David Crown, 30, was arrested yesterday in Reseda for allegedly having repeat sexual encounters with a 14-year-old boy from Thousand Oaks. Sgt. Don Aguilar told the Associated Press that "Crown has known the teenager for about a year and has taken the boy to his San Fernando Valley home 'for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts.'" The Ventura County Star reports that investigators posed as the boy online and instant messaged with Crown about......

There's some great news for pizza fans coming from Pizza Fusion, an all-organic, environmentally friendly pizza franchise: they're setting out to expand throughout California this year, starting with an LEED-certified location in San Diego and moving up through Santa Monica and Thousand Oaks. Why is this cool? Well, the company is setting trends and blazing trails in the sustainability business: Pizza Fusion, whose motto is 'Saving the Earth, One Pizza at a Time,' practices......

Rain, rain, don't go away, don't come again another day! Wet weather is on its way. And not a moment too soon for some portions of the city. A lack of water in the Valley might slow growth: "West San Fernando Valley Councilman Dennis Zine said he called for the mandatory water conservation in new development after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plea for voluntary water saving was largely ignored by Angelenos." You know all that......

Vitals details in the killings of two South LA residents who were found shot to death in their 11th Ave apartment remain unknown. The LAPD was notified late Monday afternoon of gunshots heard, and soon after discovered the bodies of Shelton Sumerall, 32, and Monica Youngblood, 23, both of whom suffered fatal shots to their heads. The motive and a shooting suspect have not been determined. A Van Nuys man was stabbed yesterday when he......

The Geminid Meteor showers are set to peak this week, especially on Thursday and Friday. Um, great date night, anybody? Astronomers studying the phenomenon, David Levy and Stephen Edberg, are terribly enthused: "If you have not seen a mighty Geminid fireball arcing gracefully across an expanse of sky, then you have not seen a meteor.' Those guys are serious!!! "The Geminid Meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing......

This week five fresh&easy grocery stores er, "neighborhood markets," opened in metro Los Angeles. We visited the Glassell Park store located in a gutted Albertson's on Eagle Rock Blvd (map) for our first impression of UK-based Tesco's (the world's third-largest grocer) attempt to hook finicky West Coast consumers. The array of fresh&easy branded products is impressive. The packaging is minimalist, reminiscent of a Safeway or Walgreen's branded generic. But as you'll see in the slideshow......

It certainly doesn’t sound like a musical from the 50s. Among other things, it includes kidnapping, a dance-off, literal shotgun weddings, one woman moving in with seven men, and an opening number in which the main character expresses thanks for an unknown woman’s beautiful "hide." But these elements come together to create the thoroughly enjoyable musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. For the last two weeks the Cabrillo Musical Theatre Group has presented this energetic......

Bloc Party, Justice, Satellite Party, Kinky, Comedians of Comedy, Turbonegro, Teddybears, The Raveonettes, Shout Out Louds, Autolux, Celebrity Skin, others @ Detour Festival Dengue Fever, Mia Doi Todd, Chuchito Valdes, The Pity Party, others @ Eagle Rock Music Festival Kenny Burrell, The Pete Escovedo Family Orchestra (with Sheila E.), others @ Jazz at Drew Natalie Cole, Sheryl Lee Ralph, RuPaul, Linda Hopkins, Loretta Devine, Ann Nesby, Deniece Williams, Jennifer Holliday, others @ Divas Simply......

Tambuco Percussion Ensemble Free at Grand Performances in Downtown LA From contemporary percussion chamber music to world rhythms, this Mexico City based quartet is a staple of the percussion scene . While they do their own thing, you may see the three time grammy nominated ensemble collaborate with the likes of Kronos Quartet and the locally based Southwest Chamber Music. Check out the tunes "Hook" and "Metro Chabacano" on their MySpace page for two......

Monday Bridget Kinsella Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on The Outside 7pm @ Book Soup Trevor Corson discusses and signs The Zen of Fish 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Viken Berberian presents Das Kapital: A Novel of Love and Money Markets 7pm @ Book Soup Bridget Kinsella presents Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside 12pm @ Vroman's Joseph Marshall presents The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn 7pm @ Vroman's Eric Lichtenfeld......

Monday Anne Fadiman presents At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays 7pm @ Vroman's Susan Kandel presents Christietown 7pm @ Book Soup Lori Andrews signs The Silent Assassin 7pm @ Dutton's Tuesday Todd McCarthy presents Fast Women: The Legendary Ladies of Racing 7pm @ Book Soup Lauren Kessler presents Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's 7pm @ Central Library Wednesday Armistead Maupin presents Michael Tolliver Lives 7pm @ Central Library......

Monday Dr. Karen Halligan discusses What Every Pet Owner Should Know 7pm @ Vroman’s Tuesday Justin Bua presents The Beat of Urban Art 7pm @ Book Soup Lisa Lutz discusses The Spellman Files 7pm @ Vroman’s Philip Zimbardo discusses The Lucifer Effect 7pm @ Central Library Elliot Jaspin discusses Buried in the Bitter Waters 7pm @ EsoWon Books Wednesday Uzodinma Iweala discusses Beasts of No Nation 12:15pm @ Claremont McKenna College Anne Lamott presents......

