This video is a few weeks old, but the story is still developing:The council has sent the church a $40,000 bill for police services and sent a letter to the secretary of Homeland Security asking for personal assistance to end the city and church stalemate. Emotions were more muted Monday night, after several weeks of heated rhetoric on all sides of the debate. Homeland Security over this? More at the Ventura County Star.......

Eric Richardson of Blogdowntown snaps the above shot from a downtown commercial shoot yesterday: "Pictured is one scene from the commercial being shot, where a gaggle of females drop their workout to come press up against the window and see some brown guy. I would hope this'll make more sense by the time we see it on TV." Out best guess is that he is made out of chocolate. Los Angeles could soon be......

It's Sunday, so that means Entourage on HBO night. Tonight, LAX goes Orange Alert compliments of Homeland Security causing the boys and Ari the usual trouble. Of course, in the end it always works out. Above is a NSFW montage of Ari at his best, including a good observation of his mannerisms, from the first two seasons. The best parts: his interactions with his assistant, Lloyd, and his wife.......

To some, Elvira Arellano is a leader among pro-immigration rights activists who think the federal government' immigration and trade policies are unfair. To others, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Arellano is just another attention-grabbing, "criminal alien and immigration fugitive," unfairly using her American-born son as an Elián González-like prop for pro immigration activism . Arellano spent an entire year inside Adalberto United Methodist Church on Chicago's West Side, defying a federal order to report......

Expect delays between 6 a.m. and noon on Saturday: On Saturday morning, April 28, transit patrons utilizing Union Station between 6 a.m. and noon are advised that they may experience service delays of 15 minutes or longer on inbound and outbound rail and bus services due to a scheduled joint security training exercise.Union Station transit operators, including the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Metrolink and Amtrak, will join the Los Angeles County......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too,......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Do you have State Farm Insurance? Your rates might be finally going down. (SFV Biz Journal, Registration Required [but worth it, it's free]) What if the City threw a $60,000 meeting and no one showed up? It just might happen at the next Congress of Neighborhoods. (CityWatch) 2006 brought the hottest summer ever for Los Angeles. Too bad we didn't pass Prop 87 and are all still using our cars and polluting the skies,......

Green freeways last week. Green rooftops this week. “I do charity work, but I don’t do charity work for major studios,” says Russell Crowe. The New York Times takes a look at the Museum of the American West. 7 banks have been robbed in downtown Glendale since July while city officials look at downtown area's future. Under Secretary for the Preparedness Directorate, part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), George W. Forseman......

Well, as if we didn't have enough to be pissed at President Bush for, we come to find him responsible for the hours-long traffic nightmare that's virtually shut down the Westside this evening. Yes, the most unpopular president since Herbert Hoover, who's treated California as virtually a foreign country for the past six years, came to town to get a little grease poured on his wheels by a few wealthy constituents (the fundraising dinner......

Update: Among much 9/11 coverage on Gothamist, they also do The Inappropriate 9/11 Coverage Awards. Has anything changed in Hollywood? In Pop culture? LA Times' Patrick Goldstein reflects: ... it would take more than a horrific catastrophe to quench our thirst for the madcap antics of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Star Jones Reynolds, Jessica Simpson and all the other bobble heads bouncing around our celebrity universe.... I spend a lot of time around showbiz......

We here at LAist love you. That's why we eat and write about it, thats why we rock and write about it, that's why we read the paper for you, that's why we kiss the girls for you. But probably the best tip we have for you today comes to us from the Department of Homeland Security, who says there's an evil lurking out there in the shadows...no, not Muslim extremists -- worse --......

Remember the rolling blackouts in 2000? That really bit. If you want to read LAist today, try to conserve some energy before our screens go black. Crash a rare Ferrari in Malibu, have some friends claim they are Homeland Security, and do some more mysterious things. Can we claim this story as truly, only in LA? Simi Valley to get a new welcome sign. We like the happy face better. Downtown News interviews Brady......

target this - 46 cities will be getting counterterrorism grants in a new round of funding from the Department of Homeland Security. The good news is, we're on the list. The bad news is they're only passing out a total of $270 million. adding insult to injury - A woman who paid $125,000 to a Beverly Hills matchmaker sued after not finding the right guy. Yesterday she was awarded $2.1 million in the case......

unhappy trails The Donald is ruffling feathers in Rancho Palos Verdes with a request to rename the street that leads to his new development Trump National Drive. So far, city officials are sticking with the current Ocean Trails Drive. fake TV Also from Palos Verdes (buzzing with news today, the PV!): a man who claimed to be producing a government-backed TV show about the Department of Homeland Security is expected to plead guilty today......

Jaws: Say you're a pair of small-time crooks who decide to hold up banks in grocery stores. It's not glamorous work, and the take is kind of mediocre — one of you can't even afford to fix his teeth. So it's pretty darn cool when officials start calling you The 007 Bandits. Jaws II: CalTech scientists are working on implanting sensors in sharks' brains to control their actions. Mechanical engineer Joel Burdick tells the......

Much thanks to Here in Van Nuys who pointed us towards another Van Nuys based blog - We's in California. Bluntly and comically, a Canadian couple shares accounts of their new homeland, including seeing a rapper in the bank and dealing with Homeland Security. After perusing this crackup blog, we had to share some of our favorite quotes with you: Santa Monica is pretty much like every scene from White Men Can't Jump, except......

Some things just don't bode well. Still, given the number of color-coded alerts and vague warnings we've all experienced in the last few years, it's hard to know what to do, other than feeling a few jitters, about the 7,500 pounds of fertilizer stolen in Huntington Beach on Friday. This UK government pamphlet suggests that fertilizer containing less than 28% ammonium nitrate is not potentially explosive, which matches the FBI's claim about the fertilizer......

Londonist has minute by minute coverage of the suspected terrorist blasts in London today. Included in their bird's eye view of the event is a link to the incredibly comprehensive (and constantly updated) wikipedia entry about the transport explosions. Update: Locally, we moved to modified tactical alert and a heightened alert at LAX but not for any specific threat. Update II: For even more minute by minute coverage, check out europhobia. From bloggers in......

Alone the Long Beach or Los Angeles ports would be the largest in the U.S. Together, they handle more than 1 million cruise passengers and $200 billion in trade annually, including half the petroleum products used in the Western U.S....

It took just four Democratic defections to keep the Patriot Act as-is. The Patriot Act, which gives law enforcers the right to sneak, peek, and surveil with unprecedented authority, almost took a hit last week. Rep. Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) proposed an amendment to eliminate the government's new right to track what books people buy or check out at the library. Rep. Jane Harman of the South Bay sided against Sanders - and her vote proved......