Your local mall could be monitoring your cell phone signal this holiday season. This Black Friday some malls in the US will be rolling out a new technology that allows retailers to track customers' cell phone signals while they're shopping. more ›

Here's a quick recap of some of the new laws that went in effect on July 1, according to the L.A. Times. How many have you broken already? Tsk tsk. more ›

It is now a misdemeanor for any prison employee or visitor to smuggle a cell phone into prison, reports. ABC Local. Senators unanimously approved the bill SB26, similar to one that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed as too weak, on Thursday, reports the Sacramento Bee. The misdemeanor is punishable up to a $5,000 fine. more ›

A crack-down on the epidemic of distracted driving in Glendale has led to "more than 60 drivers busted for using hand-held phones while behind the wheel," notes the Glendale News-Press. On Saturday officers blew the whistle, literally, on vehicles exiting the Ventura (134) Freeway on the South Glendale Avenue off-ramp... more ›

City Controller Greuel, in an effort to save taxpayer money, has called for a 60% reduction in the number of City issued cell phones by July 1st, 2011. The Controller believes this action could save Los Angeles nearly $5 million annually that can be better spent. A final audit will be released in the coming weeks that examines overall City cell phone usage and existing contracts. more ›

Snatching cell phones from state employees was Gov. Jerry Brown's first executive decision on Tuesday, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Brown ordered state agency and department heads to repo half of the approximately 96,000 state-issued devices "currently in public employees' hands." At an average of $36 a month Brown believes the effort can save California at least $20 million a year. more ›

We see it everyday on Los Angeles roads. Drivers eating, reading, illegally talking on a cell phone, checking Google Maps on their iPhone, painting nails, etc. So much for paying attention, not to mention the lack of turn signals used in by L.A. drivers (annoying!). more ›

If you're a reader of the reliable source of laugh, Texts From Last Night.com, you know that whatever happened last night was probably pretty messed up. And probably involved some sort of bodily fluid. In taking a peek at the site, LAist was able to uncover out what the hell went down "last night" in LA. more ›

Today will forever be remembered as The Day The Fun Died for those Californian motorists who revel in texting-while-driving. As we flip the calendar to 2009, that act becomes illegal whether you have an iPhone, a Blackberry, or a hefty Zack Morris phones from 1992.

Text Messaging (SB 28) This new law makes it an infraction to write, send, or read text-based communication on an electronic wireless communication device, such as a cell phone, while driving.

... if Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill that's headed to his desk. more ›

Now there's an attention grabbing quote, spoken by Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum, up there in the headline. With the onslaught of laws and proposed ideas for drivers of cars (there are 33.5 million registered vehicles in California), many think it's getting a bit ridiculous in a report by the LA Times. From smoking with minors present in the car to driving with a pet on your lap (the Paris Hilton law), there's at least one law affecting someone (no more handheld cell phones anyone?) more ›

Those of you who rarely use your cell phones while driving need not take too much notice of the following announcement (oh, and p.s.? Thanks for being better than other people). For those of you, however, who insist on multi-tasking throughout your driving experience, watch out: that phone call you're making while wending your way down the 101 might just get you pulled over and fined, fined, fined. The CHP just released a press announcement detailing the new regulations and fine schedules going into effect on July 1st: yes, hands-free devices will still be okay, but only for drivers over the age of 18. (Sorry kids!) more ›

Two robberies at gunpoint took place late last night in Hollywood, resulting in injuries to the victims. more ›

How many times have you seen some boneheaded driver make a stupid move on the road, only to drive up beside them and see them yapping away on their cell phones? Too many times, I'll bet you. Now a new study shows that cell phone users also drive more slowly and make poor lane-change choices, which may slow down traffic overall up to 10%. From the LA Times:

Researchers at the University of Utah have found that motorists jabbering on cellphones drive more hesitantly than undistracted drivers and, as a result, are increasing everyone's average drive time by 5% to 10%. more ›

According to a new study by David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, talking on a cell phone while driving can make a person drive up to 2mph slower that other drivers, the LA Daily News reports. more ›

Today's issue of LA Weekly holds their top few picks of the 740 new California laws coming our way in 2008. more ›

