Photo by sesshin via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Travel + Leisure came out with their America's Favorite City 2008 guide with lists shows how visitors and residents voted. For visitors (and well, residents), we came in last for--no big surprises here--traffic. And well, we also hit the bottom of the list for public transportation and pedestrian friendliness. And maybe we can blame these woes on our friendliness and intelligence, both of which ranked......

Old men smile at each other's stories over games of dominoes played on card tables set up on the street corner. Ladies in their Sunday best daintily nibble cake at outdoor cafes, and children run laughing around the fountain in the park. People stop to chat as they meander along the boulevard. This is not a scene from another era; it's a typical Sunday afternoon in Leimert Park.......

It was a normal day on Twitter. New Media and Interactive Consultant Kyra Reed was going about her day (it was Reed who turned The Roxy into a Web 2.0 success story). On Twitter, she chatted with friends as she was at home. Then, all of the sudden at 5:02 p.m., Ron Myers at the Los Angeles Fire Department tweets a structure fire on the 1000 block of Laguna Ave. "Single family home with fire......

Metro's Chair and City of Santa Monica Councilwoman Pam O'Connor held one of her monthly online chats with residents yesterday. StreetsblogLA was there and noted that she personally thinks transit planning needs to stop just counting cars and start counting people. You know, bicycles, walkers, people on busses -- all those aspects that make up street use. The current mainstream models mainly focus on cars, cars, cars. Ever notice in Downtown LA when walking around......

The LA Times lightly digs up the dirt on the digger himself: Blogging was so easy, he took it up as a hobby Launched in 2004, the original PerezHilton.com was called PageSixSixSix.com, but the real Page Six people -- the New York Post -- sued him. The website's "name reflects his Cuban roots and 'the wacky world of celebrities.'" Paris Hilton loves the name. Per day: 40 posts, 7 million pageviews, $54,000 for one day......

Carlos Mencia is back at it and chances are you're either pumped or pissed about it. The loved/hated comedian's show, Mind of Mencia is back for a fourth season, his new Comedy Central special "Performance Enhanced" is now in heavy rotation on the cable network and he's hitting the road with the Bud Light Presents: Carlos Mencia at Close Range Tour, which hits the Gibson Ampitheater September 26 and 27. The comic who was......

Makin' Music with John Mayer on FunnyOrDie.com Nothing says stardom like wearing old-man exercise suits, riding a razor and having people do drugs for you.......

After San Francisco Congressman Tom Lantos' death, San Fernando Valley congressman Howard Berman took the seat as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That means he's in charge of the committee with "oversight over policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the globe's hotspots," according to an Associated Press profile of the politician. It perhaps can be read wrong, but the quote that's catching everyone's eyes is this one: "'Sometimes the best things......

Via the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated At the end of April, Jose Canseco chatted on the phone with LAist's Tim Hammer regarding his life in Los Angeles, writing, steroids and reality TV. Oh, and one of his latest pursuits -- fiction. "Yeah it's going to be about baseball and cloning. It's a very dark dark sci-fi story."......

Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, second from right, being sworn in by her predecessor, Assemblyman Fabian Nunez, of Los Angeles, left, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger applauds during ceremonies at the Capitol in Sacramento. Second from left is Bass' stepdaughter Yvette Lechuga who held the bible used in the swearing in. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) Today, Karen Bass, a local representative, was sworn in as the Speaker of the California State Assembly. She is the first......

The difference between last year and this year was night and day. Last year, the police were in riot gear, got injured, shot rubber bullets into crowds full of innocent people including, children, the elderly and reporters live on air (see this video). This year, the LAPD retrained and chilled out... a lot more. By the end of the day, only five people had been arrested. Earlier May Day Photo Essays include: Portraits, Crowds and......

More scenes from yesterday's various May Day marches from LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews.......

LAist Featured Photos contributor Tom Andrews spent the day at yesterday's May Day marches. Here are some of the amazing images of the people he saw and met.......

I innocently went to Third Street Promenade on Saturday to go shopping to put together a new "I'm single and available" look as the current one isn't working, and happened upon some sort of pre-Earth Day, super green I heart the environment festival. Fortunately Earth Day brings out the best of Santa Monica, and my camera and I happened to be there. I can't appropriately put words to this, so just click the photos.......

Just in time for St Paddy's Day, we check out some of the Irish coffees around town. Screw green beer. That stuff will kill you. After drinking many Irish Coffees in the name of serious scientific research, I have discovered a good Irish coffee relies on two relatively simple elements: the freshness of the coffee and use of real heavy cream #1 Tom Bergin's Tom Bergin's is known as the home of Irish coffee, at......