Monday Barney Hoskyns presents Hotel California 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Nyerges discusses How To Survive Anywhere 7pm @ Vroman’s Robert Crais signs The Watchman 7pm @ Borders Torrance Dennis Cooper in discussion with the writers of Userlands 7:30pm @ Skylight Books Tuesday Chad Kultgen presents Average American Male 7pm @ Book Soup Jane Smiley discusses Ten Days in the Hills 7pm @ Vroman’s Allison L. Bailey, Frances A. Butler, Margaret Heritage, and Norma......

Monday Paul Cummins signs Two Americas, Two Educations 7pm @ Dutton’s Tuesday Daniel Alarcon presents Lost City Radio 7:30 pm @ Skylight Books Jane Hirshfield reads poetry from After 7pm @ Hammer Museum Catherine Allgor presents A Perfect Union 7pm @ Vroman’s Brian Doherty Radicals for Capitalism 7pm @ Book Soup Tara Ison presents The List 7pm @ Borders Century City Wednesday Dinaw Mengestu signs The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 7pm @ Dutton’s......

- The map (pictured above -- "Geles County" is Los Angeles County) that hit the scenes a couple of years ago now has a plan behind it - MetroRiderLA - Six Flags Magic Mountain is staying put, sans two rides: Flashback and Cyclone - SFVBJ - At least the promise of a new LATimes.com is going to be better than LA Weekly's most recent weberration - LAO - LACityNerd joins Council District 13, kinda......

Sting @ Disney Hall Chris Daughtry @ Viper Room NOFX @ House of Blues The Colour @ Spaceland Fairmona, The Softlightes, BRAM @ Silverlake Lounge The New Hotness, Yes Me to Death @ The Scene Wylde Bunch, The Hear Gallery @ Safari Sam's Thee Gentlemen Callers, Tsk Tsk, Nantucket Suicide @ The Echo Plethora Yearned, Thruster, David Scott Stone @ The Smell The New Motherfuckers, United by Sound, Una @ The Mint Saints of......

Attention transit nerds! Are you jealous of other big cities that employ GPS technologies to bring you the time of the next arriving bus on your cell phone or wireless PDA? We might not be that far away. In collaboration with LADOT, Metro is testing out their own version on RapidBus.Net with a select number of lines including the Orange Line. Here is what we experienced and our recommendations: 1. It let us know......

Is LAist stoked that Tiger Woods is back, and black, and Asian? Of course. What could be finer than the dominance of minorities in traditionally white sports? World peace perhaps? That'll never happen. What about a humane wage for hard-working people who make shoes for a company who flinches when it only makes $377 million of profit in a quarter? We have nothing against capitalism or paying people from around the world a fraction......

This morning Blogging.la reminded us that today is the day to get free ice cream from the delicious-est ice creamery of all, Ben & Jerry's. But we realized we weren't sure where to find one. So we add this important breaking news: If you live in Burbank, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, Northridge, Arcadia, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood or Malibu, we urge you to......

What do Donnie Darko and Me & You & Everyone We Know have in common, other than being rad cult movies? Composer Michael Andrews. You can hear him on KCRW this morning at the usual 11:00 a.m. MBE live band slot. You can also see him live at Amoeba Records on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Keep an eye on Andrews as he's working on more film projects (Cohen Bros., etc) and a performance......

That's the view from the front door of koganuts's house. It's also the view we had while trying to drive up the 101 to Woodland Hills last night. Traffic was abysmal. There's a risk of things getting worse today: With shifty and unpredictable winds expected to gust to 25 mph today, firefighters were hoping to prevent the blaze from spreading. In particular, they hoped to contain one end of the blaze from moving into......

Animators are a breed apart. Their refusal to accept limitations in space, time and conventional wisdom constantly amaze us. But we don't mind because the imaginations of these playful geniuses often first inform our dreams as children and reawaken our playful sides when we are adults. Charles Zembillas is the consummate animator, creative entrepreneur and visual developer: he's funny, fiesty and energetic. He not only works on his own projects but also runs an......

There's nothing like a chain restaurant to get the juices flowing. In reality, LAist finds comfort in knowing that if we see a chain restaurant somewhere (no fast food joints, people) that we can probably get the exact taste we want just by ordering a signature dish we've had at another location of same said restaurant. I mean, isn't that what a chain restaurant is all about -- the same dining experience no matter......

Daryl Kelly reported, in Sunday's edition of the Los Angeles Times, "For Thousand Oaks, one of the safest large cities in the nation, authorities say Jason Wines was a one-person crime spree. Wines, 25, who lived in bushes next to a Thousand Oaks freeway, was recently sentenced to a year in Ventura County Jail after pleading guilty to eight felony counts of grand theft, vehicle burglary and receiving stolen property. Wines' crimes, committed over......

LAist knows that if you live in Los Angeles (or its surrounding areas) and have a telephone, you have one of the following area codes: 310, 323, 213, 818, 805, 626 and/or 714/949. LAist also knows that if you don't have 310, 323, 213 or 818 — you might as well never give anyone your phone number because they're never going to call you, visit you or think about fostering a friendship with you.......