On Monday, California Highway Patrol officers announced that several students at El Camino High in Oceanside had died over the weekend because of drunk-driver incidents. In fact, so many fell victim, 26 in all, some students thought there might have been a gang shooting. Tears, screams and all the emotions were heard throughout classrooms. Then, at some point later in the day, came the "just kidding! Don't drink and drive, kids." Students were outraged, but......

Photo by r_neches via Flickr Yesterday, parents his the streets of downtown Los Angeles to protest decisions made by the Los Angeles Unified School District who denied space for charter schools, which are still public schools, but are run differently. The LA Times explains: Charter schools are public campuses that are typically authorized by local school districts but run independently. There are more than 100 authorized by the Los Angeles Unified School District, and......

LAUSD officials trying to stop tomorrow's massive one-hour teacher strike has failed -- a judge struck down the request for a restraining order and the Public Employee Relations Board decided not to file an injunction against the action earlier this week. Union teachers will protest during the first hour of school across the city because of Gov. Schwarzengegger’s plan to cut $3.8 billion from public education, which is expected to affect $350 million of LAUSD's......

Photo by r_neches via Flickr "As parents, we are ready to fight this. We are ready to have protests and boycotts and do whatever is necessary to ensure adequate funding for our schools and for social services that affect children and their families," states a petition released by a group calling themselves Parents for Full Funding. Ron Kaye, ex-editor of the Daily News, sees this as a movement that's the seed beginnings of civil......

Good news for the Los Angeles area as Santa Monica High School placed top honors today at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. The bowl was created in 1991 "encourage high school students to excel in mathematics and science and to pursue careers in these fields," according to KCBS. North Hollywood High School, also competing, tied for sixth place after losing to Santa Monica. The Los Angeles Department of Water......

Just like a certain marijuana ATM that was introduced to the world via Los Angeles last month, USC began their medicinal vending machine program this week in the dorms. No, it won't have any smokable green, but it will carry over-the-counter drugs and condoms. While most students quoted in a Daily Trojan article about the new service are excited about the program, they found someone unhappy with one aspect of it. Ana Hernandez, a freshman......

The state's budget woes may soon have a massive casualty list to its credit, culled from our already ailing school systems. Who's getting kicked out of school? Educators! Late next week, teachers and administrative staff from public schools around the state will find out they may soon be unemployed, reports the Daily News. "The layoff letters, which by law must go out by Saturday, could number in the tens of thousands, school officials warn."......

Four Los Angeles area schools went into lockdown yesterday, the one thought to have the most potential danger in Pasadena at Blair International Baccalaureate Magnet School. An early morning report by a student saying someone had a gun prompted a lockdown that lasted throughout the day. Later in the day, police detained one male juvenile for questioning, but no further details have been released. The Pasadena Star News reported students inside the school "got on......

Photo by qnr via Flickr The school lockdown bug has hit! Here's what's happening out there: The big incident today is in Pasadena where a student reported another student with something that looked like a weapon. The situation is reported to be almost over (LAist) Pete Knight High School in Palmdale is on lockdown with students being let out of school class by class due to racial tension (KNX1070 on air) Two schools in......

The Advocate, a pro-life student-run UCLA magazine, released it's quarterly issue (.pdf) this week with an investigative report on sketchy fundraising practices at Planned Parenthood. Their lede reads: Over the summer, The Advocate investigated the financial dealings of Planned Parenthood and made some shocking discoveries about the clinic-owning “nonprofit.” We obtained the information by having an actor call clinics across the country and pose as a donor. The actor who called, The Advocate’s advisor, communicated......

Tonight is round three of an ongoing David & Goliath battle between LA’s Eco-Village Community and the heavily funded Los Angeles Unified School District. The Los Angeles Eco-Village Intentional Community (LAEV-IC) is an internationally recognized sustainable community and is part of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED-Neighborhood Development pilot program. At issue the fact that in order to build Central Region Elementary School #20 in the neighborhood, the LAUSD wants to raze approximately 40 units......

An innocent victim meeting a stray bullet is not a completely unexpected occurrence in any of the regions detailed on the LAPD's gang injunction map (view the PDF). But it is not often that bullets are sprayed on an unsuspecting crowd (of mostly kids) at a bus stop at 3:15 on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, which is what occurred earlier near Vernon and Central in South LA. Three girls, ages 10, 11 and 12, and......

Photo by _e.t. via Flickr Whether you are a carnivore or herbivore, the question these days is about your locavore status. Does the word sound familiar to you? It won the 2007 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year Award. Via VegNews Magazine: If you really want to lighten your carbon footprint, don' just go vegan, go locavore. That means buying food locally to avoid the burning of fossil fuels entailed by long-distance......

Samantha Sidley and Alex Silverman at their Silver Lake rehearsal space | Photo via their MySpace page Alex & Sam may be a duo in title, but their fairly large band, sometimes up to twelve-members on stage, is quite a force of music that just puts a smile on your face. You can't really corner them into a jazz-blues rock or straight rock category. All we can say is that on stage, they've got......

February may well be the month of the year we think about love the most, but our local schools are banking on us sharing our love with them right now, too. This month, a project called "LA Loves Its Schools" is taking place. It's a donation drive based on the pages of DonorsChoose.Org that calls for caring individuals to pitch in a little to help local schools, classrooms, and teachers get the things they need......

