Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

At one elementary school west of downtown Los Angeles, this Halloween provided a lesson in dress up and self-esteem.

L.A. Unified’s top administrators have agreed to conduct regular reviews of a district discipline policy intended to reduce suspensions and drop-outs.

The band the Bags played an important role in Los Angeles’ late 1970s punk rock scene. The band’s lead singer, Alicia Velasquez, aka Alice Bag, has penned a new memoir, “Violence Girl, From East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage — A Chicana Punk Story.”

For the last 40 years, Los Angeles-based poet Wanda Coleman has written about the L.A. she loves — and hates. The University of Pittsburgh Press has just published her 19th book, looking at her life in Southern California.

Activists welcomed a new Los Angeles School Police policy Thursday that ends what they called overly aggressive truancy sweeps.

The White House announced Monday that a Southern California psychiatrist has been chosen to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal.

The passage of the California Dream Act sent waves of joy through Southern California’s Mexican and Central American undocumented community. Starting a year from January, undocumented college students that have lived here for most of their lives can apply for publicly funded financial aid. And now one Southland woman wants public officials to know about the plight of undocumented young people from a tiny South Pacific kingdom.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California Dream Act a day before Sunday's deadline for handling the bills on his desk. Beginning a year from January undocumented college students will be able to tap into publicly funded college financial aid.

The Getty announced Thursday that it’s acquired thousands of items from the archives of renowned L.A. artist Ed Ruscha.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced Wednesday it has entered into a partnership with an East Coast college to spread the methods of a Venezuelan national youth orchestra program.

The Hammer Museum’s show in the “Pacific Standard Time” series focuses on art and black Los Angeles between 1960 and 1980. Wednesday at 7 p.m. the museum’s presenting specially commissioned multimedia performance "Twenty Twenty" that’ll take viewers onto the dance floor and into melody-filled clubs to showcase African-American music in L.A. during the same time period.

In the last couple of years, undocumented young people have stood up in public as never before to lobby for the Dream Act, the federal proposal that would legalize their status in the United States. While many have lost hope that the measure will ever become law, some of these teens and young adults have organized poetry readings in L.A. on Wednesday and in Santa Ana Friday to call attention to their concerns.