Back in July the Daily News went head on with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. They said he had checked out, gone AWOL, took a powder and was disengaged. "Just one year into his second term, with no big election or high-powered appointment to look forward to, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seems to have run out of steam. He's acting like a lame-duck official - but with three years still to go," the paper said. more ›

One of the most vocal and high-profile local protesters of Arizona's controversial new immigration law is Cardinal Roger Mahony, who braved the crowds yesterday to attend and speak out at the immigration reform march and rally in Downtown Los Angeles. more ›

Thousands of people filled the streets of Downtown Los Angeles today to take part in a march and rally held to bring attention to the issue of immigration reform and immigrants' rights. more ›

A May Day march and rally focused on immigration reform and rights taking place in Downtown today may turn out to be less well-attended and far more orderly than anticipated, LA Now is reporting. more ›

Unaware of how serious a threat the advancing fire posed, two LA County firefighters were killed during last year's massive Station Fire when their truck fell 800 feet off the side of a fire road south of Acton. A report released yesterday by the Los Angeles County Fire Department "blames poor communication as a major factor" in the August 30th deaths of Arnaldo Quinones and Tedmund Hall, according to the Star-News. more ›

Last Friday, a federal judge lifted a federal consent decree that oversaw the Los Angeles Police Department for eight years in order to reform patterns and practice of excessive force, false arrests and unreasonable searches and seizures. It was placed over the agency after the infamous Rampart Scandal in which anti-gang officers working in the named division were implicated in a plethora of crimes over several years. more ›

Last week the fifth and final White House Regional Forum on Health Reform took place at the California Endowment in downtown Los Angeles. Speakers included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes, Childrens Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman, and the event was moderated by Dr Mehmet Oz who appears regularly on the Oprah show. A preselected audience shared personal stories, and some questions were chosen from those submitted at the Obama administration's Health Reform site. more ›

They keep piling on. Today, "the governor placed a $900 million bond measure on the ballot to provide low-interest home loans to returning veterans of current and recent wars," reports John Myers at KQED's Capitol Notes. And there could be more to come, he says. Three of them could be a water bond, a budget reform proposal and a reform of the lottery initiative to raise money for the state budget. Now that's fifteen props and there's still talk a possibility of more, up to eighteen. Eeek! Talk about a few months with lots of commercials, flyers and debate. more ›

We've been hot on the trail of friend-of-LAist Jacob Soboroff and his Why Tuesday? voting-system reform initiative and 2008 campaign coverage. This morning he sent in an interview with our very own Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who was in New Hampshire yesterday to check out the efficiency of that state's No. 2 pencil-driven computerized voting systems. more ›