The LA Times today profiles an Orange County mom who has blogged her way through her son's bouts with cancer, now returning for a third time. Chase Crawford-Quickel was 13 the first time he was diagnosed with cancer. As a junior in high school, his cancer returned, and following a bone-marrow transplant, he appeared to have kicked it again. Now 18, he has once again been diagnosed with Leukemia, and given slim hopes for survival.......

Convicted murderer Susan Atkins has earned a dubious honor: She has been the longest incarcerated woman in California history*, having logged 37 of her 59 years as an inmate following her conviction in the famous 1969 "Manson Murders." Now, Atkins is pleading for an early compassionate release by State corrections officials because she faces another kind of life sentence--the impending end of her own. Although specific medical details have not been made public, Atkins is......

Veteran actor and director Sydney Pollack has died. The 73-year-old Oscar winner died today in his home in the Pacific Palisades, and representatives are saying the cause was cancer. Pollack was born in 1934 in Indiana. He studied acting under Sanford Meisner in New York and began his career on the stage. According to the New York Times, Mr. Pollack’s career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and......

Photo by nailmaker via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr 22-year-old Alan Hamai from Redondo Beach had just been awarded his degree in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and was celebrating when he fell to his death from the third floor of a dorm building. Hamai is the second student from SoCal to die at UCB this month; two weeks ago Christopher Wootton was fatally stabbed after a party on campus. The folks at......

With an American Institute for Cancer Research study in hand, ABC7's Lori Corbin, aka "The Food Coach," visited the Veggie Grill in El Segundo. "Several large studies confirm that consuming more than 18 ounces [of red and processed meat], a little more than one pound of red meat, bacon, and smoked meats per week, increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 30 percent," Corbin writes. "That's worrisome since many shy from this type of cancer......

Photo by Try Hank via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The "severely decomposed" body of an infant has been found in Santa Ana. An area resident saw a dog playing with something unusual, which turned out to be the baby, whose body has been taken to the Orange County coroner's office for an autopsy. Police may now be ruling yesterday's 101 freeway death a suicide, reports the Daily News. Initial reports intimated......

UPDATE: Damn it, it's confirmed: A press release issued by the actor's spokesperson Wednesday said: “Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. Patrick’s physician Dr. George Fisher states The Good news? ‘Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far. All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We......

Taken today in Venice at Lincoln and Venice Blvds., the above picture shows a billboard that has kicked the bucket. Did it finish its "bucket list" too? Three people were shot and injured today in Lincoln Heights near Daly and Mozart streets at 1:22 p.m. *UPDATE, 7:43 p.m.: LAPD is confirming to LAist that one died at the scene, making this the fourth murder for 2008. More police dog news from San Diego, this......

Driving through Koreatown we ran past this gentleman who had the most interesting sign hanging from his neck. Heartbreaking if you believe him, which we do. photo by Sonny I. LaVista for LAist......

For once I'm not going to bitch about the Dodger's pitching or offense. Yesterday Dodger's Owner and Chairman Frank McCourt announced the launch of ThinkCure, a charitable fund in conjunction with City of Hope and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, as the official charity of the Dodgers organization. ThinkCure will raise funds to help both institutions to develop new approaches to the treatment and hopeful cure of cancer. Today it was announced that KCAL9, the......

Ms. Apple wrote the following message on her website today and because it's for such a good cause - to help fund her soundman Gungi's fight against Cancer, I decided to post it here as well. (I also altered her grammar a bit. She,likes,to,avoid,spaces) I'm writing to put word out that I am doing two shows at Largo on March 5th & 9th, for my wonderful friend, Gungi. If you happened to have gone......