What killed a 33-year-old woman discovered packed in dry ice in the Newport Beach hotel room of a cocaine dealer this past weekend? "Everything that happened was for religious reasons," Stephen David Royds told The Orange County Register on Sunday reports the AP. Detectives found the body of Monique Felicia Trepp, 33, fully clothed and "well preserved" inside a large Rubbermaid container late Thursday after arresting a guest at the Fairmont Newport Beach for investigation......

Update, 10:31 p.m.: The jewelry thief was shot deadThe Shops in Mission Viejo became a crime scene today when at 5:30 p.m., a gunman robbed a jewelry store, taking two women hostage, according to a witness, and eventually being shot by sheriff's deputies. According to another witness, security guards chased the man through the mall to a parking structure where he was met by police where shots were fired. Other than the alleged robber, no......

It's hard to find a person out there who doesn't like cookies. And it's even harder to find someone who will turn down a free one. So what if I tell you that over the next few days at several Los Angeles-area Whole Foods Markets you can get yourself a free sample of an organic Crummy Brothers Chocolate Chip cookie? I think you just might say "Hell yes!" So what's the deal with Crummy......

- How would you describe your neighborhood in one sentence? (LACityNerd) - "Los Angeles is Burning" by Bad Religion was yesterday's official theme for LA, apparently (Atwater Village Newbie) - "The Orange Line now brings thousands of commuters through downtown Van Nuys and these riders disembark in an area with a Salvation Army store, a porno shop, an ice manufacturing company, auto painters, Big Valley Dodge and other one story buildings which close down......

Ducks 68, Bruins 66 - UCLA men's hoops dropped their first game of the year and likely fell out of the nation's top ranking for the first time in several weeks. A previously undefeated Oregon squad was coming off an upset loss to USC, and pulled an upset of their own in Eugene. For more on the game, check out Henry's post. Trojans 91, Beavers 46 - Perhaps avenging the Trojan's football loss a few......

The Orange County wildfires continue to burn in the Cleveland National Forest. Firefighers say they're making progress; more than 500 are on the scene. But the region's red flag conditions continue. Authorities have issued a public health alert for the smoke in OC and in Long Beach too. A Burbank man was sentenced to a year in jail for sitting outside a Best Buy collecting cash for Katrina victims about two weeks after the......

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......

Proof positive that Los Angeles is a car culture town: The MTA printed ads in today's Daily News with instructions about the valley's new Orange Line service not for Metro commuters but for those still driving the streets in their own private gas guzzlers. Included amongst the suggestions of always being alert at intersections, staying out of the "keep clear" zones (which should be obvious but seem to always be ignored) and proceeding with......

Just exactly what was Algernon, dapper hero of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, doing when he claimed to be off in the country "Bunburying"? According to L.A. playwright Tom Jacobson (The Orange Grove, Ouroboros), he was meeting up with his gay lover Bunbury, a character who never appears in the play. Jacobson has taken this idea and run with it to create an entire play around those less-than-famous offstage characters: Bunbury, Rosaline......

Last week's tragic loss of life on the Metrolink system has, perhaps inevitably, led to a discussion of whether the cost/benefit ratio of LA's commuter train service justifies the huge taxpayer subsidies needed to keep the trains rolling. Approximately 40,000 riders board Metrolink trains on any given day, but the rail line, like almost all transit systems, comes nowhere close to paying for itself. As the Los Angeles Daily News reports: "The average fare......

Bad news keeps rolling into the Southland this week. abc7.com reports that a float in a Disneyland parade struck four people, including a woman who was taken to a hospital. "A Christmas Fantasy Parade" was near the end of its route, near "It's a Small World" attraction when it hit four spectators at about 8:15 p.m., park spokesman Rob Doughty said. Anaheim fire Capt. Jamie Hirsch said the people were hit by the simulated......