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Emanuel Pleitez Maybe Isn't So Amazing, Readers Claim

Meet Emanuel Pleitez

He's the Most Amazing Person Who Won't Win the March 5 Los Angeles Mayoral Primary

Make Us Laugh, Funny Boy Taylor Negron

Taylor Negron

Behaving Badly: Bad Apples, Empanada for a Dream and Slice, Reviewed

Taylor Negron

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 9/3 - 9/7

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "Take a nut, fill your mouth with its flavors. Take a small sip of sherry and see what happens." Serious Drinking: Sherry Marcona Almonds. "No, Ammo at The Hammer isn't the poorly translated name of a Jean-Claude Van Damn ... More >>

Organic Food Is Not Better for You, Study Finds

People who purchase organic food because they think it is more nutritious just got handed their heads of lettuce on a platter by Stanford University scientists. In a recent study, the researchers found that not only is organic food not better for you, it is not even any less prone to bacterial conta ... More >>

Issa Rae and Awkward Black Girl Fill a (Tiny) Niche

Check out our entire YouTube issue here. In front of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Grove, someone is scraping lightweight plastic chairs across the pavement instead of picking them up, and the sound is akin to fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard. Issa Rae, the 27-year-old writer, direct ... More >>

Eagle Rock High Parents Threaten to Sue LAUSD Because Daughter Wasn't Named Valedictorian

Helicopter parents don't get much more loopy than this: The obsessed mother and father of graduating senior Elisha Marquez are outraged that their daughter wasn't named Valedictorian of Eagle Rock High's Class of 2012, reports Patch. The local news site has a dizzying summary of all Marquez' achiev ... More >>

Dance Showdown on YouTube: A Reality Dance Competition That's Better Than What You See on TV

Take a look at Dance Showdown, the first original show created for the YouTube channel DanceOn. This is reality-style, competition dance crossing easily onto an online format -- and doing it better than network television, frankly. It's pretty hilarious. Launched in April, Dance Showdown is a cr ... More >>

Young the Giant Blows Up

Last year was a busy one for Irvine's Young The Giant. They released their first album on a major label, toured all over the world and played at both the VMAs and MTV Unplugged. Meanwhile, the band's two singles, "My Body" and "Cough Syrup" both were in rotation on rock radio stations nationally. B ... More >>

Music Picks: Skrillex, Diplo, Wu-Tang Clan, The Health Club

Also, Art Lande, Albert "Tootie" Heath, Gilad Hekselman, The Stitches, The Villains and others

$100 Billion Bullet Train

Democrats fray as cost skyrockets, feds bail, and Amtrak starts to look good

Hip-Hop's New Brainiac: K. Flay

When she talks, K. Flay uses big words.Nascent.Dichotomous. Alienation.It's the sort of vernacular that writers splay all over the page when they're trying to sound intelligent. But Flay actually is intelligent; there's her dual degrees from Stanford in psychology and sociology, for one thing. Rig ... More >>

Music Picks: Overdoz, The Cure, Lucinda Williams

Also, K. Flay, The Civil Wars, Bob Mould tribute

Three Strikes Law: Stanford Law Professors Try to Soften Harsh Sentences for Some Offenders

​Under California's current Three Strikes law, you can get life in prison for stealing a pair of socks if you're a repeat offender. Three strikes and you're out. But as of now, it looks like a dedicated group of Stanford law professors are trying to change the law - often viewed as draconian - ... More >>

Transgender Students Could Cross Opposite-Sex Roommate Divide at UCLA Under Proposed Campus Dorm Policy

Sam T​Traditional on-campus roomy situations at UCLA almost always involve boys living with boys and girls living with girls. But what if you're a boy who looks like a girl and is in the process of becoming a girl? Could you still live with a girl? That's a possibility because ...

