Boundaries

The new election boundaries for the Los Angeles Board of Education will change minimally under new maps approved Wednesday, although they will offer something for each of the politicians who now hold those offices. The boundaries, which were approved on a 9-2 vote by the L.A. City Council, followed a process that, early on, looked as though it could end the careers of several school board members. Early proposals moved the homes of some outside their district, or left them with territories that would be difficult to hold in an election.

Insurgent A Novel Veronica Roth Katherine Tegen Books, 544 pp.: $17.99, for readers age 14 and up There's no questioning the impact of "The Hunger Games. " Its success has given birth to an explosion of dystopian young adult literature that invariably unfolds in some environmentally compromised, governmentally bizarre future version of the United States. The more successful books in the genre rearrange society in ways that are unfamiliar and inventively oppressive, creating a perfect petri dish for young heroines to rise up against their circumstances in ways that not only reveal their inner strengths but lead to romance.

Carmageddon, schmarmageddon. Like just about everybody else, Orthodox Jews in Los Angeles have their issues with the 405 Freeway widening project. Unlike most people, however, their primary concern is not necessarily the impending closure of a stretch of the freeway on the July 16-17 weekend. Their problem is that the 405 construction project keeps messing up their eruv . Some explanation is probably in order. An eruv is a ritual enclosure surrounding a neighborhood.

For years, L.A.-based author Lizzie Garrett Mettler thought "tomboy" was a dirty word. "I was a definite tomboy when I was a kid," she says. "It was a nightmare for my parents to get me into a dress for a stretch of years. " As she became a teenager and young adult, she pushed that side of herself away. That changed when she started reading street fashion blogs like the Sartorialist and A Cup of Jo, and saw comments from readers who couldn't get enough of Alexa Chung and Lou Doillon's "tomboy style.

The State Lands Commission has approved the boundaries for Marina Park in Newport Beach, bringing the Balboa Peninsula public waterfront development one step closer to construction. The city can now complete its California Coastal Commission application and restart the long-stalled project. Park advocates, city officials and others decided on a plan for the development more than three years ago, but it has been stuck in a bureaucratic morass. In the meantime, residents of the 57 mobile homes were afforded more time on public land, while others protested the slow progress.

Michael Jackson was a pop star whose talent, like that of Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, turned him into a global wonder and the epitome of the ideal that a man's singular gifts make irrelevant the color of his skin. The embodiment of eccentricity and child-like escapism, Jackson may have been ambivalent in his skin as he slipped across the color chart from black to pale.

"Just Kids," which won the National Book Award for nonfiction Wednesday night, is a reminder that Patti Smith has always had more than making records on her mind. Such a sensibility has defined her work since her debut album "Horses" came out in 1975, with its inexplicable mix of the garage and the atelier. Smith was a poet; Rolling Stone said so, while reporting on her connection to Allen Ginsberg, or that Bob Dylan had been seen attending one of her shows. But even more, this was clear from the vocal lines that swooped above the sonic thrash of "Horses," the lyrics that pushed the music in directions no one expected it to go. Smith asserted it from the very first moments of the record, when, over Richard Sohl's fluid piano chording, she intoned her opening benediction: "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.

Contradicting early reports, the Laguna Beach Unified School District board has backed away from enrolling as many as 342 students from a development along Newport Coast. Instead, school board members are interested in changing district boundaries so the new homes in the development would sit in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, as long as the boundary change allows the Laguna district to retain a portion of the property zoned for commercial use.

Redrawing middle school boundaries and putting one school on a year-round schedule as solutions to overcrowding are topics on the agenda for Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District's board meeting tonight. Asst. Supt. Kim Stallings said the changes would ease crowding at Bernardo Yorba Middle and Rio Vista Elementary schools. The changes would: * Reroute Topaz Elementary graduates to Tuffree Middle School instead of Kraemer Middle School.

A debate over redrawing middle school attendance boundaries will continue at the March 7 session of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District's trustees. The board is reviewing options to relieve classroom overcrowding. Possibilities besides changing boundaries would be moving some sixth graders to middle schools and building a new school. The proposals have drawn sharp criticism from parents, and school board members said they want to address that.