Human Giant unleashed itself upon an unsuspecting public last year via MTV and the bell just rang for Round 2 - are you ready? There's sketch comedy, there's underground sketch comedy, there's in your face on-the-streets sketch comedy, and then there's Human Giant, a team that presents, in each episode, collections of bits that are more like experimental movies than the sketch comedy we've been seeing for the last 15 years. There's plenty of parody......

Waking up at 5:30 a.m. and being rushed out of your downtown Wilshire Grand hotel room is not the ideal experience for your Los Angeles stay. However, better safe than sorry when the 10th floor of at least 80 people was evacuated due to pepper spray being released. In an e-mail alert, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Meyers said 20-30 people were evaluated with none needing treatment or transport to a local area hospital.......

The defending Stanley Cup champion (and recently reassembled) Anaheim Ducks are holding a contest tomorrow for a chance to sing the national anthem at one of their upcoming games. Get you tail down to ESPN Zone’s SportsCenter Studio Store in Downtown Disney to register. People are encouraged to sign up early as space is limited (you can do it today if you're in the area). Singers will compete on Thursday, March 6 at 6:00pm, where......

The Magnetic Fields play tonight and tomorrow | Image via their MySpace Some may know that there is the LA Homeless Blog, written by the CEO of People Assisting the Homeless (PATH). Tonight, the Hotel Cafe is hosting a benefit concert for the organization called Rock and Run for Charity. The name is not merely because the Marathon happened this morning. Sara Radle from Calamity Magnet and Chris Radle from Supersport both ran it......

Fallout from the massive Westland/Hallmark meat recall scandal continues to affect Southland restaurants, stretching from San Diego to Ventura County. The California Department of Public Health has released a document listing every food purveyor which has purchased the recalled beef -- and at 59+ pages, it's a doozy. Chances are very good you have purchased or ingested some of Westland/Hallmark's product at some point, since markets and restaurants across the city are represented. My......

Photo by atomicshakespeares via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Suffering from an Oscar hangover? Then check out the next generation of hot filmmakers at The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival, which begins tonight and runs through the weekend. The studio that brought you such blockbusters as the "Lord of the Rings" franchise will soon become only the merest shadow of its former self: Warner Brothers will be absorbing New Line Cinema, which employs......

People gripe about the rain and its effects, especially on traffic. It's easy to forget that we're living desert-adjacent; being a part-time Hi-Desert dweller, I'm grateful for every inch of rain we get, especially after the devastating fires of 2006. Along with nourishing our parched land and turning that empty concrete wash into an actual "LA River", the rain brings an abundance of wildflowers, transforming the desert floor into a multicolored carpet for miles. Peak......

Zero One Gallery | All photos by Elise Thompson for LAist Remember the good old days, when you would just end up at a random artspace downtown sometime after midnight? People would be walking around wearing bowler hats and bunny suits while loud noise/music/artistic expression screeched out from the next room. So you would wander into the next room and find someone bellydancing or putting on a burlesque show. And you would think to......

These murals outside Pincher's Liquor on Pico were some of your favorites this week on LAist | Photo by Osmany Rodriguez/LAist When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities......

UCLA was almost overtaken by the Oregon Ducks today, but managed to rally back in the second half to win. I am no sports writer, and I'm not going to pretend to be, so this is how it went in my world. UCLA turned the ball over what seemed to be about 9 billion times (actually 12) and were playing like molasses in the first half. They let the shot clock run down to......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Kanye West at the Staples Center, the third show they've added in L.A.! Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never meant to see. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a......

If you're like me, (white, liberal, living in an urban setting) you're probably a huge fan of The Neverending Story. Remember near the end of the film, when The Nothing has completely destroyed all of Fantasia, except for the Childlike Empress? Then, in the blackness of space, she turns to the screen and surprises the living hell out of Bastian, (the framing device/protagonist of the film,) by telling him that He's The One!!!, that the......

"Welcome to NoHo," by ~db~ via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr Happy 5th Birthday Gothamist!! A "possible" security breach at the Department of Water and Power Monday may result in more than 8,300 employees wondering, why are there two me's? The lifted information included stats on active DWP employee's names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth and could result in a massive case of stolen identity. The gig is up for all......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Kanye West at the Nokia Theater, tickets went on sale today! Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never meant to see. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's available now. Busted......

Encountered this lineup for Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. The line was 20 stylish ladies deep with a sprinkling of guys. I asked one of the would-be cupcake customers who she was buying cupcakes for and she just said, "A friend." Another customer behind us wondered aloud why there were so many women and not really any guys. I guess women are more apt to buy cute cakes for each other and maybe......