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......

Lakers 108, Mavs 104, OT - The Laker's season just keeps getting sweeter. This time, it was all Kobe Bryant -- who managed to score even when triple-teamed. End result? 52 points, including 22 in the 4th quarter and 8 in OT. It was the first game between the refurbished Laker's (Pau Gasol had 17 points and 14 rebounds) and the refurbished Mavs (Jason Kidd had 15 points and 11 assists). The win keeps Los......

Sara Melson has been in LA for some time now after graduating from Harvard with a degree in English (she's shy about this fact). First it was acting, now it is music. She loves living in classic Los Angeles area neighborhoods, especially those with history, roots and the word "canyon" in it. Currently living in Beachwood Canyon, which she describes as a "true oasis," her past homes have been Topanga Canyon and Laurel Canyon, both......

An academic and ethical scandal has jarred the staff and students at Harvard-Westlake school, as the consequences of cheating reverberate on the school's campus. Six tenth-graders were expelled from the prestigious Valley private high school yesterday when administrators discovered they had enacted a plot to "steal Spanish and history tests by distracting teachers in their classrooms. The tests were then shown to several other students before midterm exams last month," reports KTLA. Other students who......

Back in 2004, two Harvard graduates decided to make a dating website with the vision that dating should be free. Since then, OkCupid.com has gained 525,000 active users (meaning active within the last 8 weeks), climbing their way up to the top of the online dating empire, possibly freaking out Match.com, which has an estimated 1.3 million users. In Los Angeles alone, OkCupid has 54,000 registers users (including Tom from MySpace... maybe that's him, maybe......

Romantic poetry pasted on a phone pole near Western and Franklin | Photo is reader submitted Any girl or boy who would love to have received a Valentine's Day present like this is a girl or boy for LAist's love. Above is the middle of a poem, or more accurately, number 8 of 15 parts of the poem pasted on poles around LA. It's like a scavenger hunt, or at least a good lengthy......

President Bush landed this morning at LAX for a Southland visit to promote the free trade agreements he mentioned in Monday's State of the Union address with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. LAX shut down temporarily to accommodate the arrival of Air Force One, and at the airport Bush was greeted by sisters Marni and Berni Barta, two Harvard-Westlake students who founded a program called Kid Flicks, which "collects new and used DVDs that are......

Tonight’s the next installment of the LA Phil’s Concrete Frequency series, but here are other options we've dug up for your going-out pleasure: DANCE Hollywood Ballet is LA's own modern ballet ensemble. Tonight's show includes premieres of "RQ 21," set to sections of Mozart’s Requiem; "Ghost Frog," set to music by Parisian jazz guitar virtuoso Pascal Vaucel; lyrical/Middle Eastern fusion dance set to the ballet music from Verdi‘s Aid. Dancers from the troupe’s pre-professional group,......

The list is a little long this week since I'm including the Christmas Day openers. Having already raved about There Will Be Blood yesterday, I'll lead off with what some are calling the best horror film of the year, The Orphanage. For any horror fan who's tired of torture porn and bad Japanese re-makes, this is the movie for you. Grim and spare, it's a horror film for adults and Spain's foreign-language entrant for......

There's still time to win Tori Amos tickets -- the concert ends tonight at midnight! To enter the contest, leave a comment telling us what your favorite Tori song is. Get over there and put the damage on! An update on the Sherman Oaks apartment fire that left one person dead: authorities have ID'd the victim as a 63-year-old man who died at the hospital after receiving second- and third-degree burns. There was another......

It always seems that Coldwater Canyon Blvd. is flooded. Early this morning, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported an 8 inch broken main causing "severe" flooding between Ventura Blvd. and Mulholland Dr., shutting down the canyon traffic corridor. Muholland Dr. is also closed down between Coldwater Cyn. and Benedict Cyn. due to mud and debris. Then at 6:45 a.m., the most unusual and seemingly non sequitar update from the fire department came in:The flooding......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

It's starting to feel a little like Fall: an "unseasonably strong and cold storm system" is headed our way. Bundle up! How green was Burning Man this year? Elsa Wenzel from CNet's News.com explains her perspective: "As a first-time Burner, I've finally shaken the playa dust from my shoes and mind to conclude that it was perhaps the most and the least eco-friendly mega-event I've attended." With a name like Inland Empire, you deserve......

It's one-thirty in the morning and Harvard Avenue is empty of vehicles. Residents stand huddled on the sidewalk. "Are they coming back?" they murmur plaintively, asking anybody or perhaps nobody. "Temporary No Parking" signs are still posted which, along with a bit or confusion and resentment on the part of the residents, is all that remains as evidence that a Film Crew has been in possession of the street for the last 30 hours.......

Comets 82, Sparks 72 - A long and painful season is over for the Sparks. Without a preggo Lisa Leslie, the team crashed and burned through the final half of the season, finishing with an overall record of 10-24. If you're really eager to check out some professional women's sports in LA, how about a football game later this week? Dodgers 4, Rockies 3 - The Dodgers took the rubber game in a 2-1 series......

