Since May 31, there have been a total of seven burglaries in West LA. All victims have been elderly woman, all have been robbed and fortunately, no one has been hurt. The latest such incident happened last night at 3:20 a.m. on the 2100 block of Pelham Avenue on the Westside. The assailant put a gun to 84-year-old Ernestine Avelar's neck and said "do what I say and you won't get hurt. Otherwise, I'll kill......

Chabuya Tokyo Noodle Bar is sometimes referred to as the best noodle bar on the Westside (although, there are those who disagree and say Asahi Ramen is the way to go). The restaurant is modern and clean cut, the staff is friendly and accommodating and most importantly, the leftovers taken home didn't make it into the refrigerator (Dinner, the sequel, was a hit). What's your favorite Little Osaka haunt? Submit your Eye Nosh food 'porn'......

View Larger Map Last night at 10:35 p.m., a shooting was reported to have occurred on the 1900 block of South Garth Street, which is north of the 10 freeway near La Cienega and 18th Street. The man is reported to be in his 30s and his name is being withheld pending family notification. No arrests have been made and police are urging anyone with information to call them. Yesterday, the city council passed a......

Update 7:00 p.m.: Sepulveda is still shut down and now crews expect to open it around 9 p.m. tonight. Update 5:11 p.m.: "Crews Hope to Clean up Sepulveda Landslide by 5:30pm Rush Hour" says Fox 11 News. Update 4:04 p.m.: Power has been restored to all effected except 700 residential customers in Brentwood and Bel Air. Update 11:14 a.m.: This morning's landslide even caused power to go out at the Getty Center. Luckily, power in......

For the last ten years, state representatives from Los Angeles have dominated the role of Speaker of the Assembly, including Mayor Villaraigosa, LA City Council Herb Wesson and Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle. Today, Karen Bass, the assemblywoman who represents neighborhoods from West LA to Culver City to Baldwin Hills, had enough votes to become Speaker of the Assembly up in Sacramento. The job of speaker is to be the leader of the California State Assembly,......

And then there was a train... There could be a day when you go from Wilshire Blvd. down Crenshaw Ave, crossing the path of the Expo Line (under construction right now), through Leimart Park, into Downtown Inglewood and eventually hit LAX before route ends, connecting to the Green Line. That's one option, at least, for Metro's North/South Crenshaw-Prairie Transit Corridor Study. Tonight is the first of four public meetings to get a status report of......

Life doesn't stop in LA because it's raining. / Photo by kristi.nicole via LAist's flickr pool FILM The American Cinematheque’s Outfest Wednesdays continue at the Egyptian. On the big screen tonight is With You! -- director Yaniv Dabach’s documentary on the formation of New York City’s first gay rugby club, the Gotham Knights. A discussion with Dabach follows the screening – plus there’s a reception hosted by Absolut. 7:30 pm // American Cinematheque at......

Unless you don't like drinking liquor to begin with, it can be a bit of a drag to be the designated driver for your drunkard friends. You have to sit there on your bar stool sipping your tiny, weak soda while they get to enjoy pretty, decked-out, specialty cocktails. Fortunately, there are some lovely nonalcoholic options out there for you responsible folk, and I'm not talking O'Douls. The Arsenal in West LA has a......

The end of the trail at Parker Overlook | All Photos by Zach Behrens/LAist For most of the 5.5-mile Pacific Palisades hike at the popular Paseo Miramar trail towards Parker Overlook, you can see the ocean. Located two blocks east of Pacific Coast Highway on Sunset (map found below), the hike is a popular one, often leaving the dense hillside neighborhood at the top of the street strapped for parking, which means hikers must......

Fie upon those who wish downfall upon the Westside! We shall smite thee with our flaming elven sword. (That's how we talk to LAist staffers who aren't behaving; nothing whips a writing team into shape like a little dangerous elf talk.) We will now stop being nerds and give you incentive to visit the Westside. Here are some more happy hour specials that'll make you wish you lived on the beachier side of life.......

Devoted LAist reader Ashley requested a Westside version of Deacon Booze -- and as a former long-time resident of the Westsiiiiiiiiide, I'm more than happy to oblige. Here are some of my top spots for drinks in West LA -- (and trust me when I say I have TESTED these places more than a few times). Why not email me your picks for when you find yourself west of the 405? carrie@laist.com. Did I......

Sure, you could always stay in and watch reruns of [insert name of your favorite show here], but why bother when you have these things happening tonight to get you through hump day. WORDS The West LA Chapter of the Sierra Club hosts a lecture by UCLA Professor David Haake who’ll focus on the question, “Do green choices make financial sense?” The evening will also offer steps on how you can reduce your carbon......

I was born and raised in LA. My first experience with public transportation was at age 6 when my mom said we could ride the bus to the mall. We waited at the bus stop for 30 minutes but the bus never came. So we walked home. That pretty much sums up how I feel about the bus right now. For 5 years (during and after college) I lived on the East Coast; I......

STOP All Way changed to STOP All War on Rosewood Ave at Hayworth Ave near Melrose/Fairfax. Photo by Hugh in West LA (Gamma Infinity) via Flickr, used with permission.......

We told you they were coming to speak on global warming, now here's what happened at yesterday's Presidential Forum in West LA. For the second time this month, fire officials are preparing for more wildfires as dry winds approach. Mission Viejo in Orange County is dubbed safest city in America. Sorry Detroit, you're back at the bottom of this list. However, these numbers came from a private research group and people, including the FBI,......

