The LA Times and Bloomberg just released a poll at 2 p.m. on the presidential race. Obama now holds a 12 point lead over McCain. Perhaps the most interesting part of the poll is that among white voters, Obama and McCain are dead even at 39% each. Also, the Gallup Daily shows a much tighter margin with "Obama winning on key issues." Today, Obama is in Los Angeles at the Music Center fundraising with Hollywood.......

Photo taken yesterday at West Hollywood Park by Tom Andrews/LAist Now that same-sex marriage is here for a joyful four-point-five months before Californians determine the fate of the institution when voting on the California Marriage Protection Act in November, it's going to be a fight. Each poll varies on the outcome of what Californians think, but for the most part, results are negligible and the state seems split 50-50. KNBC's political commenter, Sherry Bebitch......

A poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times/KTLA has found that Californians are practically split even on the issue of gay marriage, which was deemed legal last week by the California Supreme Court. The findings on their website, which was posted yesterday afternoon, time stamped for today, has already garnered over 3,000 comments. Let the fight begin... "The survey also suggested that the state is moving closer to accepting nontraditional marriages, which could create openings......

Photo © Copyright 2008 by Jonathan Alcorn (Sundogg) via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr One of the gunmen involved in yesterday's Glassell Park shootout has been identified as a member of the Avenues gang. Daniel Ivan Leon was killed by police following his participation in a fatal drive-by shooting that claimed one life. Ok, so there wasn't anyone jumping onto the 110 Freeway today, but there was a police pursuit on the......

Mitt Romney is the consummate, cookie-cutter, robot-like Republican. Forget about eliciting animation or human emotion from this wanna-be prez. Even his campaign henchmen lack the ability to opine on, well, just about anything, as evidenced below. Romney is lucky to have 30 delegates on his side after Iowa and New Hampshire. Problem is, it takes 1,191 to win the Republican nomination. The 60-year-old former Massachusetts governor does have one or two things going for him,......

Ducks 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT - The Ducks managed to kill 7-of-9 power plays and converted three of their own to take down Columbus in overtime. Samuel Pahlsson scored for the OC boys on a penalty shot. Anaheim has won three of their last four and moved into a three-way tie for fourth in the Western Conference, just two points behind second place Dallas, who leads the Pacific Division. Kings 4, Canucks 2 -......

On Monday, we previewed the Democratic candidates in the run up to the Feb. 5 California Primary and Jan. 31 Iowa Caucus. Today, we'll look at each Republican candidate vying to be the leader of the GOP world as we prepare to profile all candidates on a deeper level than this brief glimpse allows. All poll numbers cited are from Pollster.com, unless otherwise noted, and are current as of Dec. 2. While we will......

With two months left until the Feb. 5 California Primary and 31 days until the Iowa Caucus, candidates from both parties are in full election cycle mode as they try to convince voters of their cause. As we countdown to the Jan. 31 caucus and the CA. Primary, let's take a look at each candidate from the parties in a primer that is not intended to be complete but is meant to offer a brief......

Rockets 88, Clippers 71 - Just as Corey Maggette and Brevin Knight returned from injuries, Sam Cassell went down with one. He's doubtful for Friday. The battered Clippers hung tough with Houston until the 4th quarter when Tracy McGrady helped Houston blow it wide open. Maggette had 21 points in his return, and Chris Kaman led the team with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Los Angeles has now dropped seven of nine after winning the......

Travel + Leisure's November 2007 issue features a fun little ditty called America's Favorite Cities. They've asked people from all over the country to rate 25 well-known cities on everything from culture and nightlife to public transportation and weather. We're not quite sure who these 60,000 respondents think they are, but they don't have anything nice to say about our fair city. Oh, except for the fact that we have nice shops. Los Angeles......

The LA Times is reporting today that Metro may be seriously looking at an extremely different route for half of the proposed Purple Line subway extension that would take commuters from Downtown to Santa Monica. However, the idea discussed here would take underground riders from the Hollywood/Highland station to Wilshire Blvd. along Santa Monica Blvd., traveling through West Hollywood and Beverly Hills hitting near the Beverly Center mall and Cedars-Sinai:The new concept is still......

Last week's devastating Agua Dulce/Santa Clarita Valley wildfire was started accidentally by a "male juvenile" playing with matches, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department announced Tuesday. The Buckweed Fire blackened over 38,000 acres, destroyed more than 60 structures, and led to an estimated $7.4 million in damages. On October 22, one day after the blaze began, a detective questioned a "boy" who "admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," according to the Sheriff's......

After the Trojans' plummet in the polls following the loss to Stanford and the release of the first BCS poll, many thought the team couldn't or wouldn't drop any further. Not so, as the AP is reporting that a chartered plane with 82 players aboard, headed to Indiana for tomorrow's Notre Dame game experienced an extreme drop while flying through a severe thunderstorm. Weather was so bad that the pilot had to abandon his first......

According to an MSNBC online poll participated by over 16,000 people, Texas Congressman Ron Paul won the GOP Michigan debate in a landslide. Sister-station, CNBC, who hosted the debate also had an online poll but they, like Pajamas Media, took it down when they saw that the most conservative congressman in office was winning by such a wide margin. When asked who they thought was standing out from the pack, Paul, who favors the......

How good is the USC football team? The AP poll says the SC is the second best team in the country... this week. Regardless of the polls, there is evidence that even while playing the worst possible game they could, SC is still pretty good. It might seem hard to defend their performance on Saturday, but I'm going to try. The Trojans were penalized 16 times for 161 yards, yet still finished with more than......