Always a voyeur but never a buyer? Maybe Art for Autism this weekend will change your mind. The Santa Monica Music Center this weekend is featuring art from 3 artists with 25% of all proceeds going to the Cure Autism Now Foundation. Where - “The Upstairs Gallery” 1901 Santa Monica Blvd. (upstairs off 19th street), Santa Monica, CA 90401 When - Sunday, July 29, 2007 from 1-6 PM Who - Raymond Fernandez: Working in......

Even when you are an dishonest person, a tiny bit of honesty can go a long way. LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo could have avoided a week of scrutiny if he only told the truth a week and a half ago when asked by reporters if his wife was using his city-assigned vehicle when it was damaged and paid for by the taxpayers. Instead, he avoided questions for a simple answer until the LA Times......

- Are you a racist? Are you sure? Take this quiz and find out - Harvard.edu - Two Chatsworth High baseball players drafted in the first round of the MLB draft - Daily News - Lede of the day: "Two false eyelashes. A maroon-colored toilet. Brandy snifters, burning candles, a Viagra three-pack and a box of Mylanta tablets. These formed part of the tableau de l’amour that cops and coroners found at Phil Spector’s......

Yes, that's Alex Trebek. No, he hasn't lost it. The Jeopardy! College Championships are going down at the University of Southern California and it looks like he's feeling the Spirit of Troy. College students could always use some extra cash, so one smart-Alex is going to walk away with $100,000 to pay for books and Ramen a new plasma TV and Trump steaks. A potpourri of California schools have been represented on the program this......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

- The Police will play Dodger Stadium on July 23. There's that number again - NBC 4 - Gov. Schwarzenegger's killer plan to export California prisoners out of Cali and let other states deal with our problem was declared "unlawful" by Sacto County Superior Court judge - The Merc - "Homeboy Goes to Harvard" founder speaks to Reseda's Cleveland High thanks to people like Fluke Fluker - LA Daily News - Over 28,000 people......

USC's Annenberg School for Communication has narrowed its search for a new dean to five candidates and will conduct meetings with the candidates -- open to students and faculty -- over the next few weeks. Last year Dean Geoffrey Cowan announced that he would step down after two five-year terms as dean of the Annenberg School, leading many to speculate on a qualified successor. He was endowed with the inaugural Annenberg Family Chair in Communication......

A Word or 24: The now much-maligned Lost is back. OK so this is a bad show compared to what else on (basic cable) TV right now? Tonight - Wednesday - February 7th, 2007 Sharks @ Ducks (Fox Sports, 7:00 p.m.) College Basketball: USC @ UCLA (PRIME, 7:30 p.m) Friday Night Lights (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Racial tension brews in the Panthers locker room, or is it the Jaguars? Some kind of animal. Criminal Minds/CSI:......

Voluntary Trans Fats Bans Announced Today & Other Body News "Harvard University researchers link trans fats and the coronary damage they cause to as many as 100,000 premature deaths a year. Los Angeles County was contemplating a law banning trans fats, but recently found that it doesn't have the legal authority to do so. Instead, both the county and the city are announcing new, voluntary initiatives Tuesday." (The California Report [MP3 Warning]) From Paramount......

Next for the New York Times in LA: Gangs "At twilight on Friday, in the heart of the territory of the latest notorious Los Angeles gang, a woman in a passing car calls out a tip to Officer Dan Robbins, sending him racing toward a corner and a man he believes is a member of the 204th Street gang." (New York Times) Occidental College claims Obama "U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is usually described as......

A Word or 80: Spent the weekend in Canada, my first visit, in the province of Quebec to be exact. I found the radio programming to be innovative and excellent but television sucked. I'm sure there's some good programmes (please give me cred for the spelling) out there but in a first glance/overview kind of perspective it was wanting. Dear Canuck friends, don't take it personally, American TV sucks for the most part as......

Oops. Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover A 35-year-old woman was kidnapped yesterday afternoon as she left her nurse's job at a patient's house near Vanowen and Whitsett in North Hollywood. A few hours later she was abandoned in the backseat of her car, still alive and bound with duct tape, in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Valley College, near Fulton Avenue and Burbank Boulevard. During the kidnap, she was stripped......

Compared to other guys, Tom is also more organized, less sloppy, aggressive, thrifty and adventurous. Would Tom actually divulge all this information on a small MySpace competitor site created by Harvard grads called OKCupid!? Ahhhh... myspace-icide. Apparently, "Tom" is e-mailing cute women and trying to set them up with his friends. Maybe he and his crew have found that Beverly Hills women are boring. Not a smart PR move if it is really him.......

Did you know that where you live equals when you'll die? Well, sort of. NPR reports that according to a new Harvard study, your location, how much you earn, and many other duh factors contribute to how long your life will be. That’s good news for Californians. We rank number 10 in the nation for longevity, which puts us in the… let’s see… fifty… plus a district… carry the one… divide by percentile squared…......

Writers, directors and artists of all stripes are often told, "Write what you know," but few filmmakers accomplish this as successfully as Andrew Bujalski. At age 29 the Boston-based filmmaker has directed two well-received feature films, both of which are set in a post-college, indie rock milieu that he seems to know intimately. Describing his own post-college experience Bujalski says, "Since college I've basically been pursuing these loony little independent movies." Funny Ha Ha......