Lindsay William-Ross

The courtyard of Bastide (Lindsay William-Ross/LAist) Food trends of note: Cupcakes, food trucks, food truck backlash, nose-to-tail butchery...and pretending to close for remodeling when you're really closing down for good. The latest local restaurant to qualify under the latter: West Hollywood's Bastide. Eater confirms that it's not a new decor that has the contemporary French courtyard restaurant under lock-and-key. Bastide has long had a rep for being home to the revolving kitchen door. In,...

A Pasadena woman trying to be a good sport by helping out a man asking her some questions from a parked car was given what the Star-News is politely calling "an unpleasant surprise." That surprise? He was naked, except for a baseball cap. On his head. Authorities say the man, thought to be white or Hispanic and between 20 and 30 years old, waved the woman over near California Boulevard and Catalina Avenue at...

Photo from a 2009 protest (Emmanuel Uche/LAist) Several dozen protests are being held statewide today to spotlight the perils of cuts made to funding for public education. Locally, such protests are taking place in Long Beach, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Valley Village, Van Nuys and elsewhere in Los Angeles, according to ABC7. Outside Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, the crowd chanted "No more cuts! No more cuts!" and were clad in dark clothing,...

Photo by www.voteJoeC.com via Flickr Shots rang out last night around 8:30 p.m. in a South Los Angeles neighborhood, striking a man, and fatally striking his two-year-old nephew, who he held in his arms. The man and child were "not the intended targets," the Los Angeles Police Department told ABC7. The bullets that struck both victims in the head traveled far, according to authorities. LAPD Capt. Mark Olvera explains: "It looks like [the bullets]...

Maria Shriver kisses hubby Arnold Schwazenegger after he is sworn in a Governor (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) Rumor has it Maria Shriver had been dishing to close pals for some time about wanting out of her marriage to action star and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the gossip churns, TMZ reports today that it was actually the Shriver camp who leaked the intel about Schwarzenegger's affair and son with the onetime family housekeeper. Reportedly...

Manhattan at the Bar at Cliff's Edge (Lindsay William-Ross/LAist) For years now, many a romantic date or dinner with visiting relatives has taken place inside the charming enclosed patio dining room of Silver Lake's Cliff's Edge restaurant. With a side room used as an overflow dining room languishing, an idea was recently born to transform the space into its own bar area, complete with a new cocktail menu and small bites, and its own...

A Family Radio "Judgment Day" billboard in Houston, TX (Photo by gsloan via Flickr) The rapture came...and went...on Saturday, and, well, we're all still here. Today, former porn actress Jennifer Ketcham explores the post-nonapocalypse issue in the Huffington Post, namely if those "true believers" who made significant plans and life changes to prepare for the May 21st rapture can sue Bay Area-based prophet Harold Camping. Camping, of Oakland-based Family Radio, mounted an extensive billboard...

The woman whose body was discovered among the trash at heavily-used Wilmington facility has been identified as 24-year-old Latrecia Lavrea Hill of Long Beach, according to the Daily Breeze. Hill's body was found by workers at the trash sorting venue Friday evening, however it is not yet known from which truck the body was delivered. The coroner says the cause of death will remain deferred until they have the results of toxicology studies. The...

The Thirsty Crow's signature house drink (Lindsay William-Ross/LAist) This news ought to put the cherry in the Manhattan of bourbon-loving Silver Lakers, and their fellow imbibing Angelenos: Esquire has hailed The Thirsty Crow as one of the nation's best bars. Esquire says this year's list was compiled using a slightly different philosophy than in prior years. On their list in 2011: New places. Most less than two years old. Which is trickier than it...

Photo by Tim Pearce, Los Gatos via Flickr California can stall no more, says the Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 ruling that affirms the state's proposed prisoner release plan is among the actions needed to address the system's overcrowding, according to the Sacramento Bee. The court believes that conditions in California prisons reflect "serious constitutional violations," which must be tended to expediently. Those violations represent what the court hails as "cruel and unusual...

Graph via Gallup The results of a new Gallup poll show that a majority of Americans believe that same-sex marriages should be recognized as equal to traditional marriages under the law. At 53%, this result marks the first time since Gallup began tracking the issue that those polled were more in favor of recognizing same-sex marriages by law. However, Gallup notes that the results have remained consistently divided among political party lines and by...

Tom Leykis (via Leykis101) If you've spent much of your career in Los Angeles as a "shock jock" known for advising men on how to bag women, is that reason enough to turn down a generous donation towards a growing reward fund to help bag some criminals? Tom Leykis is beginning to wonder if that is what's going on with the $50,000 he offered the City of Los Angeles to put towards the pool...