The city seems to have gone completely mad. From a 16 year-old shot in Northridge to a 70 year-old stabbed to death in Hollywood, Sunday was just another day in what is starting to feel like an out-of-control crime wave. In just the last few months, a man stabbed people in a movie theater while they watched a horror movie, a woman stabbed her own mother, and a man dressed as a skeleton terrorized......

If you're looking for 20-25 ft. waves, you better at least head up to Point Conception or past Eureka for even higher ones. If 7-14 ft. waves are your style, then stay LA.The surf will build throughout today and tonight, peaking Wednesday. By Thursday, the swell is expected to diminish into the 5- to 7-foot range, Seto said. A rainstorm from the Northwest is expected Thursday through Saturday, bringing more than an inch of......

Once again, MySpace is copying the people who copied them copying Friendster better. Seeing the success of Facebook's ability to have widgets, MySpace and Google are teaming up to do something similar. More fire likely. Just like in 2003 where the wildfires struck, had a week lull and hit hard again the first week of November, firefighters are currently preparing for the return of the Santa Anas, expected to start tomorrow night. High heels......

Hide the knives, Joan Didion: the Santa Anas are coming! The Santa Anas are coming! The new assistant director over at the Los Angeles branch of the FBI has experience in the domestic terror, white-collar crime, and foreign relations divisions; he has also spent time in Mexico City as an FBI legal attache. This week's Sign of the Apocalypse: kids as young as thirteen and fourteen are now getting into the paparazzi business. We......

These are the last days of summer. At least that's what they say on the news and in the marketplace. But here in Southern California, it only gets hotter as the days grow shorter. (At least the pools won't close just yet). But -- Holy Dallas Raines -- early this morning, with temps stuck in the mid-70s, we've got thunder and lightning! Unfortunately, the electricity in the air has no bearing on California's energy supply,......

The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light......

- Yes there is a marching band called The Santa Ana Winds - Yes, Raymond Chandler wrote this about the winds in "Red Wind": "those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks.......

This year's election is having a similar effect on Angelenos as the Santa Anas: people are irritable, frustrated, and right on the edge of a good fight or a hysterical breakdown. An article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times noted that "[a]nxiety, depression, anger — demoralizing feelings that modern Americans have rarely, if ever, associated with choosing a leader — have been reported even from friendly precincts, and yard-sign fights and bumper sticker defacements are......

Los Angeles Times's staffer David Pierson reports that county officials closed 80% of the Angeles National Forest on Sunday, forcing canyon residents to evacuate: "It's [the evacuation] a predicament dozens, maybe hundreds, of residents living full- or part-time in the remote mountain areas found themselves in after officials announced Friday that 80% of the 680,000-acre forest would be closed today [Sunday] at midnight. Residents say they need more time and would prefer to stay to......