Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has begun to get the word out that he plans on running for a second term. According to the LA Times, Mayor Tony made mention of his plans, along with "his most personal remarks to date about the political fallout from his extramarital affair" on Wednesday during an interview on the Charlie Rose show. The Mayor was also asked about his plans to run for governor, which have been circulating in the......

*Updates as of 10:53am: The LA Times is now reporting: "Witnesses described a man approximately 64 years old leaping from the Wilton Place crossing over the northbound Hollywood Freeway near Sunset Boulevard at about 8:30 a.m."A man jumped to his death from the 101 North overpass at Sunset Boulevard this morning; reports are coming in from Sigalert.com that traffic is badly snarled. LAist spoke to a witness at the scene who was caught in......

Restaurants have no love for dogs, but dogs sure do love their owners | Photo by Tom Andrews via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Steve Poizner has no love for Allianz: The state Insurance Commissioner announced a $10 million settlement with Allianz Life Insurance Company, the biggest seller of annuities in California, today in Burbank. Allianz swindled hundreds of 84 and 85 into bad deals that cost them thousands of dollars. David......

Deadspin's Will Leitch will be signing copies of his new book, God Save the Fan tonight at Book Soup Will Leitch, Deadspin editor, New York Times contributor, and author is in Los Angeles today presenting and signing copies of his new book God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It......

Photo by tanakawho via Flickr There have been 59 homicides in Los Angeles County so far this 2008. 2007 saw 845 (though, that can change). Of those 845 homicides, LA Times reporter Jill Leovy wrote about every one of them "in a straightforward, comprehensive way" in The Homicide Report, a genius creation that will go down in bloging history. Leovy is pretty much done with the blog while Ruben Vives begins to take over......

Outside the scene of Heath Ledger's death in NYC | Photo by Tien Mao, Gothamist.com Gothamist, parent site to LAist, is reporting the death of Heath Ledger. "Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in downtown Manhattan apartment by the police. Some reports say he died from an overdose." Ledger lived on Broome street. Ledger was a rising star and actor from Australia, known for his work in Brokeback Mountain, which earned him a best......

Richard Knerr June 30, 1925 - January 14, 2008 Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O Inc, passed away Monday at the age of 82 at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia after suffering from a stroke. His business partner, Arthur "Spud" Melin, preceded him in death in 2002. Wham-O was founded on a slingshot, and together childhood friends Knerr and Melin went on to found an empire. The name Wham-O was onomotopoeia for the sound made when the......

For those who say you can't put a price on education, California's governor and UC and CSU officials say you're dead wrong. In fact, not only can you put a price on it, you can hike the price, making undergraduate education in the state increasingly more expensive. The LA Times is reporting that if Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed new budget goes into effect, most student fees [will] rise by 10% at the 23-campus Cal State system......

What in the world is a caucus? Associated Press does a quick Q&ALooking for a caucus update with a nifty tracker on the primary elections, check out Campaign 2008 on the LA TimesSo why New Hampshire and Iowa and what happens next? The Times Online, explains it best.How do the candidates make it work for them? Iowa has the breakdown.Even Rolling Stones is getting in on the election opinion game with their Five Not......

The City of Los Angeles in 2007 saw a 5% drop in serious crimes, bringing the number of homicides down to the lowest it's been in 37 years. The LA Times reports that, "The Watts area alone last year saw a nearly 50% drop in homicides, according to LAPD crime statistics." The Times goes on to report that LAPD Chief William J. Bratton claims that this drop can be attributed to police officers doing their......

Three Los Angeles Sheriff Department (LASD) deputies assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown are suspended (or, paid leave, that is) as a criminal investigation is opened into accusations from an inmate saying that he was isolated by them, punched and pepper-sprayed in the anus and scrotum area. It all started when inmate Alejandro Franco, 23, who is there for "allegedly violating terms of his probation for a domestic violence conviction," swore......

Lakers 95, Knicks 90 - Kobe Bryant had 20,019 points on 15,314 shots (plus 6,184 from the charity stripe) last night. Not bad for a guy under the age of 30 ... The Kobster was actually 14-of-28 for 39 points (plus 11 rebounds and 8 assists), but in the process became the youngest player in NBA history to reach the 20,000 career points mark. Bryant raved about playing in Madison Square Garden and said the......

Though hardly a mainsteam name, George Hickenlooper has managed to carve out a long filmmaking career full of varied and fascinating work. From documentaries (Mayor of the Sunset Strip, Monte Hellman: American Auteur) to narrative features (The Man from Elysian Fields, Factory Girl), Hickenlooper has always delivered unexpected and satisfying stories. Two of his best documentaries are also two of his first: Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas and......

We heart our sister -Ists: today, SFist Editor Bock Keeling was profiled in the SF Weekly. We find out that Gus Van Sant hates SFist and a funny picture of a woman modeling in front of an oil spill crew is now being featured on the site. Pro football player Sean Taylor has died from injuries sustained in a mysterious and tragic shooting incident; he was 24 years old. Police are still searching for......

While you were minding your own business, Mel Gibson, the LA Sheriff's Department were making sport of their power - arresting people and messing with gang members - simply to rack up points during in-house games and contests. One recent competition, described in an internal Sheriff's Department e-mail obtained by The Times, was called "Operation Any Booking." The object was to arrest as many people as possible within a specific 24-hour period. Other one-day......

