Carrie Meathrell

Details continue to emerge about the strange case of the woman whose body was found at a towyard the day after she died in a car crash in the San Fernando Valley. The woman had been driving with her son, who now claims that his epilepsy caused him to crash the car -- and to forget he had his mother in the car with him. He believes a seizure may have led him to...

He's gone to Middle Earth and now he's back again: Peter Jackson has finally agreed to executive-produce not one, but TWO films of "The Hobbit." New Line Pictures, which produced the massively successful and critically acclaimed "Lord of the Rings" films, had originally dumped Jackson from the "Hobbit" sequels because of ongoing disputes over profits Jackson claimed he was owed for "The Fellowship of The Ring." But this morning's press release declares that all litigation...

Dear Tony Pierce, can you please tell your new employers at the LA Times to fix their streaming American Express advertising pop-up so that it does not crash my brand-new computer every five minutes? Thank you, signed, LAist.com. When we are not struggling to cope with adverse side-effects of inexorable technological progress, we are keeping track of the striking writers' negotiations with venture capitalists to begin producing Internet programming. Baby needs a new pair...

Gingersnaps and cocoa and rum balls and Italian knots and Kolacky and biscotti and chocolate chips, oh my! LAist has been in the kitchen, cooking up a Cookie Exchange. I Can Has JGoldBurger? Omg the PULITZER PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST uses LOLspeak, I don't know what to say, my world has been all shook up like a snowglobe. It's entirely possible I was Afghani in a previous life (as well as Korean, Persian, Icelandic, and...

Could you imagine Los Angeles without the Getty Museum? If that serene white chunk of Italian marble nestled above the 405 suddenly removed its bulk to some other parts, would you notice? Would you care? An article in yesterday morning's LA Times reconsiders the Richard Meier-designed edifice in the light of its 10th anniversary, and in doing so, asks some important questions about the nature and integrity of architecture in Los Angeles. "there is...

Want a Wii this holiday season? Well toooooo fuckin bad. The best you can hope for is a rain check certificate that will entitle you to a console at some point in January. Even the Wii people themselves are now admitting what a mess they've made of manufacturing this thing. Two members of a terrorist cell have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war: the splinter group was "was poised to attack...

A body was found yesterday afternoon in the Angeles National Forest, off Highway 2 near Big Pines. The identity of the person has not been revealed. Now you can get all the penis-biting snake action you want on the web: the next "Jackass" sequel is set to premiere on the web through Blockbuster's new online movie service. In New Jersey, the state assembly has voted to outlaw the death penalty, "poising the state to...

Online book retailer Amazon.com announced today that they have purchased an original, hand-written and hand-bound copy of J.K. Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," a book of children's stories that plays a major role in the plot of "The Deathly Hallows." The book, one of only seven made, was auctioned off in London at Sotheby's for 1.95 million pounds. Proceeds from the auction are going to The Children's Voice Campaign, a charity that benefits...

"Atonement" leads the pack of nominees for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards with seven nods, including top actor nominations for both leads, Keira Knightly and James McAvoy. "American Gangster," "No Country for Old Men," and "Sweeney Todd" also garnered nominations; you can read a partial list of the nominees here at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association website. Hayden Panettiere, Dane Cook, Ryan Reynolds and Quentin Tarantino read the list at the Beverly Hilton at...

About the above picture: The Rawking Refuses To Stop!, a blog of all things Los Angeles pop culture and MP3, shares with us their best concert photos of 2007. Above, they sneak out of LA to New York to see Les Savy Fav at the Bowery Ballroom (we'll just say they did the same thing when they came here). Don't forget -- you still have today and tomorrow to enter our Rufus Wainwright/Belinda Carlisle...