The presidents of Occidental, Pomona and Whittier colleges were among the California representatives who signed a petition that called for "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age," according to the LA Times. Around 100 schools around the country signed the document. The force behind the petition poses the age-old debate that if 18-year-olds can be on a jury or go to war, they should, at the very least,......

Reviews of Jay Babcock's review of Los Angeles didn't go so well in the comments section yesterday. Babcock, the man behind Arthur Magazine, left Los Angeles for Brooklyn earlier this month. Soundboard on LA Times caught up with him and quizzed him about his move and Babcock went off on Los Angeles. Today, Babcock explains his side of the story on the blog at Arthur Magazine's website: "I recently talked to an LATimes dude......

The man behind Arthur Magazine, Jay Babcock, recently took the indie rag's operation to Brooklyn where he decided to resettle. Soundboard, the LA Times music blog, got a hold of him for a short interview. His answer to the first question, "what prompted the move to Brooklyn?", is quite a read: New York is just a more hospitable environment than L.A. ever has been or will be. L.A. is devolving quickly, and I think......

How do you fix the state budget? You take away money from two of the most important and already-lacking services in the state: transit and early education programs via voter approved set aside money for those type of projects. Not only that, money for local governments could be taken away too (that means less money to do the dirty work of the city and county such as hospitals). Of course, within his first hour of......

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......

A Fountain Valley High School junior is facing criminal charges after it was determined he sent threatening emails to two English teachers. Early last month, Chris Baron and Margaret Segalla received the following email: "Just to let u know, any student you give an F to at the end of the semester will result in the severing of your spine and the taking of bits of it to jam in your mouth. If you are......

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......

A new law states that you cannot sleep on the top of your car... just kidding | Photo by Hamed Saber via Flickr Now there's an attention grabbing quote, spoken by Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum, up there in the headline. With the onslaught of laws and proposed ideas for drivers of cars (there are 33.5 million registered vehicles in California), many think it's getting a bit ridiculous in a report......

Photo by Steven Fernandez via Flickr The results of a recent survey administered in seven public schools in South Los Angeles are downright depressing. Students feel scared, unmotivated, unsupported, and ignored, and it's causing many to experience the symptoms of clinical depression. Administrators and psychologists agree, noting that the multiple killings of youth in the community leaves a pall on the students, and that their choice to skip school because they are "tired, had......

On a side street in Silver Lake, two sisters open up their apartment every weekend to strangers who want to learn how to cook healthy and delicious vegan meals. Spork Foods began in December and has become a hit so far, with their small intimate cooking classes selling out quickly. Upcoming class topics include brunch, pizza, Jewish, desserts and more. A few weeks ago, they held their South East Asian class; here's what happened:......

Stunts come in all shapes and sizes, but the one planned for next week at the Santa Ana Zoo is absolutely elephantine--at least for one pachyderm named Tai. According to cbs2.com: "Artist Fan Yang plans to briefly envelop the elephant in a giant soapy bubble at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana on Tuesday as part of the center's annual Bubblefest." Admittedly a strange stunt--and one that will "set a world record for the......

The Revolution is coming! K-12 LAUSD kids, look out! Your lunches are about to get a whole hell of a lot better--and better for you. This week it was announced that Revolution Foods, a fairly new company out of the Bay Area, is bringing their goodness southbound, and will be launching a pilot program in three local schools to bring them "fresh and healthy meals on a daily basis," according to their press release. The......

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."......

...or you could hit up Swingers for a late-night bite (LAist did!) | Photo by Stephanie Asher via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DOCUMENTARY & DISCUSSION Non-profit mentoring group WriteGirl is putting on a screening of Girls Rock! which is a documentary about a rock n' roll girls' camp, and hosting a panel discussion after the film. Scheduled panelists include WriteGirl's founder and executive director, singer-songwriter Keren Taylor; Grammy-award winning songwriter and......

