New Boy

Hundreds of glow sticks luminesced over the sold-out crowd at Gibson Amphitheatre on a recent Friday night. Prepubescent girls snapped cellphone pictures and out-screamed one another as younger kids were hoisted onto parents' shoulders for better views. The cheers morphed into hysteria as Big Time Rush emerged. The scene onstage is familiar: five seemingly interchangeable young guys linked by one band name and an ability to dance with military precision, deliver harmonies and exude boy-next-door charm.

A 6-year-old boy shot in the head by his 4-year-old playmate died of his wounds as investigators in a New Jersey town tried to determine how the younger boy got hold of a loaded .22-caliber rifle and whether charges would be filed. Under New Jersey law, gun owners are required to keep loaded weapons out of the hands of minors, but the 4-year-old living on a cul de sac in Toms River, N.J., was able to wander into his house Monday evening as his parents were outside. He came back out with the loaded weapon, a shot went off, and a bullet entered the head of 6-year-old Brandon Holt, who was sitting in a go-kart outside.

"Antler Days," at Theatre/Theater, plays like a prolonged skit put together by a bunch of teenagers just for fun. As is often the case with such projects, the participants look as if they're having more fun than the audience. Set in a reindeer high school, Nick Olney's play has very little to do with Christmas until the last five minutes, when Santa Claus finally shows up. Instead, Olney is parodying teen dramas.

Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose are proud parents of a new baby boy, born Thursday afternoon. "Happy Birthday Sebastian 'The Bash' Taylor Thomaz!!!," Khalifa posted on Twitter. "Everyone welcome this perfect young man into the world. " He'd prepped fans for the news by tweeting a picture of himself in surgical cap and mask a bit earlier in the day, along with the message, "Daddy time. " Dad's birth name is Cameron Thomaz. PHOTOS: The Hollywood baby boom The couple knew the sex of the baby back in September, when they announced the pregnancy on the MTV Video Music Awards red carpet, but had been keeping it a secret from the rest of the world until recently.

A moving van is coming up the street, making the same sounds I produce after a major meal. It gasps and lurches. Pretty soon its brakes hiss. A family of five pulls up behind the truck. New neighbors into this cul-de-sac of lust, dust and broken dreams. Poor suckers. While fetching the paper, I make a mental note to go welcome them later, after I've had my coffee and caressed the box scores. Heck, I never remember my mental notes. I'll go meet them now. "Welcome to the 'hood," I say.

"The guy looks tough, setting off my internal alert. Everyone knows a guiding principle of underclassman survival is identifying dangerous upperclassmen. " (from "Leverage") ? "We're losers together. We don't care. We're like freedom fighters. We've been getting revenge against lucky kids for the last couple of years. It's our way of making things even, at least while we can. " (from "Scrawl") ? "I'm sorry, but I gotta [hit you].? I can't explain it. It's just that, well, it's what we do, okay?

The case of severely injured New Hampshire boy James Nicholson is sad and sordid, and it has left authorities in the community tight-lipped. The 3-year-old -- allegedly beaten by his mother's boyfriend -- is reportedly out of the hospital, where he underwent brain surgery for a head injury that caused seizures. Roland Dow, 27, is charged with first- and second-degree assault, according to Associated Press.  Both Dow and James' mother, Jessica Linscott, face multiple charges of child endangerment.

A 6-year-old boy shot in the head by his 4-year-old playmate died of his wounds as investigators in a New Jersey town tried to determine how the younger boy got hold of a loaded .22-caliber rifle and whether charges would be filed. Under New Jersey law, gun owners are required to keep loaded weapons out of the hands of minors, but the 4-year-old living on a cul de sac in Toms River, N.J., was able to wander into his house Monday evening as his parents were outside. He came back out with the loaded weapon, a shot went off, and a bullet entered the head of 6-year-old Brandon Holt, who was sitting in a go-kart outside.

Babies, boys and big ears. These are the things on Vicki's mind. Babies, because she and her sixth-grade classmates have been assigned to carry around five-pound bags of sugar for a week as a lesson in what parental responsibility might be like. Boys, because a cute seventh-grade one has moved in across the street. And big ears, because she suffers from the fear that hers are unacceptably large.

