Residents of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park are escorted by LAPD to go in and get one bag of personal items from their homes which made it through the recent wildfire in Sylmar | AP Photo/Los Angeles Daily News Today, Mayor Villaraigosa is encouraging residents to join the City of Los Angeles Crisis Response Team (CRT), a group of volunteer residents that go on scene of emergencies to provide crisis intervention and to give......

The House rejected the bailout plan earlier today sending stocks down and worrying people across the nation. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not happy with the idea of bailing out the "failed lenders and investors," is not satisfied with congress doing nothing. He tells Congress to get back to work in a statement released this afternoon. While it's obvious Congress still has a lot of work to do, Villaraigosa's statement emphasizes how all of this......

Famine. Riots. Strikes. Inflation. The repercussions of the world food crisis continue to affect the global mood and economy, and unfortunately the situation does not appear to be getting any better. American farmers, most of whom rely on the core crops of wheat, corn, and soy to bring in a living, are fearful of another poor harvest this year. From the NY Times: United States soybean plantings are running 16 percent behind last year.......

We've already covered the strikes in Europe over rising oil prices; now Rome has become the site of an emergency UN summit on the food crises that are sweeping the globe. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. has become a major target of international criticism over its food policies and interest in corn-based biofuels. From the LA Times: Delegates clashed during the second day of the three-day meeting over how much blame can be assigned to biofuels for......

Photo by consiglieri80 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Have you been talking about anything else this week? Grand Theft Auto 4 is set to break all kinds of records today. Not only are they ugly, they are hazardous to your health! New safety warnings are being issued for Mario Batali's signature footwear, Crocs. More first-person reports from the Los Angeles Times Book Festival over at LA Observed. Some badass large-scale guerrilla......

Usually we hear doubting and negative comments about city offices such as the Department of Transportation (DOT) or Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE). But the Department of Water & Power (DWP) somehow skids by the public and never become a hot button issue. That is, of course, until the day after the crisis strikes. What? You don't pick up hot dates by dropping some IBEW regs? The closest electrical power will ever come close to being......