Photo by Tom Andrews via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The LA Times has the latest and more details on the deadly stand-off in the Valley that left one SWAT team member, Randal Simmons, and four others dead. Okay, this is just terribly, terribly, terribly wrong: why is the city cracking down so hard on street vendors who sell bacon wrapped hot dogs? Police continue to search for three kidnappers who abducted......

A member of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite SWAT team was shot dead in a gunbattle with a barricaded suspect in the San Fernando Valley this morning. * UPDATE: The suspect was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police around 7:30 a.m., leaving the death toll at 5 (AP). The Mayor has lowered city flags in honor of the officer killed on duty. Randal Simmons, 51, a 27-year veteran officer with the LAPD,......

Orlando Bloom will not be prosecuted after an October 12th incident in which he injured his two passengers in a car crash involving parked cars. He said he was avoiding a photographer who suddenly changed lanes. Seeing these paparazzi in action, we suspect it was them who caused the crash, most likely on purpose for some higher dollar photo sales. Starting from last week today, the San Jose Mercury News has a great timeline......

Even if you can't marry a Spice Girl, you can still treat yourself like soccer royalty at Alpha (8625 Melrose Ave, West Hollywood, 310-855-0775). The high end men's store has gone out of their way to welcome LA's newest star, creating this window display and sending David Beckham a housewarming package including: "Los Angeles" (Coffee Table Book) Gravis Flip Flops "Cool Spots Las Vegas" (Book) Surfer Magazine's Guide to SoCal Surf Sports Andrew Christian Underwear......

There's a lumpy, farting, gum-chewing thing in the art world called outsider art. Outsider art can be many things - art by the disabled or merely unschooled, art in the eye of the beholder, or just art out of fashion. Here in ultra-sophisticated, un-bumpkinish Los Angeles, it seems that outsider art might be something of an endangered species. Thankfully, that just ain't so. You see, once upon a time there was a man named......

The local papers can't get enough of The Orange Line. The Daily News ran what seems like their hundredth front page story on the new transitway today and the Times took it to the editorial page making the case for more parking at the orange line/red line transfer location. LAist rode the Orange line for the first time last week and was pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable the ride was. It felt a little......

While everybody else tries to figure out where the severed foot came from, we've got our eyes a little further east. KESQ in Palm Springs reports that Phi Kappa Tau has been suspended at Chico State for participating in a porno film. We're not so thrown off by this and while it isn't quite in the academic tradition, it isn't that far off from Pierce College hosting an adult film photo shoot on their......

We're having a debate with ourselves this morning. Do we lede with the most important global story or the King of Pop? Since local news seems obsessed with celebrity justice, we'll pretend like we have loftier standards and run with the first Iraqi Democratic Election. Both The Daily News and The Daily Bruin run stories of local expatriate Iraqi voters. The Bruin covers a poli sci student who has never been to his home......