With about $1.3 million in cash and pledges, the Long Beach Boys Club Foundation plans to build a new facility in the north part of the city this fall, officials announced this week. The City Council Tuesday approved in concept leasing property at Atlantic Avenue and Del Amo Boulevard to the Boys Club for $1 per year, according to foundation trustee Betty A. Eastman.

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. are parents of a new baby boy. The couple "are thrilled to announce that they welcomed a baby son into the world this past week," her rep told Us Weekly on Monday. Gellar (she's been Prinze since 2007, actually) may have played two sisters on her most recent series, "Ringer," but it's a brother and sister she and her husband have brought into the world -- and wee Charlotte Grace "is very excited to be a big sister," the rep said.

Hundreds of glow sticks luminesced over the sold-out crowd at Gibson Amphitheatre on a recent Friday night. Prepubescent girls snapped cellphone pictures and out-screamed one another as younger kids were hoisted onto parents' shoulders for better views. The cheers morphed into hysteria as Big Time Rush emerged. The scene onstage is familiar: five seemingly interchangeable young guys linked by one band name and an ability to dance with military precision, deliver harmonies and exude boy-next-door charm.

"The guy looks tough, setting off my internal alert. Everyone knows a guiding principle of underclassman survival is identifying dangerous upperclassmen. " (from "Leverage") ? "We're losers together. We don't care. We're like freedom fighters. We've been getting revenge against lucky kids for the last couple of years. It's our way of making things even, at least while we can. " (from "Scrawl") ? "I'm sorry, but I gotta [hit you].? I can't explain it. It's just that, well, it's what we do, okay?

Los Angeles officials Monday dedicated the Cheryl Green Community Youth Center in Harbor Gateway, named after the African American teenager who was shot to death in 2006 by Latino gang members. Green, 14, was killed near her home when a 204th Street gang member fired into a group of black youths on Harvard Boulevard, police said. The Latino gang had been preying on and attacking blacks for years. Several members of Green's family attended the ceremony. "I feel so proud and happy.

With the recent passing of Charlton Heston, the National Rifle Assn. lost its biggest media gun. But rocker Ted Nugent -- the man known for once performing in a loincloth and for greeting concertgoers from the back of a bison named Chief -- is prepared to fill in for the elder statesman as popular culture's most outspoken proponent of the 2nd Amendment. In fact, he's set to debut his new song, "I Am the NRA," this weekend at the 2008 NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits convention in Louisville, Ky. An iconoclast who lives the defiant, gun-toting lifestyle he espouses, Nugent makes his home on a ranch in Crawford, Texas, is a sheriff's deputy in Michigan and carries a concealed Glock Model 20 everywhere -- even into the recording studio.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- It was in a sticky heat on Monday that heralded freshman quarterback Jimmy Clausen walked across campus toward his first fall football practice at Notre Dame. He wore sandals and a red T-shirt, rolled up to mid-chest. He carried one football shoe in each hand. It marked a beginning, for sure, but of what? More than being the answer for Irish football right now, Clausen is just one of many questions.

The painting is done, the basketball court gleams, and officials are gearing up for Monday's opening of the new, 25,565-square-foot Simi Valley Boys & Girls Club. The $2.5-million building boasts a full-size basketball court, an arts-and-crafts room and a games room complete with tables for Ping-Pong, pool, air hockey and foosball. There are also a weight-training room, a catering kitchen and a learning center, where club staff will tutor students after school and during the summer.

The public school district must admit girls into three planned all-male academies to offer both sexes an equal education, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women Legal Defense Fund sued earlier this month to let girls attend the schools, which are scheduled to open Aug. 27. They argued that, although focusing attention on the plight of black males is admirable, it denied girls the right to an equal education. U.S.

The star of today's Halloween Parade through Greenwich Village will be a young trumpeter from New Orleans -- 10-year-old Glenn Hall III, whose house and horn were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In New York City, he got a new trumpet that he will play in what is billed as the country's biggest public Halloween event. Glenn's role as grand marshal is part of a New Orleans parade theme. The parade's symbol -- as it was in 2001 after Sept. 11 -- is a phoenix rising from its ashes.

The state historical landmark dedicated to the Beach Boys last month has already been the target of graffiti vandals. The city quickly removed paint scrawled on the 119th Street monument and officials were considering a variety of security measures, including surveillance cameras, a fence or sealing it with a graffiti-resistant coating. Beach Boys Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson grew up in Hawthorne. The Wilson home was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Century Freeway.