this weekend as it only brought in about half of what was expected--a lowly $15.3M. Last week's champ, Vantage Point, held up well and took second......

Score one for the passengers: budget airline carrier JetBlue is announcing that they will begin service between LAX and airports in New York and Boston this May. They also have plans to increase service from their Burbank and Long Beach locations, meaning more flights for consumers to choose from, which will increase competition with other carriers (like Southwest) and thereby lower airfares. They'll now be flying to JFK Int'l three times a day, and......

You can halt production on that purple and gold 2008 NBA Champions afghan you’ve been crocheting so diligently -- Lakers center Andrew Bynum is going to be out for the next 8 weeks. Bynum suffered a dislocated kneecap and a bone bruise courtesy of Lamar Odom’s big ass foot during the Laker’s victory over Memphis on Sunday. The good news is that the injury will not require surgery and the 20 year old big......

Starting a business in Los Angeles is what thousands of people do. In fact, in the City alone there are over 300,000 registered business, which means their is one business for every 13 residents (no matter their age). Starting a business is the realization of a dream for many, and can be lifechanging. But how do you start? Like LAist reported early this week, many people look at the new year as the time to......

Here's the good news of the day: It's almost Friday! Go out and celebrate tonight with these happenings about town: FILM The 2000 film Peppermint Candy opens with the suicide of its protagonist: a middle-aged, South Korean businessman. The film then flashes back 20 years — from student uprisings of the early '80s to the Asian financial crisis of the late '90s. "Lee's breakthrough debut unfolds a stirring story of regret, first love and letdowns."......

Let's party on the streets! The homicide rate is set to match its lowest number since 1970. The overall homicide rate is down 17 percent from last year. (More about it on LAist here.) With all this peace and, well, non-murder, Snoop might have to find something else to sing about. More good news: Gas prices dropped about 3 cents over the last two weeks. The average price of regular gasoline on Friday was......

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......

The white smoke flowed from the chimney, doves were released, and virgins scattered to deliver the Good News that the newest Editor of LAist is Zach Behrens. Valley boy Zach has been a contributer to this fine blog since 2005, he's an outdoorsman, he sits on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council, he's a vegetarian, he volunteers selflessly, and yes ladies, he's single. Softspoken, strong-willed, and determined to get you to ride public transportation, Zach......

It was a craaaaazy night on the town. You took dozens of photos with your pocket-sized digital camera. But you don't have Photoshop, and all you want to do is upload your pics directly to Flickr (something you could even do wirelessly if Hanukkah Harry hooks you up with with an Eye-Fi). Good news. Flick just went live with a new feature that allows you to crop, resize, touch-up, de-red-eye, brighten, and flip your......

He was a dominant force at Westchester High School. He was part of the first year of Ben Howland’s turnaround at UCLA. And now he is a Laker. Trevor Ariza has come home, bringing with him some amazing dunks, good defense and a high-energy game that should fit in well with the young core of the Lakers. He was traded for veterans Brian Cook and Mo Evans. Call us crazy, but this is the rare......

Some Trekkies are having heart palpitations over this: William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, will not be in the 2008 release of Star Trek. While Leonard Nimoy gets to play the resurrection of his character, Spock, there is no place for Shatner and the cocky and horny Boston Legal character is disappointed, he told the Associated Press: 'I couldn't believe it. I'm not in the movie at all. Leonard, God bless his heart, is in,......

And in case you haven’t heard, Roky walks among us this weekend. Tonight at 7:30 he's signing books and introducing a showing of his “all time favorite horror movie”, The Creature With The Atom Brain, at the Silent Movie Theater, and playing with his latest crew Evilhook Wildlife ET on Sunday night at the El Rey. Your Pre-Halloween weekend just got creepier, in person. We haven’t had a visit from this fellow since 1980, and the one before that was around 1966, so avoid him at your extreme peril....

Strobe lights. Fog. Serial killers. Screams. God damn, I love Halloween. Not only do I love dressing up in costume, eating lots of candy and carving out Jack-O-Lanterns, I love all the frightening fun Halloween entails. And for me the pinnacle of spooky good times always involves a haunted house. But there’s a problem. I’ve been to Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights so many times that they have lost the element of......

Following in the footsteps of Matthew Good and Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor announced today that he has come to the end of the downward spiral. He has fulfilled his contractual agreements with Interscope and will see if he can avoid the middleman and allow his audience to deal with him in a more intimate arrangement, he said on nin.com. Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make......

Even OJ didn't lose custody of his children, yet somehow Britney Spears has to turn her spawn over to K-Fed. An LA court commissioner today ordered that Spears' ex, Kevin Federline, will be granted full physical custody of their two young sons beginning Wednesday - which we believe is still Prince Spaghetti Day. What did the commish have to look at regarding Britney's behavior over the years? Well lets see - she shaved all......

From time to time, LAist will take a look at the many book-to-film projects underway in Hollywood. We'll explore the books we love and why we're over-the-moon excited or just plain worried about the film projects that bear their name. The Lovely Bones -- When we first examined the books-to-film projects underway in Hollywood, we were on regular IMBD watch for casting updates about Alice Sebold's novel-about-to-be-film The Lovely Bones directed by Peter Jackson. So......

Quote of the week: 'Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I - I hardly know sir, just at present - at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' – from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Good Benefits The Players Toast Awards at the......

Back in 2004, Dodger’s owner Frank McCourt made the unpopular decision to get rid of radio play-by-play announcer Ross Porter. Porter had been on the job for 28 years, and considering he had to work with color commentator Rick Monday since 1993 he should’ve gotten hazard pay. Porter was by no means as eloquent and compelling as Vin Scully. With a few exceptions no one can enter the realm of Vin Scully. But Porter......

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......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Chivas USA 3, Galaxy 0 - It looks like the British are in a fighting mood. After being tackled hard from behind, Beckham yelled at Jesse Marsch, his attacker (err, actually defender ... no, make that midfielder). That turned into a shoving match between the teams, which grew into a full on scrap involving at least one solid punch and a nasty headbutt. Mr. Prettyboy Beckham wasn't involved in any of the physical altercations, though......

The Fuck Yeah Fest IV has creeped upon Los Angeles like a wedgie at a water park. Be there this weekend and join the legions of depraved and debaucherous rock and roll souls as they wander the lovely and history Echo Park in search of their sonic masters. 50 bands. 5 venues. 2 days. And all the music, art and comedy you can eat for the nice price of $24. LAist has a pair......

Following weeks and weeks of stalling, the State Senate is finally getting ready to pass the budget bill after securing the crucial vote of Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman. Good news in the environmental department: San Bernardino County authorities have just agreed to start cutting back on their greenhouse gas emissions after monitoring conditions over the next 30 months. Secretary of State Debra Bowen is going after ES&S for selling close to 1,000 uncertified......

Summer is coming to a close and we don't know about you, but we're feeling a little charitable. As nonprofits gear up for their busiest season with traditional calls to action for annual funds and holiday donations, we are going to bring you a few other ways you can become involved, and hopefully, inspired to give a little bit back too. Do you have an event, benefit, item for sale that you would like......

Rilo Kiley played their first concert in two years the other day and LAist was there. Rilo Kiley is now streaming their new cd Under the Blacklight on their Myspace this weekend, and here we are telling you about it. But we're sure that there's more new music that we should be telling the kids about. And we're pretty sure that you might be holding on to that information that we need so badly.......