A Kern County man is facing charges after being accused of killing stray cats in his neighborhood and eating them. This week residents in Oildale (an area just outside Bakersfield) heard suspicious noises coming from the home of Jason Wilmert. more ›

Swiss artist Christoph Buchel is going underground for his next exhibition: he plans to bury a decommissioned 727 jetliner 38 feet under the surface of the Mojave desert for his piece "Terminal." Viewers who make the drive out to Boron will be able to take a passageway and go inside the airplane whose windows will be sealed. more ›

Taco Bell is testing out a (relatively) fresher, healthier menu that it's dubbed "Cantina Bell." If you want to give the new menu a try, you're in luck because one of the two markets that are getting a test run is just 90 minutes to the North in Bakersfield (the other is in Kentucky). more ›

Alisa Wheeler, a 15-year-old teen from Kern County, disappeared without leaving a trace one night in June. Last week, Wheeler sent her mom a Facebook message with those words every parent wants to hear: I met a 23-year-old man in Mexico, we're married and I'm three months along with his child. more ›

A couple in Kern County filmed themselves having sex on a plane and mid-air and set it to the tune of Katy Perry's E.T. more ›

Actor Joseph Son, who played Random Task in the 1997 film "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery," is the prime suspect in the murder of his prison cellmate. As Random Task, one of Dr. Evil's henchmen, Son parodied the James Bond character Odd Job - one of the most legendary and deadliest of Bond villains. more ›

After a thermometer-busting week, the Southland is getting rocked by thunder, rain, hail and the possibility of flash floods that will continue into Sunday, according to weather reports. more ›

Arid climate and strong winds have made SoCal a hotbed for brush fires this week. Los Angeles area firefighters did not relax on Labor Day. Instead, they responded to a fast moving wildfire in Sun Valley on Monday. The cause? Children illegally playing with fireworks. more ›

Sunday's plane crash near Tehachapi in Kern County has resulted in a rapidly spreading brush fire. More than 4,000 acres have burned in the blaze, and 30 homes have been forced to evacuate. more ›

A man died after being stabbed by a rooster at an illegal cockfight. Should I repeat that? According to the Kern County coroner, 35-year-old Jose Luis Ochoa was declared dead at a hospital approximately two hours after an incident at a cockfight where he suffered a life-ending injury. more ›

The immediate Los Angeles area has so far been spared of major wildfires this year, but further up north, things got rough yesterday. More than 15,000 acres have been charred and around than 2,300 people have been evacuated in two blazes burning in the southern Central Valley's Kern County, prompting Governor Arnold Schwarzengger last night to declare a state of emergency. more ›

The damage done by the Gulf oil spill is horrendous, claiming the unfortunate top spot as the worst environmental disaster in American history. Although land spills have very different effects on the surrounding area, ChartBin, via California Watch, reminds us that the largest recorded oil spill actually took place in California in Kern County, L.A. County's northern neighbor. In March of 1909, a well head that blew out, begetting the Lakeview Gusher, and spewed 1,227,600 tonnes of oil over 18 months (yes, it took that long to stop). To compare, the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 released 14,000 tonnes into the ocean. Today, numerous agencies regulate oil drilling in California. Also: If the BP Oil Spill was Centered in L.A., It Would Look Like This. more ›

Mother and blogger Cristin at Tales of an Ordinary Housewife went door-to-door in Republican Kern County to garner support of Prop 8, which would eliminate gay marriage in California. Here's a little slice of life from her perspective: "I decided today after going door-to-door in support of California's Proposition 8 , that missionaries would be much better received if they were allowed to carry a baby in their arms... When we were holding Charlie, people were so friendly! And, no, I do not feel guilty about using my baby as a political tool." more ›

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Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr more ›