UPDATE, 4:12 P.M., FRI., FEB. 15: KNBC reports that the Oxnard boy has been taken off life support and "his organs have been given away." UPDATE, 7:00 A.M., TH., FEB. 14: The shooting is now being treated as a murder case with possible hate crime motives. Go to our latest story on the Oxnard school shooting here. UPDATE, 5:33 P.M., WED., FEB. 13: Contrary to what CNN said below, the shooting victim, Lawrence King, is......

Photo by ryanwhiteacre via Flickr In a follow up to "Found in LA: We Know You Went to USC, But Where Did You Learn How to Park?" LAist Featured Photos Flickr contributor, ryanwhiteacre, sent the above to us. We'll be publishing a coffee table book soon, including a section devoted to USC.......

LAPD: "You have three minutes to disperse." See the story from earlier today: 9 USC Students Partied Too Hard Last Night From the blog, SketchyTown:It all started—as most things at the University of Southern California tend to generate from—on Facebook. Advertised by its creator, Mr. Al Ligator—a self-proclaimed party planner—as “the most epic party you have ever seen” with a projected “very large turnout,” the event drew RSVPs from over 1,800 USC students. Soon......

Fire: La Salle Avenue Elementary School sustained damage today, but no injuries were reported, due to a fire on the second floor this afternoon. Rain: A small tornado did indeed land on shore last night in Ventura County which is probably what led the NWS to issue last night's tornado warning for LA. It was an "empty air station hangar at the Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu" that took the hit, losing its......

Fairfax Avenue is the Bomb!!! Declining enrollment and rising costs means less expansion and construction to help relieve overcrowding in LAUSD schools. The LA Times reports that "since the fall, the school system has canceled plans for 19 new schools and additions to existing campuses in South Gate, Bell, Van Nuys, San Fernando, Sun Valley and central Los Angeles, among other areas, citing new enrollment projections." Kids, you don't mind sharing that book, do......

Could you imagine Los Angeles without the Getty Museum? If that serene white chunk of Italian marble nestled above the 405 suddenly removed its bulk to some other parts, would you notice? Would you care? An article in yesterday morning's LA Times reconsiders the Richard Meier-designed edifice in the light of its 10th anniversary, and in doing so, asks some important questions about the nature and integrity of architecture in Los Angeles. "there is......

Molly's Charbroiled Burger, a rickety burger shack on Vine between Selma and Hollywood, is one of those funny little places that is both totally ordinary and totally L.A. -- run by Koreans, with a Mexican line cook, who serve up good old American burgers, fries, hot dogs, burritos, and, um, bulgogi plates. Students at the neighboring film and recording schools swear by the breakfast burritos -- cozy bundles of egg, french-fry hash browns, bacon,......

While the rains yesterday helped alleviate some of the dryness under which southern California has been hampered, it did little to lessen the worries of those in fire-stricken areas. Streaming rivers of rain created mudslides and prompted officials to call for mass evacuations. Flash flood warnings remain in effect. But, hey, it's LA, and today was clear and beautiful. A woman who poisoned her Marine husband to buy a boob job with the insurance......

Where are the best pickup soccer venues in the greater Los Angeles area? -- Bankole O Los Angeles is an enormous city, and soccer is a popular sport. You can find games being played just about everywhere! If you're looking to avoid organized leagues, there's soccer played on a regular basis at Rancho Park, Pan Pacific Park, the Westwood Rec Center, and Mar Vista Park (they have a new-ish turf field which is frequently booked,......

10 Freeway westbound Normandie on-ramp, 8:45 a.m. Imagine a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles with no schools and no government. But the rest of us still had to go to work. Enjoy your Veterans Day Monday commute!......

In a story of truly fucked notions, the LAUSD is short $53-million because they overpaid around 36,000 employees due to a rushed installation and implementation of Business Tools for Schools, a payroll system that couldn't handle calculating the nuances of a teacher's "complicated job assignments and unusual work schedules," according to the LA Times. It's not only that they overpaid employees, they also underpaid and didn't even pay some employees, owing some $7 million.For......

The opening moments of Sharkwater promise what appear to be little more than a beautiful film about the kingdoms of the deep. Plants sway with the current, silver schools of fish move as one and sharks glide effortlessly through the clear water, remote and menacing. Then, one of the more remarkable images I've ever seen suddenly appears: a man is standing on the ocean floor cradling a six-foot shark in his arms and stroking......

Can we please do the OPPOSITE of adding fuel to these fires? A Sun Valley day laborer has been charged with arson after he was caught attempting to start a blaze in the Woodland Hills area earlier this week. Do you use your cell phone? Of course you do. The future of this important device lies in the hands of visionaries, such as the ones who are attending MobileCampLA on Sunday. And you too......

While the Great UCLA Versus USC Debate may never reach a resolution (those damn Trojans are too hard-headed and engorged with pride to recognize true superiority when they see it), all Californians can hold their heads up with pride thanks to our excellent universities. I don't know if you noticed the recent Washington Monthly ratings of the nation's top schools, but they're giving the U.S. News and World Report a run for their money.......

Gearing up for another War on Christmas, combative conservative columnist David Horowitz and the College Republicans are calling out to their hate squad and killing Halloween (not to mention a week of breast cancer awareness month) with what they've dubbed "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." Ann Coulter, recently listed as charging a $25,000 speaker fee by the Premiere Speakers Bureau (and now "call for fee") will speak in the name of Islamo-Fascism Awareness tomorrow night at USC.......