The Los Angeles County Assessor announced that the property values in LA County rose above 9% in 2006 and totals a smidge over $1 trillion. Beating the trend is everyone's favorite, Compton, whose value rose 13.6%. However the largest increases were in Lancaster, Paramount and Palmdale . Lancaster surged by 21% due in part to a lot of new home sales, reports the LA Business Journal. Two inner-city communities also saw substantial gains: Paramount......

- "With little fanfare until this month, Los Angeles County has quietly become the country’s capital of medical marijuana." - LA Business Journal - Tuesday night he was sent to Hollywood on "American Idol". Wednesday TMZ reported that he had been busted for possession of weed.Thursday he was fired from Idol. Thursday afternoon he says they knew about his record even before he auditioned - People - Marijuana-like chemicals (whatever the hell those are) may......

shredding moms Yesterday moms in Laguna Niguel skated a bowl in a mothers' day fundraiser. "Kids are proud to have a nonconforming parent," the LA Times writes, which puts a nail in the skating-as-rebellion coffin for us. Wait, we hear more banging — it's 35-year-old mother Jenny Sparks, who tells the paper: "Skateboarding is the new Jenny Craig." immigration numbers An AP report in the Daily Breeze says that it's going to be hard......

As has been noted elsewhere, the LA Business Journal is reporting that Trader Vic's may soon be history. The bar and restaurant at the Beverly Hilton, which are rumored to be where the Mai Tai was invented, will be replaced by luxury condos and more hotel rooms, if the developer gets approval. The original hotel structure, by noted mid-century architect Welton Beckett, will remain, kind of. Somehow the hotel will lose 96 hotel rooms......

Yesterday the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, effectively lifting a ban on medical marijuana in unincorporated areas of the county. The Daily News reports that several facilities had been dispensing medical marijuana anyway, including 20 in the San Fernando Valley. Long Beach police found 400 marijuana plants growing in a warehouse under the careful supervision of one Philip Northcutt. Northcutt had been using a silkscreen business as a......