What will Hike The Geek do?!?! In order to face up to budget-balancing woes and a state-wide financial crunch, Governor Schwartzenegger has proposed to close 48 different national park sites, as well as cut funding to many school, health care, and criminal justice programs. Parks in the L.A. area like the Will Rogers State Historic Park, Topanga State Park, and Pio Pico State Historic Park in Whittier will all be shut down, affecting many......

- The two dead bodies found in the crawl space in the Westwood home that caught fire were part of the painting crew - NBC-4 - Might want to stay away from Will Rogers Beach, Venice Beach, and Dockweiler Beach for a few days - eMax Health - Phil Spector awarded $900,000 in embezzlement case - Forbes - What do the CEO of MySpace, Barbra Streisand, and model/anchor Willow Bay have in common? -......

Hopefully you heard about the beach closures at parts of Santa Monica and Will Rogers over the weekend, and avoided being coated in a layer of untreated…um, sludge. But, the good people at the CA Department of Health have lifted their restrictions, and we can now bring you this more savory link regarding the aesthetic virtues of the L.A Storm Drain System. FOVICKS -- or Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures, has a......

You ruined my day, Reggie Bush. I had plans. I was going to have a great workout. I was going on a trail run from Will Rogers Park to Temescal Canyon. I was going to the Santa Monica Steps to punish my cardiovascular system while I gawk at celebrities and hardbodies. I was going to get work done. There was nothing better to do. Chicago was spanking New Orleans in the NFC Championship game. Why......

farm flashback These may be the last days of the community farm in south central LA; supporters are $10 million short in their efforts to buy the property from the developer who's ready to take his 14 acres and make a profit. But Hollywood is lending a publicity-generating, eviction-fighting hand: Daryl Hannah is camping out on the property, Laura Dern and husband Ben Harper stopped by and Joan Baez is treesitting. Treesitting, you ask?......

Another step has been taken in transforming downtown with the Grand Avenue project. Now we're not sure we're going to get the technicalities of municipal development right, but as we read in the Daily News, an agreement to begin design on the park (see illustration) that will stretch from the Music Center to City Hall has been approved. A gallery of park proposals from the people has been put together by good-intentioned rabble-rousers at......

So Jon Stewart will host the Oscars this year. Hosting the Oscars solo is a little like climbing Everest: the idea of doing it is always there, taunting America's elite comedians and raconteurs. Some, like Bob Hope, can beat it — 12 times he hosted alone, and more times with helpers tagging along. Others end up like Beck Weathers and David Letterman, beaten and barely alive, knowing they'll never do it again. But the......

When we posted yesterday's inaugural Busted in L.A. Quiz, we had faith that our readers would recognize it as the bathroom where George Michael had such a hard day in 1998. He went in looking for some fastlove, and he reached the edge of heaven, when — wham! — suddenly, the cops closed in, and he briefly lost his freedom. We knew you were waiting (for us) to post the answer. What we didn't......