Jessica P. Ogilvie

In tonight's Extra, Extra, California gets a new state animal, Dorothy's ruby slippers get a new home, and we have a contest for you. Plus: Keep up with us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter: @LAist @LAistFood @LAistSports.

Mark Berndt, the Miramonte teacher accused of performing bondage acts on elementary school students, is scheduled to appear in court today for an arraignment. He's charged with 23 counts of lewd acts against children, reports the L.A. Times.

Fifteen roosters were killed and another 131 euthanized after officials broke up an illegal cockfighting ring in Riverside County on Sunday. The L.A. Times reports that when officers arrived at the 23800 block of Cowie Avenue near Perris after getting a call about shots being fired, they found what looked like a wooden cockfighting ring.

A Long Beach woman who said that she found an abandoned baby behind a gas station is believed to have made the story up, reports KTLA. Sonia Hernandez, told police that she found a newborn baby girl swaddled and sleeping in E. 7th Street and Alamitos Ave on Monday night, then took the infant back to her house and called 911.

If you've ever watched television or movies from the 1970s, you know that owning a parrot in during that crazy decade was as trendy as sequins and cocaine. Well, now, experts believe that the descendants of those one-time pets are enjoying their man-made habitat by flocking over Verdugo Avenue every morning and waking up residents.

Literary types are usually known more for the quiet hours they wile away in bookstores than for throwing down against their fellow scribes in front of raucous audiences. But Todd Zuniga, founder of Literary Death Match, aims to change that.

The finalists were announced today for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. The awards will be given out in a ceremony at USC on April 20.There are five finalists in each category -- current interest, fiction, first fiction, biography, history, mystery-thriller, science and technology, graphic novel, poetry and young adult literature.

In tonight's Extra, Extra, a group of female robbers distract their victims, Manny Ramirez is gunning for a job with the A's, and Lindsay Lohan is making (another) comeback. Plus: Keep up with us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter: @LAist @LAistFood @LAistSports.

A new program run by TeenSource.org and the California Department of Public Health’s STD Control Branch does the unthinkable -- it makes condoms accessible to teenagers. (!!!) The program, appropriately entitled the Condom Access Project (CAP), gives kids a list of places close to where they live or go to school that provide condoms free of charge.

Celebrated violinist Itzhak Perlman is known for giving himself completely over to the music, and in an appearance at UCLA's Royce Hall last night, he not only lived up to that reputation, but proved as well that he's a master of the difficult art of both playing with both honesty and reserve. His performance was never overly aggressive or sentimental, but rather in perfect, restrained sync with the tenor of the music.

Caltrans is reviewing a series of mistakes and problems that led to a five-hour traffic delay for drivers on their way to Los Angeles from Palm Springs on Sunday. The L.A. Times reports that the back-up on the 10 freeway was caused by routine road work gone terribly awry.

As of yesterday, the burden of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" became too much for Charlie Sheen to bear. After what must be months of having to occasionally not talk shit on "Two and a Half Men," the star broke down and called TMZ.