Creates

As a former Londoner, I've owned my fair share of knits. As a youngster, I couldn't understand why I hated my woolly school sweater but loved the way my sister's green scarf felt around my neck. Unlike the itchy sweater, the scarf was impossibly light, almost magically enveloping me against the icy English winds I faced on the way to school each morning. What was this Golden Fleece? The clues on the label read "100% Cashmere" and "Made in Scotland." Cashmere. Just the sound of it conjures images of sophistication.

Seth Green slumps on a bench seat in a 1970s Winnebago that's parked inside of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios in Burbank. A nasty case of strep throat has him feeling low. But the fact that "Robot Chicken," the off-color stop-motion animated series Green created with Matthew Senreich was renewed for a seventh season, perks him up a bit. "We thought it was the same generation as us who grew up watching the same TV shows and eating the same cereal," says...

Students filed into Chris Cox's dim classroom at Daniel Webster Middle School in Los Angeles' Sawtelle neighborhood, took their seats and immediately began working on a language arts warmup exercise. While Cox took roll, the eighth-graders silently worked. When they went over the answers, students raised their hands and waited to be called on. Down the corridor, seventh-graders streamed into Brent Walmsley's classroom and took over. Some sat on table tops; others wandered around the room, pausing to grab foamy handfuls of hand sanitizer that sloshed on the floor.

A county that's home to 1.56 million poor people should probably do something about poverty, don't you think? According to the latest Census Bureau report, the number of people in L.A. County living below the poverty threshold of $10,956 for a single person or $21,954 for a family of four rose dramatically between 2008 and 2009. And if a million and a half people living in dire poverty isn't bad enough, consider also the hundreds of thousands of employed L.A. residents who are barely getting by. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE)

SAN FRANCISCO - The Dodgers gave Dee Gordon their shortstop job last season, and they had to trade for Hanley Ramirez . When Ramirez was injured this spring, they gave the job to Justin Sellers and sent Gordon to the minor leagues. With Ramirez injured again, the Dodgers are giving Gordon what might be his last chance to show he can be an everyday shortstop for them. The Dodgers officially put Ramirez on the disabled list Saturday because of a strained left hamstring, recalling Gordon and inserting him into the starting lineup.

American consumers and the federal government haven't been able to bail out the sinking U.S. real estate market. Now wealthy Chinese, Canadians and other foreign buyers could get their chance. Two U.S. senators have introduced a bill that would allow foreigners who spend at least $500,000 on residential property to obtain visas allowing them to live in the United States. The plan could be a boon to California, which has become a popular real estate market for foreigners, particularly those from China.

The young man said it seemed only natural to join a neighborhood gang along with many of his friends. His father was a gang member, and so was his grandfather. "We all try to take care of each other, watch everybody's back," the youth said in a recent interview at a Norwalk park. He asked that his name not be used. Gangs have been a part of Norwalk for generations. But they have come under increased scrutiny from law enforcement officials and community leaders because of the May 9 shooting death of a high school football star, a gang-related shoot-out that left two wounded on May 28, and other recent incidents.

El Encanto is back -- with a new spa, new ballroom and its own Holstein cow. The historic hideaway in the Santa Barbara hills hasn't gone Farmville but it has undergone a "meticulous restoration" by Orient-Express Hotels , marking the luxury brand's first property in the West. The hotel reopened Monday to guests with 92 bungalows that overlook the city and the ocean. The official public opening isn't until Friday. (Sneak a peek with this El Encanto photo gallery .) Orient-Express spent $134 million and seven years restoring the hotel in keeping with its California Craftsman and Spanish Colonial Revival styles, according to a company spokeswoman.

Along with millions of idealistic young men who were cut to pieces by machine guns and obliterated by artillery shells, there was another major casualty of World War I: traditional ideas about Western art. The Great War of 1914-18 tilted culture on its axis, particularly in Europe and the United States. Nearly 100 years later, that legacy is being wrestled with in film, visual art, music, television shows like the gauzily nostalgic PBS soaper "Downton Abbey" and plays including the Tony Award-winning"War Horse," concluding its run at the Ahmanson Theatre.