Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The trial of Juan Manuel Alvarez began today. Among his charges are 11 counts of murder for the January 2005 incident involving him parking his car on the tracks and causing a Metrolink train to derail. The stretch of San Diego beach closed to the public last week following a fatal shark attack has reopened. Swimmers are cautioned to keep close to the......

Los Angeles once again mourns the loss of one of its bravest after yesterday afternoon's explosion on Sepulveda Blvd. near LAX. Firefighter Brent A. Lovrien, age 35, was a 10 year veteran of the LAFD assigned to Fire Station 95 since October 2005. He died shortly after arrival at the Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Marina Campus. LAFD Spokesman Brian Humphrey breaks down the incident at the department's blog:On Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 1:57......

Photo by Rafahh via Flickr One firefighter has died at an explosion near LAX this afternoon. Check here for updates.Terminal One was evacuated early this morning after security screeners saw something that resembled a grenade, prompting a near 40-minute evacuation of the Southwest Airlines terminal. After officials identified it as a toy grenade, operations went back to normal. LAX officials told KNBC that passengers should be reminded "not to pack anything that resembles a......

*UPDATE 5:01: One firefighter was killed and another critically injured after reporting to the scene of an explosion that blew manhole covers off the ground and damaged part of a building in Westchester. The firefighters were responding to a report of an underground explosion and blown manhole covers in the 8800 block of Sepulveda (between Manchester and La Tijera) and were injured in a second, larger explosion after reporting to the scene, according to LAFD......

Photograph of police investigating the explosion scene in Times Square by Mary Altaffer/AP Update 8:25am, 3/7: "Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said an individual was questioned there about the letters to Congress and "there is no evidence linking the letters, which contained no threat, to the bombing," according to ABC7.This morning's explosion in New York City's Times Square has a possible Los Angeles connection in the form of a return address......

The 4th St. bridge and 3rd Street is closed between Alameda and Central due to an explosion at 637 E. 3rd St. Unknown in nature at this point, the explosion left one LAPD officer with minor injuries who was transported to the hospital. Another officer in the patrol car was not hurt....

When you find yourself sitting around the house (your house, your parent's house, your friend's house, the house of the weird person you met on the Goldline last week) over the long holiday weekend, you'll probably be too full of beer or wine or turkey or stuffing or pumpkin pie to do much of anything besides sit on the couch and stare at whatever's in front of you. Which is fine - if you're into......

Today in major LA Fire Department events: an early morning structure fire in North Hills sending smoke into the flight path of Van Nuys Airport, a big rig with a trailer overturned on the Southbound Harbor freeway causing a Sig Alert, and a medical emergency in the Hilton Hotel at Universal City where staff mixed ammonia & bleach solutions creating hydrochloric acid (oops!). Is it the second Thursday of the month? Ah, it is!......

If you like spicy food, Jitlada is the place to go. Not only does LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold call the Southern Thai specialty restaurant "the most exciting new Thai restaurant of the year," he claims one of the dishes, the kua kling Phat Tha Lung (thick brown curry with shredded beef) "may be the spiciest food you can eat in Los Angeles." Jitlada recently gained popularity a few months ago when a Chicago blogger......

Today's LA City Beat's LA Sniper column focuses aim on 30th District Congressman Henry Waxman who led the banning of subway construction under Wilshire Blvd. in the mid 1980s. Could you imagine what LA would be like today? A Los Angeles with a subway down the god friggin' most congested city street in America? Instead we have the one of the nation's busiest rapid bus lines, the 720, which the Sniper suggest should be......

Bad Religion - "Incomplete" John Doe, Dead Rock West, Los Duggans, The Lone @ Safari Sam's Reyes Bros. @ Key Club Gipsy Kings @ The Greek Strunz & Farah @ Catalina Bar & Grill Lukas Haas, Jessica Fichot @ The Hotel Cafe Big Bad Voodoo Daddy & The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra @ Hollywood Bowl Festivals Fuck Yeah Fest: The Explosion, The Fuse, Busdriver, Boom Bip, Entrance, The Mae Shi, Fleshies, Residual Echoes, Imaad Wasif,......

Angels 10, Red Sox 4 - LAnaheim has won the first two games in a clash of baseball's best records. Gary Matthews, Jr. shone with 4 RBI, 3 runs, and 3 hits in five at-bats. He hit a homer in the 8th and robbed another from Boston's Coco Crisp. Joe Saunders allowed four runs on eight hits, but still got the win on just 5 and 1/3 innings of work thanks to a five run......

The Wombats - "Kill The Director" The Wombats, Oslo @ Roxy Metal Skool, The Mulhollands, The Automatic Music Explosion @ Key Club Low Vs. Diamond, Nico Vega, Flash By Image, Alamo Race Track @ Spaceland Mighty Six Ninety, Saucy Minx, Run Run Run, Unbusted @ Viper Room Plasticsoul, Kold War, Atomic Bitch, The Trainwrecks, Jordan Zevon @ The Cat Club Chencha Berrinches, Los Creepers, Sweet Sensations, The Scuffs @ The Knitting Factory Manic, Princeton,......

Two people were killed and four critically injured in an explosion at a test site for small rocket engines at Mojave Airport in Kern County. Will Villaraigosa intervene on behalf of NBC Universal — corporate parent of Telemundo — and its new $3-billion development plan? Courtney Love reveals on her MySpace blog that she wants her old face back. Oops: leaked memo reveals that Home Depot tried to stack a City Council meeting with......

