Ah, yes...just a few sports-centric guys sitting around getting make-up put on, talking about getting the "meat sweats." Then one of those guys--Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke--throws this humdinger out about his travels in China: "Then I went to a penis restaurant, and ate some penis." more ›

Yesterday, the battered-but-still-standing Los Angeles Times announced that it's receiving a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation. The grant is good for two years, and with the money, the Times says that it plans to "expand its coverage of key beats, including immigration and ethnic communities in Southern California." Specifically, they'll be adding five new reporters dedicated to writing about state prisons, Brazil, immigrant communities like the local Vietnamese and Korean populations, and the border area. more ›

Are our local cities paying the price for legal troubles? A data set compiled and released by the L.A. Times ranks spending on city attorneys in the 88 cities in Los Angeles County. more ›

An audit of the Los Angeles County De­part­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­ily Ser­vices found that workers were falsifying mileage reports in order to get paid for drives they didn't take. The LA Times broke the story, and reported that 40% of the department's employees were reimbursed for phony trips. more ›

The photos of U.S. soldiers posing with the corpses of Afghan bombers have shocked the globe today, and the White House is none too happy that the graphic images were published. Given to the LA Times by a soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division, the pictures show soldiers, reportedly from the 82nd Airborne Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team, striking mocking poses with the deceased. more ›

Eight years after photographs of U.S. soldiers torturing prisoners at Abu Gharib shocked the country and world, there's now a set of photographs showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with body parts of bombers. The photo were given to the LA Times, which reports that the soliders were initially supposed to get iris scans and fingerprints to ID "the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber." more ›

Food critic Jonathan Gold recently made waves when it was announced that he was leaving his longtime home at the LA Weekly to write for the LA Times' new "Saturday" section. But it turns out that's not all Mr. Gold had up his sleeve with his new career trajectory -- Kevin Roderick of LA Observed reports that Gold is also debuting a new column in Smithsonian Magazine. more ›

Why has the internet gone apeshit spreading the news that LA Weekly's food critic Jonathan Gold is headed to the LAT? We take a look at the certainty of errors in reporting a known uncertainty. more ›

Whether Los Angeles can "be bike-friendly and film-friendly at the same time," is the crux of an opinion piece published in today's Times about the effect the new boldly green bike lanes on Spring Street in Downtown have affected the film and TV biz. more ›

A freshly fired Los Angeles Times pressman shared some shocking details about the publication's termination policies, recent employee suicides and impending layoff of writers with The Frying Pan editor Steven Mikulan. more ›

Over the past few months, at least two Hollywood professionals who work with underage actors have faced charges involving sexual offenses against children. The incidents have prompted a bill that would require all adults who work with kids in the entertainment industry to submit to a background check, reports the LA Times, and would prevent registered sex offenders from working with kids. more ›

After announcing that Vanessa and Kobe Bryant had filed for divorce, the LA Times reported that the Lakers star's soon-to-be ex-wife stands to collect a "windfall" during their settlement. Vanessa could indeed be awarded up to $75 million, but according to a blog post at the Times today, a reader pointed out -- and rightly so -- that the use of the word "windfall" smacked not just a little bit of sexism. more ›

Dry those eyes and stop listening to "Always" on repeat. Jon Bon Jovi is not dead. He's still livin' on a prayer and appears to be enjoying the holidays in his old 'hood of New Jersey. more ›

We eagerly followed last night's developments at Occupy LA and while the event was resolved through mostly peaceful arrests the implied threats from police and curtailment of media access was troubling. --- E!'s "The Soup" moves to Wednesdays. --- The TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan. more ›

Native Californian and artist John Baldessari lives in the aesthetic ghetto of Los Angeles, and in a recent talk with the L.A. Times' Christopher Knight, said plainly that this city's ugliness is a necessity for him to create his art. more ›

The death of print might not be a vague ghost of the future, but rather a concrete fact, complete with a timeline. In an interview with former LA Weekly editor Steve Mikulan, LA Times pressman Ed Padgett tells Mikulan that the Times' senior Vice President has told him that the paper will only be printed for three more years more ›

When a man was stabbed recently on the Metro, it so happened that standing five feet away from him was Todd Martens, a music reporter with the LA Times. Martens has recounted what he saw to numerous media outlets already, including the LA Times. The victim and attacker, he said, were engaged in a shouting match when the victim grabbed a chain and began swinging it over his head. more ›

Skewered in a L.A. Times opinion piece, Zooey Deschanel has posted an open letter to Patt Morrison on Hello Giggles, accusing the journalist of launching a "misguided personal attack" and spinning a baseless caricature of the actress/singer by taking a quote fragment out of context. more ›

The end of the Oprah Era means more than the loss of a national anticipation for 4:00 p.m., heart-wrenching exposés, couch-jumping shenanigans and free cars; it also marks the departure of one of the largest book clubs in history. Swaying millions of viewers to read the kinds of books that put Cliff’s Notes in business proves that there is power in community reading. more ›

The L.A. Times made a big step toward boosting its bottom line without laying anybody off today. In fact, Los Angeles Times Media Group announced a significant hire, naming Emily Smith its first ever Senior Vice President of Digital. more ›

A detailed and easy to use 'budget balancer' is ready for your thoughtful and frugal fingers to attempt a red-ink elimination from the California budget. Says the L.A. Times, "The state's budget shortfall for the rest of this fiscal year and next, estimated to be $28 billion, is the size of the total general fund budget of 12 states combined: Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia." That's so a dare. more ›

NBC announced its midseason Thursday night line up for 8pm-11pm: “Community”, “Perfect Couples”, “The Office”, “Parks and Recreation”, “30 Rock”, and “Outsourced”. The LA Times responded to this by asking the moronic question "Can you laugh after 10pm?" Okay, sure, they referenced HBO's "Entourage" which airs at 10pm on Sundays but that's not what this is about. Of course, the Times might have asked the question in order to get a discussion going but not listing any weeknight comedy shows in the 10pm slot is silly. more ›

As noted in Sunday's edition of Extra, Extra, gubernatorial candidate Democrat Jerry Brown is leading Republican opponent Meg Whitman 52% to 39%, according to the latest LA Times/USC poll, which was released this weekend. The poll, conducted by two firms -- one Democrat and one Republican -- surveyed 1,501 California voters, of which 922 were likely voters. The margin of error is 3.2 points, but widens when subgroups are examined. more ›

L.A.'s bigger newspapers are starting to roll out endorsements for high profile races. The LA Times this weekend took to the Democrats and the Daily News sided with Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Carly Fiorina. more ›

In what used to be her daughter's bedroom, Joanne Clarke of Costa Mesa, is now raising marijuana plants. She opened up her home to reporter for a piece on the current crop of legal at-home growers of the medicinal plant, which is published in today's LA Times. more ›

Earlier this month, the seventh annual FYF Fest took place at the LA State Historic Park near Chinatown, and while the numbers -- 37 bands across three stages with 17 comedians and an estimated 20,000 attendees -- are impressive, the consensus among many was how disorganized the event was, as exemplified by tweets like "FYF = fuck you fans fest," "Almost 3 hours to get into @FYFFEST = FAIL," "@FYFFEST is like a hipster concentration camp," "Hey @fyffest maybe you wouldn't run out of water if you let us bring some inside. It's only 95 degrees. Jus sayin'," and "Fuck lines fest more like @FYFFEST." more ›