The Flat Stanley project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a Canadian schoolteacher. The project is based on the title character in Flat Stanley, a 1964 children's book. In the book, Stanley Lambchop is squished flat, which gives him unique abilities, like being able to slide under doors and travel in envelopes. The project is intended to increase literacy and educate children about geography. Classes participating in the Flat Stanley Project make their......

Federline family values: Fading pop diva and the ex-Mrs. K-Fed who sent law enforcement and the paparazzi into a tailspin last night has lost visitation rights to see her two sons, a court ruled today. Sole custody has been temporarily award to her babies' daddy, meanwhile, Britney remains involuntarily hospitalized. What is it going to take to get Ms. Spears back on track? The homicide tally for 2008 moves up another notch with the reporting......

See the 1995 60 Minutes segment about the horrendous Red Line subway construction. Apparently, in democracy you cannot run against your boss' political allies without getting fired. That's what happened when city councilman Ed Reyes fired his office manager after she lost the 2005 election to Jose Huizar. She sued. She won. All the Wilshire Blvd. bus lane info you could want. The Zaca wildfire has been going for a month and now Governor......

While Sacramento scrambles to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for public transportation and other programs around the state, a serious group of underground marijuana professionals are offering to pay at least a billion dollars in taxes, if only California would legalize pot. A coalition of California marijuana growers and dealers has offered Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger one billion dollars to solve the current state budget crisis. The group, calling itself Let Us......

- City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo vs. District Attorney Steve Cooley. Ehhhh, both are whiners. - They say Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has wanderlust and doesn't pay attention to the issues at hand. He's a Leo -- save that wanderlust for us in the Sagittarius clan. - Worst reason not to ban smoking: "... it's kind of stupid because so many people smoke [in Glendale]." Uhhhhhhh. - Al Gore's youngest daughter got married last night in Beverly......

We may have naysayed in the past, but it looks like the Olympic movement for LA is finally coming together -- with some help from the movie industry. Apparently, the 18-34 demographic is losing interest in the games -- so LA is committing to bringing it back, by presenting us with this video produced by Dave Stewart (of The Eurythmics) called Battle Olympia: After the jump, a snippet of the Southern California Committee for......

Do you have State Farm Insurance? Your rates might be finally going down. (SFV Biz Journal, Registration Required [but worth it, it's free]) What if the City threw a $60,000 meeting and no one showed up? It just might happen at the next Congress of Neighborhoods. (CityWatch) 2006 brought the hottest summer ever for Los Angeles. Too bad we didn't pass Prop 87 and are all still using our cars and polluting the skies,......

By now you surely know that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in a motorcycle accident this weekend while tooling around Brentwood with his son tucked into a sidecar. You probably also know that he doesn't have a motorcycle license, and hasn't thought about getting one in the last 37 years. But if the idea of an unlicensed Governor bothers you, why worry? Spokeswoman Margita Thompson says that since the motorcycle had a sidecar, it counts......

This is California's execution chamber. Our taxes pay for it, so in some sense it's our responsibility. But right now there's not a darn thing we can do to prevent Stan Tookie Williams from walking in there at 12:01am next Tuesday to die. It's not like people aren't trying to stop the execution. The NAACP is flying around the state urging clemency, attracting the attention of the press. (There are also those calling for......

As noted in LAObserved.com yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published a story this weekend about Los Angeles mayoral candidates wooing various financial backers for support. Candidates are going to need full coffers in order to pay for the heavy TV advertising necessary to compete in this spring's election. Reporter Michael Finnegan wrote: The top contenders for mayor of Los Angeles have jostled for months to make a favorable impression on Eric Bauman. Four have......

Our pals at DCist have posted the "Election Imbibing" Drinking game. LAist would like to localize a few rules on their list: Take 1 drink every time: you hear Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger indian casinos "I'm out here in the Valley" hospitals "we'll have cool night skys this Election night" surplus state property Take 3 Drinks When/If: Someone mentions Paris Hilton Stephanie Powers Richard Riordan......

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, proving once again that he never met a photo-op he didn't like, tooled up to the brand new BP station just down the road from LAX and topped off his Hummer's tank the other day. Ho-hum, just another day in the life of our action-star-turned-girlie man-exterminating head of state, right? Not really. This fill-up cost a cool $10 a gallon, and the Hummer in question was a custom-built hydrogen-powered SUV of......

LAist was intrigued this morning to find out (via the Los Angeles Times) that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to back a $3 billion stem cell initiative which totally goes against the current administration's position on such scientific research. Even more startling is the fact that both the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets have yet to pick up on the irony in Schwarzenegger's decision to take such a position -- that the......