Joe Crawford (artlung) captures this image of last night's fiery crash on his cell phone | Via Flickr CC License Update: The westbound 118 freeway should be open by now.It was 11:35 p.m. last night when 911 calls started coming into dispatchers. California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles Fire Department headed out to the westbound 118 Freeway east of Reseda Blvd. in Porter Ranch to find a tractor-trailer truck on fire and two......

Bright Umbrellas in Chinatown for a Less than Bright Day Crews are still working to restore power to some 3,600 Edison and DWP residents that lost power due to heavy rains and winds over the past two days. North Hollywood, Granada Hills, Porter Ranch, Pomona, Torrance, Stevenson Ranch and - gasp! - Beverly Hills residents were affected. Candles, people. More rain is on the way so gather ye umbrellas while ye may. Tons of......

"Ducttape Superhero" by The Eye of Brad via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr With exactly one year to go until a new president is inaugurated (and one more year of Jon Stewart's hilarious Bush headlines), the field of Republican hopefuls just got smaller. After poor showings in, well, every primary, caucus and poll, San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter is ditching the presidential race. No word on what he will do now, but......

Good thing the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) put out a Red Flat Alert (move your car if you live in the hills or you could be towed) last night for today -- a major brush fire began this morning around 5:50 a.m. near Tampa Ave and Sesnon Bl (yo, Valley, people, this is Porter Ranch) in Los Angeles County territory according to alerts from the LAFD. In the name of mutual aid, the......

We don't often talk religion on LAist. Who knows, we may all be happy heathens merrily going about our online lives without a spiritual care in the world. But today, this LAist contributor went to church for the first time in who knows how long. The scene was Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch. There were some interesting things said today but we don't want to talk about the sermon. No, we want......

Think the Battle of Fallujah is intense? Yawn. Reality-based versus Faith-based? Boring. The Hahn-Parks "payback's a bitch" vendetta? Zzzzzzzzz. The real clash of titans is taking place in the northwest San Fernando Valley, where two Chambers of Commerce are duking it out over Porter Ranch like street gangs banging over the best crack-slinging corner in the neighborhood. ...

If happiness is a warm gun, there's a gentleman in Simi Valley who was chuckling like Buddha on a lotus blossom jag - until the LAPD pinched him for possession of 388 illegal firearms, more than the total number of guns seized citywide in 2003. After Wayne Wright was busted for selling a gun to an undercover officer (out in Porter Ranch, of all places), the police searched his home and discovered a cache......