CalTech Shoots to Top of 'World University' Rankings; UC Campuses Struggle to Hold on

Was Obama's shout-out to the California Institute of Technology in January the last push it needed to trample Harvard and Stanford for the No. 1 spot in (arguably) the world's most prestigious college rankings? The Times of Higher Education, a British operation, gave the Pasadena underdog top honor ... More >>

Mystery of The Mean DMV Worker Solved by USC Researchers

Day at the DMV.​Long the subject of deep academic research and study, it looks like the mystery of the mean DMV worker has finally been solved. The USC Marshall School of Business, with the help of Stanford University and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, have concl ... More >>

Asco at LACMA: Glitter, Face Paint, Velvet and Chiffon in the Name of Politics

Courtesy of LACMA and the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University LibrariesAsco Goes to the Universe, 1975: a glamorous close-up of the collective​ If you imagine David Bowie moonlighting as a Chicano performance artist, you might begin to get a sense of Asco, the radical collec ... More >>

'Stop SB 48' Doesn't Want California Students to Know About Gertrude Stein?

​​Carl Van VechtenWriter and art collector Gertrude Stein​​​In the history of the world, gays and lesbians have always contributed to advances in many different societies. One such person is Gertrude Stein, influential writer and art collector who grew up for a period of her life in Oa ... More >>

LAUSD Declares Homework Racist, Classist

HW is for crackers.​Updated after the jump with angry arguments from the "Teach for America" camp, contrasted by the district's stern belief that they've done the right thing. How to deal with the rude K-12 achievement gap in Los Angeles? District officials have a new solution that should be ... More >>

Summers Will be Deadly Hot as Global Warming Looms in The Next 60 Years, Stanford Researchers Say

The only upside to global warming.​We're in the midst of June gloom in Southern California, but you can be assured that Mother Nature will bring the heat. Maybe for decades to come. Stanford researchers say that unless we cut back on greenhouse gasses we will definitely see hotter and hotter ... More >>

Jamiel Shaw: Candlelight Vigil Today for L.A. High School Football Star Allegedly Gunned Down by Illegal

isupportjamielslaw.comJamiel Shaw.​Friends and family of high school football star Jamiel Shaw planned to mark the third anniversary of the 17-year-old's death with a candlelight vigil at the Mid-City site of his shooting by an area gang member. The college hopeful was a student at Los Angele ... More >>

The Great Latke vs. Hamantash Debate

Like the profoundest of profound intellectual quandaries, the latke vs. hamantash debate may never be fully resolved. Since 1946, when Hillel House at University of Chicago sponsored the first annual debate pitting potato pancakes against triangular cookies, great minds -- like Nobel Prize-winnin ... More >>

Sneak Peek: La Monarca in Santa Monica

Guzzle & Nosh​ The bakery named after the butterfly is about take flight -- all the way from Huntington Park to Santa Monica. As soon as La Monarca receives final approval from the city and passes the last health department inspection -- a week or two, maybe three -- the popular Mexican baker ... More >>

California's Proposition 20 and Proposition 27: Gerrymandering And Election-Fixing And Why You Should Give A Rip

By Hillel Aron California's "Ribbon of Shame" Congressional District 23 stretches more than 200 miles from outside Camarillo to the Monterey Co. border, narrows to 100 yards and is said to "disappear at high tide​Update: Before Nov. 2, read about shadowy Michael Berman, a map-making guru who ... More >>

Fighting Childhood Obesity, One Cloudberry at a Time

Creative Nation/FlickrClaus Meyer on the set of "New Scandinavian Cooking"​ The author of over a dozen cookbooks, a cooking show host, and a part-time professor at the University of Copenhagen, Noma co-owner Claus Meyer has started a passel of successful food-related businesses over the past 2 ... More >>

Movie Review: RACE TO NOWHERE

Creative Nation/FlickrClaus Meyer on the set of "New Scandinavian Cooking"​ The author of over a dozen cookbooks, a cooking show host, and a part-time professor at the University of Copenhagen, Noma co-owner Claus Meyer has started a passel of successful food-related businesses over the past 2 ... More >>

