The Los Angeles Times has announced new guidelines for covering immigration.

The goal is to "provide relevance and context and to avoid labels."

That means stories will no longer refer to individuals as "illegal immigrants" or "undocumented immigrants," but instead will describe a person's circumstances.

A memo from The Times' Standards and Practices Committee announcing the change explains the move away from labels:

" 'Illegal immigrants' is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation. The alternative suggested by the 1995 guidelines, 'undocumented immigrants,' similarly...

The Los Angeles Times' Editorial Awards for 2012 were presented in a ceremony Thursday night, honoring the newsroom's best work from the past year.

At the ceremony, Editor Davan Maharaj announced a new honor, the Editor's Award for Persistence, which he dubbed the Golden Cockroach Award.

"The cockroach can't be exterminated and can't be stopped," he said. "You can stomp on them, take their food away, and deny their document requests -- but they're still there at the end of the day. Sounds a lot like many journalists over the last 10 years. And like many people in this room. Faced with...

What a month. Great journalism and smart strategies for digital coverage continued in February, resulting in the biggest audience to latimes.com in the history of the site.

We also recorded a 125% increase in video viewership, and L.A. Now and Entertainment set all-time records.

Breaking News

Nobody does breaking news better than the Los Angeles Times, and this was never more apparent than in our coverage of the manhunt for Christopher Dorner and his standoff with police.

The 24-7 approach, led by Shelby Grad, Kimi Yoshino, and Amanda Covarrubias  made the Los Angeles Times the go-to site...

The March 4 issue of the New Yorker includes a "Correction of the Week" from a familiar source -- the Los Angeles Times. It's a funny one, as corrections go, especially to those of us who like words:

Beauty column: In a Sunday Image article about hyaluronic acid, a skin-care ingredient and injectable filler, Dr. Nowell Solish was quoted as saying that if people change their minds after receiving an injection, there is an anecdote. It should have quoted him as saying there is an antidote.

Yes, we think patients would rather have an antidote (anything that works against an unwanted condition)...

The holiday decorations have long since been packed away, but there was one more gift that had yet to be delivered.

After reading The Times' story Dec. 26 of Christmas at the Midnight Mission in downtown Los Angeles, a reader from Redondo Beach jotted off a note and a check for $100 made out to a woman who was featured along with her daughter in a photo.

According to the article by Rosanna Xia, Latoya Williams had waited long hours with her 7-month-old daughter, Madison, for the toy giveaway at the mission. But it was her daughter’s first Christmas, and once she saw the girl playing with...

An article in Friday's Times featuring centenarian and frequent letter writer Carleton Ralston caught the eye of reader Trent Sanders of La Canada Flintridge.

Sanders is himself, to borrow reporter Gale Holland's phrase, a man of letters. Not only is he a regular correspondent to the Readers' Rep office, but he's had 54 letters to the editor published in The Times since 1985.

"My compliments to Mr. Ralston," Sanders emailed. "Letters to the editor are one of the few ways an individual can influence public debate."

Sanders said he keeps a notebook of his published letters, which total 205....

A memo to the newsroom from Editor Davan Maharaj and Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin:

We’re delighted to announce that Mark Porubcansky, a mainstay of the foreign desk for the last 14 years, is the new foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Mark has been a force for clear thinking, clean writing and unwavering professionalism since he joined The Times as an assistant foreign editor in 1998.

He came to us from the Associated Press, where he served in the Moscow, Vienna and Hong Kong bureaus. He covered the dramatic days of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union and reported on the...

The crossword in Sunday’s Arts & Books section was titled "The Last Sunday Crossword" and noted that according to the Mayan calendar, the world was going to end "this Friday, Dec. 21."

But, of course, "this" Friday is not Dec. 21 – it's the 14th.

Also, the solution to "last week's" puzzle didn't match the puzzle that ran Dec. 2. (A note to this effect ran in Tuesday's For the Record column.)

So what happened?

Many inquiring minds want to know. Goofing up the crossword is almost like the end of the world – except with Internet and phone service.

Reader Durga Bhoj of Rancho...

The space shuttle Endeavour’s final journey, a 12-mile crawl through the streets of Los Angeles, wowed crowds of admirers. For Times readers, it was no less stunning to watch a time-lapse video that condensed the shuttle’s three-day trek across the city to about 3 minutes. 

The video really took off on social media, and has been one of the most-viewed stories on latimes.com and most-shared content on Facebook and Twitter this week. And it earned its creator, Times photojournalist Bryan Chan, much applause.

But a few...

Two recent Times articles have examined the role of religion in the 2012 presidential race.

A Politics Now post addressed who would be the nation's "most religious" president. If Mitt Romney wins the election, would the title go to him? Or would it be held, as a political science professor suggested, by Jimmy Carter?

A second article previewed the vice presidential debate between Republican Paul Ryan and Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, both Catholics, and the political divide among Catholics in this country.

With that in mind, The Times asked readers on its Facebook page, "How important is a...