Lindsay William-Ross

Inspectors at LAX today encountered a not-so-pretty find : About 5,400 fake M.A.C makeup brushes attempting to land in L.A. from China, reports CBS2. The faux beauty tools arrived, and seized, " in five shipments at an air cargo express consignment location between Jan. 20 and Feb. 11," according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rep. The big pile of fake M.A.C. was estimated as having a retail value of $112,500. Okay,...

Guetta in 2008 (Photo by Brian Bubonic via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr) In an interview with the LA Times, Thierry Guetta, aka street artist Mr. Brainwash, addresses all the rumors that the Oscar-nominated documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" (aka "The Banksy Movie") is fakery: "This movie is 100% real." Guetta calls himself Banksy's "biggest work of art," explaining that the elusive, anonymous British street artist who has been inundating L.A....

Sometimes a man just wants a little peace and quiet when he's in his home. Perhaps that's what prompted a South Los Angeles resident to threaten his neighbor with a knife for being too noisy in the wee Monday hours, as reported by ABC7. When the cops showed up, the angry neighbor barricaded himself in his home, and a standoff followed. The police tried to take him down with a Taser, but they missed....

Photo by TheTruthAbout... via Flickr Going once, going twice, sold to...well, no one yet. But Blockbuster Inc. (you know, where you used to go an rent those huge rectangular plastic cartridges with a movie on them) is about to go up for sale as part of their bankruptcy process, according to the LA Times. The opening "stalking horse" bid: $290 million. What if no one goes for it? Then their four largest creditors, Monarch...

The day after the daughter of Los Angeles city firefighter Glenn Allen lost her father to injuries sustained on duty, she gave birth to a son. "The boy, weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces, was reportedly doing fine," says the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Allen, 61, was critically injured battling a blaze in a home in the Hollywood Hills. The 36-year veteran of the LAFD was among a handful of firefighters hurt on the scene when the water-logged ceiling of the Sunset Plaza-area home collapsed

Reader @mrlongsworth Tweeted us this morning with what could be a fifth Banksy to pop up of late, and the second one with the crayon motif. Still not confirmed by Banksy's official website, the wall at Washington Boulevard and Compton Avenue is far south of the street artist's usual Hollywood/Melrose/West Hollywood domain. Do we have yet another Banksy piece to ogle? [UPDATE: It's confirmed. This, and 2 other pieces, are by Banksy]

City officials, bicycling enthusiasts, and members of the community turned out today to welcome the city's first public bike corral, newly installed nearly a year after it was approved outside Highland Park's Café de Leche. The idea to bring the bike corral to York Boulevard and outside his popular cafe came from Café de Leche co-owner Matt Schodorf, who took the proposal to City Councilmember José Huizar, back in 2009. The motion was brought to City Council in April of last year, and approved shortly after.

How many free logo-ed pens does one person need? (Photo by Dawn Endico via Flickr) Governor Jerry Brown isn't kidding on getting California's spending under control. On the chopping block today: All those thingamajigs and doo-dads and logo-covered crappola that gets given away for free and is purchased with taxpayer's dollars. Among the "Stuff We All Get," aka "S.W.A.G." that has been slashed from the books include flashlights, pens, hats, shirts, coffee mugs, keychains,...

Photo by Open Air Control Testing Ground via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr We're paying more--in some cases a helluva lot more--for just about everything we use these days, according to the OC Register. The Consumer Price Index for the Orange County-Los Angeles-Riverside shows a bump in the cost of food, gasoline, transportation, utilities, education, and even apparel. The increases in prices for food saw a dramatic increase from January 2010 to...

Theriault-Odom It was no dice today for Rianne Theriault-Odom, the woman who set an exotic dancer on fire outside a Tarzana bikini bar in 2009, who lost her appeal on her conviction, according to the Daily News. Theriault-Odom received a life sentence for dousing then-27-year-old Roberta Busby in gasoline and setting her on fire after an argument. Theriault-Odom had tried to use her intoxication at the time of the altercation to explain her actions,...

The Los Angeles Fire Department have announced the passing of one of their vets, Glenn L. Allen, who was critically injured late Wednesday night while battling a blaze in a home near the Sunset Plaza area of the Hollywood Hills. Allen had been trapped after the home's water-logged ceiling collapsed, and was not breathing when he was removed from the debris. He succumbed to his injuries at 12:15 this afternoon at Cedars-Sinai.

When you see something cute, or funny, or interesting these days, the impulse is to grab your cellphone or digital camera and take a snapshot and share it with friends and family. In the case of a 19-year-old Hesperia woman, she allegedly did something, shared the photo, and got arrested. What Danyella Higgins is accused of doing is binding the hands and feet and covering the mouth of her 2-year-old son with duct tape,...