The new election boundaries for the Los Angeles Board of Education will change minimally under new maps approved Wednesday, although they will offer something for each of the politicians who now hold those offices. The boundaries, which were approved on a 9-2 vote by the L.A. City Council, followed a process that, early on, looked as though it could end the careers of several school board members. Early proposals moved the homes of some outside their district, or left them with territories that would be difficult to hold in an election.

Few set designers begin production with the intention of creating a deliberately gaudy and tacky stage. However, Thomas Buderwitz, scenic designer for South Coast Repertory's "The Prince of Atlantis," sought to do just that — to "push the boundaries of good taste. " The just-opened play by Steven Drukman follows Joey Colletti (John Kapelos), one of Boston's biggest seafood importers, as he lands himself in a minimum-security prison after getting into trouble with his company.

Underneath the stage before February's Super Bowl halftime show, Nicki Minaj felt an emotion she hadn't experienced in quite some time. She was really, really nervous. Over the last three years, the young rapper had become one of the most charismatic and commercially successful stars in pop music, with a gum-snapping flow and acerbic guest rhymes that stole the show from vets such as Mariah Carey, Kanye West and Rihanna. Her pop-inclined solo debut, "Pink Friday," hit No. 1 and launched bestselling singles like the elastic "Super Bass.

For the first time in 20 years, a Republican running for Congress in Riverside needs help. John Tavaglione huddled with supporters in the mirrored back room of a local Coco's on a recent rainy evening, laying out a ground game for his first crack at federal office. As a Republican and political heir of a powerful Riverside family, the longtime county supervisor would have breezed into Washington, D.C., in past elections. The Inland Empire was heralded as California's new conservative frontier — the "new Orange County" — just 10 years ago. But political districts have been remade.

Gideon Obarzanek can trace much of his artistic drive to a creative restlessness that stems, he says, "from an interest beyond pure dance. " "How can dance coordinate with other forms?" he asks. "This has been a creative engine for me, in that I've been able to make unique works. But it's also a frustration. Because a part of me always wants to go off and do other things and then I keep getting pulled back into a dance context. " Since founding the Australian dance company Chunky Move in 1995, Obarzanek has consistently pushed the boundaries of how contemporary dance can be viewed and understood through mining his omnivorous interests in theater, film, visual art, science and technology.

Los Angeles Board of Education districts would remain largely the same under a new proposed map, except for one area that was created to increase the likelihood of a third Latino board member. The panel charged with drawing proposed districts for the seven-member school board approved its final report this week; the issue now goes before a City Council committee. The effort, however, was not without controversy. The L.A. Unified Redistricting Commission voted 12 to 3 to support the final report.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday declined to modify new district boundaries approved last week that left Newport Coast and an Anaheim industrial area in limbo. Under the new redistricting plan, Supervisor Tom Wilson, who opposes an airport at the closed El Toro Marine base, lost pro-airport Newport Beach to the 2nd District. But Wilson kept Newport Coast, an area with nearly 5,000 residents that the city wants to annex.

Politicians, advocacy groups and neighborhood activists warned Wednesday that boundary lines drawn up by the Los Angeles Redistricting Commission for new council districts will reduce the number of Latino lawmakers and favor certain candidates in coming years. Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said the map released last week was drawn to help his likely opponent in the upcoming election in a Westlake-to-Lincoln Heights district. Cedillo said his home was cut out of the district now represented by Councilman Ed Reyes, who leaves office in June 2013.

The Texas attorney general has reached an agreement with some minority groups on a plan aimed at resolving a stalemate over redistricting and minority representation in the state. At least seven minority groups, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, known as MALDEF, agreed to the plan that they said minimized changes to the original redistricting maps drafted by the state's Republican-run Legislature. Those maps were tossed out last year by a panel of federal judges, who ruled that the congressional and legislative district boundaries did not reflect the growth of the Latino population.