Lindsay William-Ross

Photo by Open Air Control Testing Ground via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr If your weekend work or play plans include riding the Blue Line in or out of Downtown, take note: Several stations will be closed this weekend due to construction. Stations affected are: 7th Street/Metro Center, Pico, Grand, San Pedro, and Washington. Metro says Blue Line passengers will experience travel delays of up to 40 minutes from 9 p.m. tonight...

A group of police officers search outside El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) This morning, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines issued an apology following the arrest last night of school police officer Jeffrey Stenroos, who went from victim to perp after allegedly filing a false report about his shooting outside El Camino Real High School last...

Photo by oybay © via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Google is making a big move in Los Angeles, and announced yesterday that they are "leasing more than 100,000 square feet of office space in three buildings, including the famed Binoculars Building" in Venice, according to the LA Times. The internet search engine giant is making the move as part of a "major expansion" in SoCal, and could signal the establishment of...

Photo by toastycakes via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Hollywood's long-running Cinespace is calling it curtains on its tenure as a Boulevard bastion of music, lounge-ing, and screenings next month. The official announcement came via Facebook, reports Downtown Lobby, who note that the "Hollywood venue was a destination for bands and artists like Uffie, The Editors, Kid Cudi, Digitalism, The Presets, Boys Noize and Friendly Fires to get their start, especially through...

Some of the "Grim Sleeper" photos (Screenshot/LAPD) "Grim Sleeper" suspect Lonnie Franklin, Jr., may have two more victims linked to him, following Los Angeles Police Department investigations stemming from the release of nearly 200 photographs found in his home, according to LA Now. Both cases, involving the murders of two women, are from the 1990s, however detectives are not offering additional information, saying the cases remain under investigation. This is the first time the...

TMZ is reporting that actor Charlie Sheen was "taken out of his home on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance at 7 AM." Sheen was reportedly taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital for an as-yet unknown condition. The celeb gossip site says that Sheen was taken out of the house with "a towel partially over his face," and that "two young women" accompanied him out. Another gossip site, Hollyscoop, says that they've been told by...

Forget mules, or clever vehicle stashes! Marijuana smugglers have turned to a catapult to get drugs from Mexico into the US. A 3-yard tall catapult was found "about 20 meters (20 yards) from the U.S. border on a flatbed towed by a sports utility vehicle," in Mexico south of Arizona, and surveillance video shows people lobbing packages across the International Border fence, reports the AP. "The catapult was capable of launching 2 kilograms (4.4...

In today's Extra, Extra we've got a really big lizard, Kentucky Fried maggot, a lack of quorum, and "The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Bush," plus other news bites of the day. Bonus: Keep up with us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter: @LAist @LAistFood @LAistSports.

There's been a flurry of activity on Beverly Boulevard as the former Grace spot is in its final stages of being transformed into Chef John Rivera Sedlar's latest project, Playa. We're told they're prepping for an opening on or around February 4th. Sedlar previewed some of the menu back in September during a stint at Test Kitchen; the concept is a slightly more casual Latin eatery than his Downtown Rivera.

Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr Comparing themselves--favorably!--to one of the nation's largest mass-producers of packaged food products, Taco Bell got the word out this morning via an email from parent company Yum! Brands' PR department that the lawsuit filed alleging their beef isn't so...beefy is as full of crap as the suit says their beef is. Says Greg Creed, President and Chief Concept Officer of Taco Bell Corp.: “At Taco Bell, we buy our...

Sure, there are tons of things like Vitameatavegamin out there to perk you up. But if you're really "listless" and think it's depression, LA County's Health pros say "Get help!" Feeling a little down, Los Angeles? You're not alone--alarmingly so. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says that there has been a significant increase in the percentage of adults who said that they have been diagnosed as depressed, according to a release...

Nope! Is it West Hollywood, then? That's a big gay no, too. The honor goes to...Minneapolis this year, according to the Advocate, who have released their ranking of the 15 Gayest Cities in America, using what they call "a completely unscientific — but still strangely accurate" equation.