On today's LAist poll, over 80% of you readers are willing to pony up for a subway to the sea. Is anybody at City Hall listening? Or does Zuma Dogg have to get all wacky on their asses? The LAT names two new managing editors. To whom do I write to protest the axing of West Magazine? About 200 employees were evacuated from UCLA today after a basement explosion; no injuries reported. 16-year-old Victor......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

The Darkness Starbreeze Studios X-Box 360, PS3 As you play The Darkness, you will probably notice a special ability that your character has. It is activated when you walk up to the corpse of a recently killed mobster, and the option of eating this enemy heart with the press of the button is given. That basically sums up the entire game. You get to eat HEARTS. The Darkness is a first person shooter, in......

There are very few bands that I hate more than Taking Back Sunday. Linkin Park is one of em. Remember that dog that used to say that he'd like to poop on things. I'd like to poop on the Projekt Revolution tour. Then I'd like to smear that poop on other things that I hate, like the current White House, assholes who try to politicize things like global warming and pretend it isn't happening,......

Is it me, or is there an explosion of hockey interest here on the mighty LAist? Thank you Adam Rose! I was beginning to feel like that solitary nutjob on the corner who rails on about the miraculous healing power of magnets. Sure, hockey fever is finally rearing its rubbery head with Anaheim only one game away from winning the series, but on the bright side... it's better than nothing. (Which is also good......

Recently there has been an explosion of local bands that have burst onto the music scene, Silversun Pickups, Cold War Kids and Under the Influence Of Giants, to name a few. After touring extensively for the past year one of these bands returned home for the first time in about that long. Under The Influence Of Giants returned home to Los Angeles to the El Rey Thursday Night. More After the Jump.........

We're not sure how you say bullshit in French, but there's a "controversial" film slated to screen at Cannes this week that should be called Red Flag. American indie film Last Looks has supposedly been blocked from entering France because it allegedly contains scenes of real deaths that occurred during the production. AP jumped on the "controversy," and even Film Threat bit, but the whole thing walks, talks and smells like a big fat fake.......

Ying Yang Twins @ Key Club Cowboy Junkies @ El Rey Theatre Toots & the Maytals, Elijah Emmanuel & the Revelations @ House of Blues Wovenhand, The Dodos, The Lamps @ Silverlake Lounge Die! Die! Die!, Gliss, The Moderates @ Spaceland PCRV, Crank Sturgeon, Moment Trigger, Dog, Raven Chacon @ Il Corral Amber Pacific, Just Surrender, MontyareI, Powerspace @ The Troubadour Bitch & the Exciting Conclusion, Emily Wells, Vanessa Bley @ The Hotel Cafe......

Frederick Evan Young, or rather the man who dresses like Chewbacca on Hollywood Blvd, got arrested last week for head butting a tour guide, Brian Sapir. After Sapir asked the 6'4 actor to stop harrasing two Japanese tourists, Young raged, "No one tells this wookie what to do!" right before he head butted the guide. After the anger explosion, the forty four year old Young was escorted off theater property by security officers. Booked......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

Talib Kweli @ House of Blues Steve Aoki, DJ AM @ LAX The Spazmatics @ Dragonfly T.S.O.L., Manic Hispanic, The Adz, Black Fag @ Vault 350 You Me & Iowa, Scarlet Grey, The Henry Clay People @ Spaceland Valient Thorr, Nebula, Artimus Pyledriver @ The Scene All Shall Perish, The Faceless, Continuum, 13 Killings @ Whisky Anavan, Sexytime Explosion, Deadly Sins @ Alex's Bar Soft Environmental Collapse, Wrapt in Plastic @ Mr. T's Bowl......

It’s been a long week for the folks at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, which got hit with plenty of shrapnel from the Michael Richards explosion. And it was on the lips of everyone on Thanksgiving, the day that the Laugh Factory turns into the home away from home for about 1,200 actors, comedians and anyone else who comes in for the free meals and a free show at the comedy venue. If there......

With the robust music scene here in the City of Angels, LAist always tries to keep you abreast of all the talent to grace our local venues, in particular the diamonds in the rough that don’t necessarily have the name recognition of a Top 40 act but still maintain the purity of their musical genius. There’s another group of performers that doesn’t get often mentioned but is also a vital part of the musical......

The Who @ Hollywood Bowl Modest Mouse @ Avalon Vincente Fernandez @ Gibson Lloyd Banks, Cartel @ House of Blues Eric Benet @ Henry Fonda Theater Jamie Laval & Ashley Broder @ McCabe's OK Stranger, The Automatic Music Explosion, Tipper @ Cobalt Cafe Leftover Crack, Citizen Fish, The Sainte Catherines @ The Knitting Factory......

Roger Waters @ Hollywood Bowl Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes @ The Pond of Anaheim L.A. Guns, The Cauze @ Whisky Peter Tork @ The Coffee Gallery Backstage (Altadena) Mort Sahl @ McCabes The Black Seeds @ The Vine Street Lounge Two Ton Boa, Thrones, Bipolar Bear, Knight Rider @ The Smell Clear Static, Rome to Paris, Lylah @ Key Club Califone, The Heavenly States @ Spaceland Gil & Jer's Soul Explosion @ Liquid Kitty......

On this day in 1979, a two- to three-kiloton nuclear bomb explosion (or something) was detected in the Indian Ocean about halfway between South Africa and Antarctica. No country to date has claimed responsibility. On this day in 1958, Joan Marie Larkin was born in Philadelphia. Upon relocation to Hollywood, Ms. Larkin became better known as Joan Jett and was responsible for blowing up the rock establishment with her all-girl band The Runaways. Now......