You may remember Tim Hammer's -- (or should I say, a "blogger who calls himself Tim Hammer"?) recent post on "American Gladiators": "There are no cell phones, cameras, iPods or knives allowed inside [the arena]. These rules not only got in the way of my plans of shanking a Gladiator while listening to my workout mix on shuffle but also required us to walk all the way back to our car to drop off our cell phones before entering the lot....This time around there's water. Original Gladiators: no water. New Gladiators: water." more ›

As you may have heard NBC is bringing back American Gladiators. The revamped version of the classic game show of the early 90s will begin to air on January 6. I wish I would have waited until January 6 for my first chance to see the new Gladiators in action. Saturday morning I got up early and headed down to the Sony lot to be a member of the Gladiator audience. I gave up... more ›

When people trade scary stories, it's usually something that happened to them; a ghost they saw, a voice they heard. Unfortunately, most of my scary stories are things I brought upon myself. When I was a teenager, I hung around with a group of people who took a lot of acid. We would just take some acid, then decide where to go. The woods or the beach were usually good places to fry. 7-11 or the mall were not. A lot of people liked going to Disneyland or the laserium, but I knew that would be way too much for me to handle. more ›

I’ve always felt that political correctness would one day be our demise. When politicians refuse to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of terrorists that try to kill Americans are Muslim, and 80-year-old Caucasian grandmothers are pushed to the side by airport screeners, political correctness seems a little absurd. When people illegally cross our borders and are then called “undocumented workers” who are catered to by Bank of America and our welfare system, Mayor Villaraigosa rejoices. Jumping on the side of illegal aliens is great for politicians, because Hispanics are becoming the most influential sect of voters. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no more American than any Hispanic out there, as long as they have a social security number. Politicians don’t care about the people. They’ll do and say whatever it takes to get reelected. more ›

Texas congressman Ron Paul pointed his pen at his fellow conservatives at the New Hampshire presidential debates yesterday and won the Fox News text message poll, a day after winning the Maryland Republican Straw Vote, to the outrage of Fox mouthpiece, Sean Hannity. Hannity, who clearly hates freedom and obviously believes that all elections and polls that aren't rigged by Karl Rove must be rigged, flat out accused the American people of cheating when... more ›

Photo at Universal Studios by nopantsxris via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr more ›

Can we say embarrassing? The LA Times reports in an investigation that there are major problems with cell phone 9-1-1 emergency calls.Elementary school counselor Brad Edwards said he waited eight harrowing minutes last year before a dispatcher picked up his cell call about a boy who had collapsed on a Los Angeles schoolyard and begun foaming from the mouth. "The fire station is just a few blocks away. I could have run there faster... more ›

Around 4pm today a one-acre fire broke out within sight of the Griffith Park Observatory. ABC has been running indepth coverage, although there is very little news online and no photos available at this time. Hikers have been evacuated. If anyone knows anyone who may be hiking in the park, they are being asked to contact them on cell phones. Visitors to the Observatory were evacuated from the building and were being kept in the parking lot at the time that ABC switched back to its normal programming around 5:15 pm. It appears the observatory area has been evacuated now at 6 pm and the fire is almost contained. Two to five acres between the Observatory and the Hollywood sign have burned. I can smell the smoke as I type this post. more ›

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. more ›

People are freaking out by a law that requires that you be hands-free if you use a cell phone in your car. The law goes in effect July 1, 2008 but the LA Daily News is reporting that locals are thinking that the law will kick in this weekend, so they are rushing to the phone stores to get their blue tooth accessories. Officials have blamed an e-mail hoax for helping to spread the... more ›

In the wake of the most recent King-Harbor tragedy, where concerned witnesses called Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department 9-1-1 to report that the medical staff was doing nothing about a woman dying on the floor of the hospital, only to be told that 9-1-1 would not dispatch any help, comes a plan by the LAPD to improve their handling of 9-1-1 calls. Yesterday officials told the L.A. Police Commission that they were beginning to... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Ryan in Silverlake. He asks: I'm seriously considering a new Mac but I always hear rumors about newer ones coming out so I always end up waiting. Should I just bite the bullet and do it or should I wait? When to upgrade or get a new piece... more ›

Something miraculous happened last night at the House of Blues last night when Britney Spears made her return to an LA stage. Actually several miraculous things happened last night on the Sunset Strip that I cannot remember happening in my long history of seeing live music in LA. The first thing was, people paid hard-earned money for tickets (about $100 face value for a pair after all was said and done - more if... more ›