This holiday season the Los Angeles Weights and Measures officials remind shoppers to check their store receipts for overcharges. Shoppers are legally entitled to pay only a store's lowest advertised or posted price for any item. More...

A cookbook containing recipes from City Council members as well as businesses and restaurants in Calabasas is being sold to benefit Kevin Cordasco, an 11year-old local resident who's been fighting cancer since March. More...

THURS., DEC. 20 Bonsai Potluck Conejo Valley Bonsai Society hosts annual potluck holiday gathering, 7:30 p.m., Westlake Village Community Center, 31200 Oak Crest Drive. (805) 374-9668. GABfest Los Angeles Public Library, Platt Branch, hosts second annual Holiday GABfest, 4 p.m., 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills. More...

Company Name AMGEN BAXTER BEVERLY HILLS BANCORP CAMINOSOFT CORP. CHEESECAKE FACTORY COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL CORP. DIODES, INC DTS, INC. ELECTRONIC CLEARING HOUSE ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY SENSOR INC. More...

Last year, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia announced they were ending their early notification programs. Administrators at these and other schools have been concerned that these programs give an advantage to students from affluent families and that the costs inhibit socioeconomic diversity in the applicant pool. More...

The Oak Park High boys' basketball team has an entirely new look this season. Longtime Eagle head coach Ed Chevalier has retired. He's been replaced by Joey Ramirez, who worked with Chevalier as an assistant last year. More...

LIFE GOES ON- A doe leads her two fawns across a burned-out hillside off of Latigo Canyon, an area damaged by the recent brush fires. The recent rains are bringing the fire-ravaged hillsides back to life. LAURA STARKS/Special to The Acorn More...

Who said a Christmas gift can't be food for the soul? Several new books on the market are well worth consideration. •"Mary and Her Miracle: The Christmas Story Retold" from Church Publishing, Inc., by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, illustrations by Dianne Robbins, hardcover, c. 2007, $18. More...

The trouble began when my wife and I told our parents that we'd spend Christmas Day alone. On previous years, we either woke up on Christmas Day in my parents' home in Northern California, to spend the holiday there, or we woke up in our own home and went to my in-laws' place to open presents there. More...

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers SOLD TO THE LUCKY WINNER- "The Bachelor's" Chris Harrison, left, and New West Symphony music director Boris Brott lead the live auction for a diamond ring during the New West Symphony's Poinsettia Ball at North Ranch Country Club last week. More...

In last week's Acorn, Patricia Ahmad bestows a "Scrooge" award on a letter writer. In the spirit of the season of giving, I honor Ms. Ahmad with her own award- for economic illiteracy. She intimates that "the government" protects only the rights of the rich and that (get ready) "the rich" and corporations pay only "7 percent of the taxes. More...

One of the biggest challenges facing our community in the coming year is not how many new stores and restaurants are needed in town, nor is it the preservation of open space and how to pay for it. It isn't the traffic that consumes us day to day and it isn't the number of new programs that we may or may not be able to provide for our local classrooms. More...