Santee Village Apartments | Photo by atomicshakespeares via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr It's not the same thrill as being singled out as a draft pick when it's the police who want you: "An arrest warrant has been issued by the Irvine Police Department for St. Louis Cardinals utilityman Scott Spiezio on six charges stemming from a Dec. 30 incident." Police in Burbank are investigating the mysterious death of 47-year-old Glen Giles,......

An academic and ethical scandal has jarred the staff and students at Harvard-Westlake school, as the consequences of cheating reverberate on the school's campus. Six tenth-graders were expelled from the prestigious Valley private high school yesterday when administrators discovered they had enacted a plot to "steal Spanish and history tests by distracting teachers in their classrooms. The tests were then shown to several other students before midterm exams last month," reports KTLA. Other students who......

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......

In a quite quickly put-together press conference slated for 2:00 p.m. today at the First Street Steps at City Hall, Councilmen Eric Garcetti and Dennis Zine will be reminding voters that if you're nonpartisan or 'decline to state,' you must mark the box at the top of the ballot if you want to vote for an American Independent or Democratic candidate. Unconfirmed field reports are saying that the LA County Registrar is expecting to disqualify......

Photo by Wm Jas via Flickr After the Humane Soceity of the United States released a video (seen below) of abused cows at a Chino slaughterhouse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture began an investigation on Wednesday. With a quick response, The California Department of Education Nutrition Services Division urged all public schools to check where their cafeteria meat was coming from and two fast food chains cut their ties with the Chino based Westland/Hallmark......

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......

What will Hike The Geek do?!?! In order to face up to budget-balancing woes and a state-wide financial crunch, Governor Schwartzenegger has proposed to close 48 different national park sites, as well as cut funding to many school, health care, and criminal justice programs. Parks in the L.A. area like the Will Rogers State Historic Park, Topanga State Park, and Pio Pico State Historic Park in Whittier will all be shut down, affecting many......

Why do all these prisoners love our governor? Because in his budget cuts that were released today, it proposes just that -- an early release for 22,000 low-risk inmates. "The governor says the cuts are necessary to erase a $14 billion revenue shortfall over the next 18 months. Schwarzenegger's new budget would spend 3 percent less than the one he signed last summer," according to the AP. Here is some of what is also......

Of all the things we expected Los Angeles to be known for...it wasn't "the best city in the country for booklovers." According to a study by Eventful.com, New York is the city for singles, San Diego is the city for pet lovers, and LA is, crazily, the best city for bookish types. We're also the best city for music events...but that's hardly a surprise. While we do love our books, we find it hard to......

Did you know that residents of Los Angeles County use 6 billion plastic bags a year, and only 5% of bags in the US are recycled? In the state of California the average person uses 552 bags, according to the environmental organization Heal the Bay. These bags are then left to choke up our waterways, landfills, streets, and urban landscapes, causing harm to animal life and our ecosystem. This is why Heal the Bay, along......

...and then America pants and wheezes after half a block The state fitness data released yesterday found that LAUSD students "are less physically fit than the state average" (Daily News). There's no surprise in that. But you have to admit, it's really lame. We live in California for heaven sakes! This isn't flatland cornfield Illinois where gym class is a required five days a week, kindergarten through senior year (and that state still has......

Nine are dead in Omaha, Nebraska today after a man opened fire in a shopping mall, and then shot himself. Police do not have a motive so far. Did you have this conversation this morning? "Sorry, boss, I can't come in to work today...a terrible cough, I, uh, flu symptoms, definitely -- what waves? Uh, I don't know what you're talking about...." Lots of SoCal surfers took a sick day and busted out on......

Caspian Rain is a novel about longing and belonging. Set just before the Islamic Revolution in Iran, 12-year-old Yaas narrates the story of her family – a family that’s just as divided as the country. Her father, Omid, is from a wealthy Jewish Tehranian family. He feels restricted by the rules dictated by the upper-class society, the rules imposed on him as a son and rules he must keep in order to not disgrace......