As development wraps up on the first of two major redevelopments above subway stations on Wilshire, the reviews are begining to come in. The Wilshire/Vermont station is just about complete and tomorrow the LA Times will give the design of the complex a negative review, complaining, among other things that it just doesn't fit in with what else is going on with the legendary boulevard. During the many decades that architects enthusiastically celebrated the......

We're still kind of obsessed with the cooking videos over at imcooked, especially the oddly soothing clips of Thai street vendors cooking their wares: in the video above, check out a fried mussel dish prepared in less than four minutes. The LA Times heads north this week to seek out culinary finds in Ventura and Santa Barbara, respectively: first at new vegan restaurant, Mary's Secret Garden, and then at the Santa Barbara outpost of......

The LA Times has definitely had its fair share of scandals in the near past with firings and hirings. Yet recently, content wise, the watchdog coverage of scandalicious politicians has been riveting. There is Mayor V and then there was the daily pounding of Rocky Delgadillo. The newest politician in the ring is 74-year-old 2nd district county supervisor Yvonne Burke who represents Watts, Culver City, Compton, South LA, Hollywood, Marina Del Rey, Inglewood to......

In a deft version of doublespeak, LA County Sheriff Lee Baca spoke out of both sides of his mouth today as he prepped the press and paps about what they can expect when Paris Hilton goes to jail on Tuesday. In one breath Baca said that Paris will be treated like any other inmate at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, saying that her food will be the same as the other women's......

Even with LeBron leading his Cavs to much needed victory in the Eastern Conference Finals Tuesday night, the biggest story in the NBA is a team who has not played a game in exactly four weeks. The Lakers offseason has just been too wildly entertaining to take a backseat to the actual action on the court. And it just got better. Early Tuesday, team owner Jerry Buss was arrested in Carlsbad for suspicion of drunk......

- Happy Mother's Day! 88-year-old grandma of six, Rose Gilbert, is the "oldest full-time teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District, apparently the oldest in California and one of the oldest in the nation." - Talking the future of Little Tokyo. - A profile of the husband-wife team that owns the paparazzi agency, X17, Inc. - More on the 'kinda' palm tree ban. - Threatening to blow up a newspaper building because you didn't......

Veteran LA Times sports writer Mike Penner today explained why he will be away for the next couple of weeks. Here's how it starts: During my 23 years with The Times' sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame. Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I......

LAist is proud to offer a weekly, chart roundup of Billboard Magazine’s most coveted rankings. Join us as we revel in the conventional standard of musical success. Let us cross our fingers, hoist our lighters, and dream together of the supreme resurrection of artist-driven recordings that will forever eclipse the dark cloud of big label greed, A&R sleaze and disposable audio. Amen. Here are this week’s chart toppers. Behold the #1s. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Billboard Charts......

When you think of LAX, you probably think of the maddening loop of roadway you have to navigate in order to get to your terminal, or the absurdity of those rods of light, or inevitable news segment before big holiday travel days with Johnny-on-the-spot interviews with tired people waiting in line for their flight to Aunt Betsy's in Boise. You may also think about Encounter, the restaurant housed in that legendary criss-crossed arch building......

Convicted of poison pen writing, one of L.A. High's first graduating class, Yda Hillis Addis was married to a former CA governor as well as to Thomas Storke. Nothing in her life was without drama, intrigue and never-ending lawsuits. Some say she hit the wall during her attempted murder trial where she was accused of breaking into Teddy Grant Jackson house, a man she claimed to be entwined in a "contract marriage" with, and......

Why did would-be Hall of Famer Roger Clemens choose to stay in his hometown of Houston this season? Maybe it was to stay closer to his lawyer. When scrub pitcher Jason Grimsley got popped this May for receiving human growth hormones in the mail, he retired and started squawking like a stool pigeon, ratting out several former teammates until he hired a lawyer who told him to shut the hell up. In his affidavit......

The New York Times has launched a new Best Seller List for Political books and it's available online only. This move is surely meant to drive more traffic to their site and also the political list being online will hit a smaller number of people - including those who are say savvy to politics, being online, and the New York Times. So just what are the pundits reading these days? Here are this week's......

How LA Observed gets these LA Times internal memos is beyond us, but we love it. Today Kevin Roderick printed an email whose subject line was: "The Times' Innovative Pre-Awareness Promotional Campaign for 'The Black Dahlia'." Now we realize the times they are a-changing but we feel a little creeped out with our local paper getting all giddy about being in bed with a movie studio over a summer movie. Isn't the job of......

The Gawker empire puts Sploid up for sale, reshuffles lineup. Fishbowl NY summarizes some of the many changes that Nick Denton's blogworld incurred this weekend. # Chris Mohney moves from Gawker Media's Gridskipper to Gawker, assuming a new managing editor role. TMFTML's Alex Balk replaces Oxfeld as co-editor alongside Jessica Coen. # Wired editor Brian Lam will leave the magazine to become editor of Gizmodo, replacing Biggs. # Joshua David Stein, a contributor, replaces......

News Busters sez "cheap slap at Catholics" to a feature in today's LA Times (reg. required), printing this quote from The Times' coverage of Erotica LA: Payne, who earns $250 an hour, was about to demonstrate the fine art of spanking, which — contrary to what you might think — is not as simple as it looks. The hand should be cupped, not flat, she explained, and positioned on the lower part of the......