Yesterday was one of those great Los Angeles weather days. That is, when 5 miles makes the difference between a downpour and clear sunny skies. The Northwest Valley had some nice cloud cover and the Southeast Valley was perfect all day. It poured randomly in Santa Monica, but Beverly Hills was perfect. Brief spouts of rainfall were also reported in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Then early this morning, lightning struck. 445 times to be......

The shark attack near Catalina Island this past weekend is the 148 confirmed shark attacks along the Pacific Coast since 1900, according to the OC Register's Beach Blog. They say most have been investigation attacks and not predatory. “The shark was not interested at all in eating her, otherwise it would have stayed in the area and eaten her," explained Shark expert Ralph Collier. Over the weekend, a woman kayaking off Catalina was flung into......

A woman kayaking off the coast of Catalina Island had a close encounter with a shark this weekend. "I couldn't believe it and all of a sudden when I seen the fin I realized this is not a whale -- this is a shark," she told KCAL9. "By the time I thought that ... the shark was already cruising under me and lifting the kayak up with its body, and I landed out of the......

I don't know when I've seen a picture with such intense colors. The zig-zagging of the breakwater makes such a balancedcomposition, and the tanker in the distance is the only sign that you are not on an island in the south seas. The breakwater is 9,250 feet long and contains nearly three million tons of rock, brought over from Santa Catalina Island. (Pedro Chamber of Commerce) The initial western section of the breakwater, called......

Consolation Prize of a Lifetime - Al Gore is a man of peace and gets the homepage of Apple.com all to himself -- should we expect the iAl to come out by the holidays? The Catalina Island Avalon city employee who beheaded a deer and left it in a soccer net is definitely not getting any peace prize. There was another suspicious package today left around City Hall, forcing street closures and the evacuation......

Too many train crashes! Today saw the second Gold Line crash this month, this one being the worse of the two. The Blue Line was involved in a crash earlier this week as well as a Metrolink train yesterday. Tennie Pierce, the city firefighter who claims co-workers fed him dog food-laced spaghetti settled with city council today for $1.43 million dollars. Will it be a cozy night indoors as it rains outside? Yep. Pretty......

So I have this pretty fun tradition (aside from Three Rivers in the holidays), of going camping at Two Harbors on Catalina Island every Labor Day Weekend. The tradition originally began as a Jugglers' Festival, oddly enough, of which I was only a part due to my friend and her husband who are amateur jugglers, and because they are friends with some fairly accomplished ones. There was a juggling volleyball game on one of......

In the springtime when the Hollywood Bowl announced their schedule, a friend of mine made sure to secure tickets to the “Sgt. Pepper’s at 40...a Beatles Celebration featuring Cheap Trick”. For some reason he agreed to go camping at Catalina Island for the weekend with friends, so I ended up with tickets for Saturday night's performance. Looking around the audience in our Section R1 seats, the audience was what was expected for a bunch......

- The fire on Catalina Island wasn't so bad after all. - Meanwhile, one of the busiest weekends of the year at fire scorched Griffith Park is here. - Will someone ever fix this? Billionth close call plane-to-plane crash at LAX runway. - City Council has dedicated one lane to public transit along Wilshire Blvd. during rush-hour. Now who has that 14 million? - May 1st through 7th saw 27 homicides in LA County.......

- Is is scarier that a homeless man was walking around downtown with a glock and pointing it at people while saying Bang - or an undercover cop? - Opinion LA - Nettie Berkson, 91, will attend her 50th consecutive home opener today at Dodger Stadium - Daily News - She's 102 years old, she's from Chico, and this weekend while you doing nothing, she hit a hole-in-one - Seattle Times - Third bald......

- EMI announces that it will offer MP3s on iTunes without the dreaded DRM and a blogosphere rejoices - boingboing - Two bald eagle chicks were born on Catalina Island over the weekend - Daily Breeze - Beverly Hills Unified School District gets nearly $1 million for accepting 159 students into Beverly Hills High who don't live in the district, but are enrolled under a diversity program. Only problem, most of those being brought......

farm flashback These may be the last days of the community farm in south central LA; supporters are $10 million short in their efforts to buy the property from the developer who's ready to take his 14 acres and make a profit. But Hollywood is lending a publicity-generating, eviction-fighting hand: Daryl Hannah is camping out on the property, Laura Dern and husband Ben Harper stopped by and Joan Baez is treesitting. Treesitting, you ask?......

If you've been wondering how you can express your affection for our planet, tomorrow is your answer. Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day. We turned to Green LA Girl to see what's happening around the city. We culled these from her list: Earth Day Audubon 2006 9am-4pm / free at the Audubon Nature Center, Ernest Debs Park 4700 N. Griffin Ave in Highland Park Music, solar car seminars, coffee tasting, urban farming and lots......

come to Catalina: The Catalina Island Conservancy wants eco-tourists to come to explore the island's massive nature preserve, and is opening a new nature center to sweeten the trip. Critters like Na Shun Tachi, a Santa Catalina fox, await. (photo by Sean Hiller for the Daily Breeze). new mayor in WeHo: On Monday, John Heilman will be sworn in as the Mayor of West Hollywood. The good news: his ambitious plans include ending hunger,......

There’s something about a long weekend—whether you take a day off of work or are mercifully granted a Monday holiday—that begs for a trip somewhere else. One of the greatest benefits of living in LA is that there are so many places to go to get away from it, and the best of them are right here in California. If you're inclined to stay close to home, you can spend the weekend in Long......