HIM - "Passion's Killing Floor" Lydia Lunch @ Largo HIM, Bleeding Through @ Orpheum The Roots, Erykah Badu, Keb Mo, Taj Mahal, Cory Chisel @ The Wiltern Film School, Division Day, Eulogies @ Echoplex Annuals, Manchester Orchestra @ Troubadour Jeff Buckley Tribute @ Key Club The Goo Goo Dolls @ Best Buy - West LA Monsters Are Waiting, Sabertooth Tiger, So So So, Aztlan Underground @ The Scene......

The very popular (and rightly so) Museum of Tolerance is pissing off its neighbhors. Since the museum opened 14 years ago, it has steadily gained worldwide mentions. Yet, all the visitors that arrive because of those those international mentions have the residents who live near the museum in a tizzy, claiming their West LA neighborhood has become a nightmare of big bus traffic, blocked streets and stolen parking spaces. All of this, they say, they......

My asshole has been clenched in anticipation since October 18, 2006 for the fourth season of the Bravo hit show Project Runway. On that Wednesday evening, I was at a Project Runway finale viewing party my friend threw at her apartment in West LA watching local designer and Cosa Nostra founder Jeffrey Sebelia win the whole kit and caboodle. Starting tomorrow there will be 15 brand new contestants vying for: An editorial feature in......

Maybe it's cuz we're old and jaded and bored of everything humanly possible, but we're sorta loving these Nissan Live Sets on the Fox lot. Last month we saw PJ Harvey, Monday we saw Wyclef who danced inches away from us - on top of a freaking hand rail. The set looks huge online, but when you get there the sound is perfect and - well, it's just an ideal way to see and......

Last month LAist was lucky enough to be invited to the Nissan Live studio on the Fox lot to see PJ Harvey perform one of her very few live appearances in support of her new cd, White Chalk. From what we heard, Polly Jean played once in NYC, once in LA, once on the Tonight Show, and once for Yahoo's Live Sets. It was an intimate, eerie, and fragile hour in West LA. PJ......

Utilizing his iPhone the way Steve Jobs hoped he would, LAist contributer Brad Herman took these pictures of the WGA writers strike from what appears to be out front of the Fox studios in West LA. Here we are now almost all the way through Day One of the strike and there doesn't seem to be any acts of violence or retribution, nor have any souls of teenagers found their way into their middle......

Strobe lights. Fog. Serial killers. Screams. God damn, I love Halloween. Not only do I love dressing up in costume, eating lots of candy and carving out Jack-O-Lanterns, I love all the frightening fun Halloween entails. And for me the pinnacle of spooky good times always involves a haunted house. But there’s a problem. I’ve been to Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights so many times that they have lost the element of......

George Bush issued the fourth veto of his presidency today, nixing a bill that would have provided insurance to poor children. Bush said the program was too costly, apparently cool with the fact that the Iraq war now costs over $455-billion. That's B for billion. And B for Bitch. Curbed LA takes a gander at a new development planned for West LA. In as much as the structure looks like a monument to cubism,......

Last week we celebrated the 30th anniversary of KCRW's flagship show, Morning Becomes Eclectic with interviews with Jason Bentley, Chris Douridas, Nic Harcourt, Anne Litt, Liza Richardson, and we conclude our special with Gary Calamar, the host of KCRW's Sunday night staple, The Open Road. For those of you who might be watching tee vee at night instead of listening to the radio, you might not know it but you were probably listening to......

Ever since we watched SNL's Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell mack on some cupcakes in Lazy Sunday, it seems that the whole country has gone cupcake crazy. The sugary fad has been going strong for a few years now. Here in LA, loads of cupcake establishments continue offering the happy little cakes. Many will debate whether Sprinkles, Toast, Joan's on Third, Dainties or Leda's have the best cupcakes. Lately it seems like everytime I......

When Licensed to Ill came out in 1986 I was selling car stereos at the Federated Group in West LA. I sold so many good speakers and subwoofers thanks to "Brass Monkey" and "Slow & Low" that oftentimes my favorite demo tape would go "missing". I bought at least six of those tapes within a year. Only a few had been stolen, the rest had gotten worn out. So when the Beasties played the......

A few weeks ago, a YouTube video popped up called "Car Bomb In West Los Angeles" in which it appears that some sort of crane-like robot (an extra Transformer that didn't quite make Michael Bay's cut?) pulls an unidentified object out of the trunk of a car. At about the four minute mark in the video, the robot sets the thing off to the side of a building, and a loud noise is heard,......

Once upon a time, before Little Miss "Nooo-no-no" came along, when someone said "winehouse", we only thought about the sweet vino emporium on the Westside, called, um, Winehouse. This 30-year institution has made an appearance on LAist before, but like a hydra, Winehouse is adding a new arm. This new arm is called Taste. It's the answer to many a winebuyer's quiet prayer: At Taste, you can take your chosen wine for a test-drive.......

Now why would you want to spend your hard-earned dough this weekend on a flick about Chuck and Larry when you can see live, local theater? Here are LAist's five picks for this weekend... Do Do Love Diana lives alone on disability baking cupcakes in her Burbank studio. Her landlord wants to get her out of the apartment and so sends a hottie of a handyman to disrupt her life and up her rent.......

Photo by Henry David for LAist.com Any time the gay community pitches, LAist can't help but catch. As an aftershock of Outfest '07, RuPaul and film director Mike Ruiz had a special screening of Starrbooty at the Showcase in West LA this past Saturday night. The film is the brainchild of RuPaul herself; a raucous tribute to every great blaxploitation film ever made. Think Grindhouse but with full frontal nudity every 2 minutes? Needless......