LA-based Pajamas Media hates their poll so much that recently it had to remove its winners so that the politicians that they're rooting for will have a chance. PJ Media, who has had a tragic history of fuckups, embarrassments, and going nowhere despite raising millions of dollars, have been holding online straw polls for months. After results of a poll that started the week of September 16th were tallied, anti-war Democratic presidential nominee Dennis Kucinich's......

Ducks 4, Kings 1 - After Los Angeles shocked Anaheim 4-1 in Saturday's season opener in London (yes, London), the defending champs showed who really is king. Despite 10 goals in two days, British fans were reportedly most excited about a good ol' fashioned hockey fight. Welcome back, NHL. Welcome back. A's 3, Angels 2 - The AL West champion Halos hit a skid when they clinched the pennant, but they saved face in their......

Here at LAist we believe in democracy, and allowing our readers to voice their opinions. East L.A.'s (least) favorite son, Oscar De La Hoya, got caught with his pants down and fishnets up. Everyone from Mario Lopez to ODLH's lawyer have claimed that these photos are fake, but other girls are coming out with pictures of ODLH in fishnets. The latest pictures have ODLH wearing white fishnets while the first one has him wearing......

It's better than winning the lottery. LAist is running three contests right now: a pair of tickets for Bright Eyes with the LA Philharmonic for this Saturday, a pair of VIP passes to LA Weekly's Detour Festival on October 6 and a pair of tickets for next The Crystal Method at The Roxy next tuesday. Speaking of Detour, the line-ups and stages were announced today Hopefully, citizens won't get cheated as much anymore: the......

Mayor Tony stood before a media gaggle at 7th & Fig in February and announced the birth of "LA Version 2.0." Free citywide Wi-Fi for all within two years, he proclaimed, momentarily appeasing critics and activists who have called for municipal funds and programs to help bridge the digital divide. But the skeptics among us are well aware of the extensive headaches and limited progress of the once-supposed trailblazing municipal Wi-Fi proposals in Philadelphia and......

Back in 2004 when both the University of Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech defected to the ACC from the Big East conference (and Boston College the following year), critics around the country proclaimed the Big East to be a dead football conference. The Big East had the threat of losing their BCS conference status especially after they added Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida to their ranks. What a difference several years make. While the......

The fallout from Appalachian State’s upset over Michigan extended beyond Michigan falling out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll. The AP announced on Thursday that lower division schools are now eligible to be included in the poll. It’s great that the Championship Subdivision (aka Division I-AA) has a chance of being ranked alongside the big boys. While I highly doubt that a team even as accomplished as Appalachian State will crack the Top......

Texas congressman Ron Paul pointed his pen at his fellow conservatives at the New Hampshire presidential debates yesterday and won the Fox News text message poll, a day after winning the Maryland Republican Straw Vote, to the outrage of Fox mouthpiece, Sean Hannity. Hannity, who clearly hates freedom and obviously believes that all elections and polls that aren't rigged by Karl Rove must be rigged, flat out accused the American people of cheating when......

With such a groundswell of support for Ron Paul, why isn't the GOP embracing the most conservative congressman on the hill? According to this video, seen on Capitol Annex, Paul delegates who arrived on time at an event in Texas were not allowed to vote. Why wouldn't the GOP be interested in a candidate who could get a lot of Democrats to vote "this one time only" for a man who wants to get......

After taking a plea and admitting to participating in and sponsoring dogfighting on his own property, the NFL has finally convened on the matter and decided to suspend Michael Vick indefinitely without pay. In plain English this means that he is done playing football in the NFL. So what now? Maybe when he is turned loose in 12--18 months, Arena Football will get its hands on their very own Beckham! Except Beckham never tortured and......

Angels 10, Red Sox 4 - LAnaheim has won the first two games in a clash of baseball's best records. Gary Matthews, Jr. shone with 4 RBI, 3 runs, and 3 hits in five at-bats. He hit a homer in the 8th and robbed another from Boston's Coco Crisp. Joe Saunders allowed four runs on eight hits, but still got the win on just 5 and 1/3 innings of work thanks to a five run......

As just the latest of high-profile California lawmakers to endorse her presidential bid, Senator Dianne Feinstein should add a bit more West Coast mojo to Hillary Clinton's already momentous campaign. The latest poll figures have her up 49% to 24% over Barack Obama in California, and she is leading the field in most other early primary states — though not in the fund-raising department, where Obama is kicking some serious tush. Her latest California......

On today's LAist poll, over 80% of you readers are willing to pony up for a subway to the sea. Is anybody at City Hall listening? Or does Zuma Dogg have to get all wacky on their asses? The LAT names two new managing editors. To whom do I write to protest the axing of West Magazine? About 200 employees were evacuated from UCLA today after a basement explosion; no injuries reported. 16-year-old Victor......

Guest Day Editor Zuma Dogg will be joining LAist with a few posts throughout the day. Read his introductory interview here and check out his site as well as Mayor Sam where he contributes. He also wrote an article in the current edition of the LA Weekly The city and state are basing some of their major plans on the fact that you are going to vote to approve more bond money out of your......

On Today's LAist poll, the majority of readers say yes to separating the Purple Line from what some dub as the Pink Line, which would serve the transit-ready WeHo. Keep those votes coming in! After Sherman Torgan's unexpected death last week, the New Beverly reopens tonight. Come on. Give them some love. You know you wanna. If you want to be able to afford living in Downtown LA, maybe the could-be-passed-into-law 250 sq. ft.......