A few weeks ago, Guangzhou's Southern Weekly had a very interesting feature on the McRefugees - people who, due to low pay or homelessness, spend their nights at 24-hour fast food restaurants - living in Shanghai's Xujiahui area. They were thrown into the spotlight in March, when one man stabbed a McDonalds employee who tried to kick him out. more ›

Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos at shanghaiist.com. more ›

Southeast Asian pact exposes rifts [NY Times] Southeast Asian leaders signed a charter here today that was drafted as a watershed document to bind the region together as a European-style economic community but has instead exposed the sharp divisions over Myanmar and other issues among the signatories.Malaysia busts DVD lab in its biggest raid in 2007 [Reuters] Malaysia has raided a laboratory capable of churning out $52 million worth of pirated DVDs a year in... more ›

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. more ›

LAist tracks an award-winning TV writer who worked on Good Times to a homeless shelter and sees a Little Old Lady get a jaywalking ticket because she can't get across fast enough (in the same post!). Poets invade Metro and an LAist contributor's new book asks WWJB. more ›

Shanghaiist is an animal lover who advocates any kind of animal aid activity in China. Which is why we were overjoyed to hear the news of a new stray animal shelter -- one of the city's biggest -- in Minhang District. The shelter offers a host of services: people can contact the centre to adopt stray dogs and cats or abandoned pets, there will be weekend adoption days, medical treatment will be administered to the stray animals, and so on. more ›

Shanghaiist visited a bar the other night. A new bar: Free Soul, on Fahuazhen Lu. more ›

First, 19-year-old Zhu Bin got expelled from Shanghai University because his teachers found him in his dormitory bed with his girlfriend back on March 24. Zhu said he was sick and his girlfriend was nursing him back to health. And although we don't really buy that story -- we've all suffered from that "illness," Zhu -- we feel sorry for the guy. And what the hell were his teachers doing in his dorm room? Zhu and his parents appealed the expulsion, but Shanghai University refused to reinstate him. Then, a private university accepted Zhu, but Shanghai University refused to issue the necessary transfer letter. Zhu found a job doing data entry, but was fired when his boss found out he was expelled from university. He now works another job for 5 yuan ($0.40) an hour, less than Shanghai's minimum wage. Oh, and Zhu's girlfriend broke up with him. more ›