Movie Review: Going the Distance

Creative Nation/FlickrClaus Meyer on the set of "New Scandinavian Cooking"​ The author of over a dozen cookbooks, a cooking show host, and a part-time professor at the University of Copenhagen, Noma co-owner Claus Meyer has started a passel of successful food-related businesses over the past 2 ... More >>

Downtown Skid Row Rapist Has Struck Twice, Binding Victims With Tape: LAPD On The Hunt

Skid Row.​Police on Thursday were on the lookout for a rapist they say has struck twice this month along downtown's Skid Row, binding victims in both cases with duct tape. The latest incident happened Monday. Los Angeles Police Department Detectives say the middle-aged, balding man in a brown ... More >>

Movie reviews: Get Low, Life During Wartime

Also: Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno and more

Wuthering Heights

Lin-Manuel Miranda's rap-salsa-calypso musical sashays into the Pantages

When It Comes To NFL's Jaguars Moving To Los Angeles, Jacksonville Says 'No Way L.A.'

​A group of Jacksonville residents has started a campaign to keep their NFL team, the Jaguars, from moving to Los Angeles after the city gets a new NFL stadium. The online effort is titled, "No Way L.A." The site notes that the city has gone through a succession of teams -- the Dons, the Rams ... More >>

List of 100 Most Powerful People in California: How an obscure scientist beat Haim Saban

The great scribes at Capitol Weekly who report on the deeply unpopular California State Legislature and only slightly less disliked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have issued the first 50 names in their widely read Capitol Weekly Top 100 List of influential Californians. It may shock and delight and ... More >>

Prop. 8 Trial: Stanford Professor Says Obama 'Not a Reliable Ally'

President Barack Obama took a hit at the Proposition 8 trial in San Francisco on Wednesday, when Stanford University professor Gary Segura said Obama is "not a reliable ally" of the gay community.Then presidential candidate Barack Obama with Prop. 8 supporter Rich Warren​The criticism of the presi ... More >>

Cars Are Being Torched In Santa Monica

Santa Monica Fire DepartmentFile photo.​The Santa Monica Arson Task Force is investigating a series of arson-related car and trashcan fires, including six in December, police said. Three fires happened on Dec. 20th alone. The series of fires started in late June and subsided September only t ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Dirty Dancing, Ten to Life

Also, Ochre & Onyx: The Langston Hughes Project and more

LA People 2009: The Walker — Marc Abrams

Also, Ochre & Onyx: The Langston Hughes Project and more

AP to Shepard Fairey: Where's Our Money?

Sooner or later it had to happen, we suppose. Echo Park graphic artist Shepard Fairey, whose haunting poster illustration of Barack Obama became the defining image of Obama's successful presidential campaign, is being accused of copyright infringement and asked to pay royalties for the source image. ... More >>

What Could Stop Obama: Secret Racist Democrats

The AP-Yahoo poll on race and what it says about our prejudices that still remain

Proposition 6: The Most Implosive

A tiny, unnoticed clause could allow the use of much looser hearsay in trials

Art School or LAUSD Folly?

A gorgeous downtown high school has no plan, no curriculum — but sure looks fab

The Daily Koz: Analogies flood blogosphere in Judge Kozinski flap

A gorgeous downtown high school has no plan, no curriculum — but sure looks fab

The God of Sperm

In an industry veiled in secrecy, a powerful L.A. sperm peddler shapes the nation’s rules on disease, genetics — and accidental incest

Northern Light

A new Mandarin dynasty at Earthen Restaurant

Rugged Coast

The governor fires three Democrats as Coastal Commission braces for rough seas

The Final Frontier

Depending on whom you ask, stem-cell research is either a medical godsend or further proof that God is dead.

See How They March

Deborah Gordon's radical new theories of ant behavior -- and why we should care