Lindsay William-Ross

Gunfire erupted outside Wilson High School in Long Beach at around 10 o'clock Friday night as about 200 students were inside the building enjoying their Homecoming dance. The bullets took the life of 16-year-old Melody Ross, a "popular honors student and athlete," and the "daughter of Cambodian immigrants," who died in hospital half an hour after the shooting, according to LA Now. Ross and friends had just left the Homecoming football game when the...

Photo by A.C. Thamer via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Yesterday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met with all three of the finalists for the position of Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, to replace William Bratton, who surrendered his star this weekend and is moving back to New York to work in the private sector. The three candidates all come from within the LAPD, a consideration that the departed Bratton and many...

Photo by honeybeejen via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Back in April of 2008 we remarked that the announcement of a new overlay area code--a code within an existing code area for use with new numbers when all previous numbers have been assigned--was "not a big deal." Okay, fine, so soon people in the 818 might have to accept a 747 area code, and everyone within the area would have to dial...

Tequila and sangrita from Ammo's small batch tasting earlier this year (Caroline on Crack/LAist) Whether you're celebrating Dia de Los Muertos (LAist Event Guide) or nursing a serious day-after Halloween hangover, one way to take away the sting and take part in a cultural tradition is to sip on some Sangrita. No, not Sangria--don't confuse this tomato-citrus-spice sipping drink with the fruit infused wine of tapas bars and lazy summer days. In fact, the...

Photo by Lucyrk in LA via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr How did "missed opportunities" turn the Station Fire into a disaster? The Fed has shut down the over five dozen branches of California National Bank of Los Angeles. US Bank will take over. Authorities in South Gate are investigating the case of a body found in a burning car along the LA River near the 710 Freeway. You gotta love these...

When Daylight Time ends on Halloween, most may interpret the regained hour as more of a treat (although those who forget to change their clocks and watches might find its a bit of a trick come morning). So don't forget: Overnight we "fall back" an hour. Though most of us keep time by cellphones and other devices that do the switching for us, our bodies and good old fashioned wall-clocks, watches, and kitchen appliance...

Photo by Sadie and Allison Crabtree (sadiekitten via LAist Featured Photos/Flickr) Forget the gap-toothed grins and the wide-eyed haunted faces; what says Los Angeles on Halloween more than Los Angeles itself on a Jack O'Lantern? LAist readers and Featured Photos pool contributors Sadie and Allison Crabtree set the city on fire...on the faces of their pumpkins. The iconic Hollywood sign gleams while the Griffith Observatory sits majestically on their pumpkin-y perches. Of course, we...

Heading towards the WeHo carnaval last year (Photo by Tom Andrews/LAist) As it does every year, the West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnaval is expected to draw a large crowd of revelers, bedecked in all sorts of creative and colorful attire, all looking to pack the streets and celebrate the day. The event runs from 6 to 11 tonight, and is not for the faint of heart; it will be boisterous and crowded, and navigating...

The November issue of Pasadena Magazine has a cover star who, until recently, was more of a behind the scenes kind of guy, despite the often cocky swagger and 'tude. It's Chef Michael Voltaggio, who took over Chef de Cuisine duties this summer for The Dining Room, the swanky old-school restaurant at the Langham that's been turned upside down by Voltaggio's cheeky and innovative style of cuisine. LAist was lucky enough to be invited...

Sounds like a tame enough idea: Print up some t-shirts with the school mascot running and make a slogan out of one of those 800 numbers that uses words instead of digits. Only one of the parents from Linda Vista Elementary School in Yorba Linda decided to give the presumably made-up number a whirl and found that number was something else entirely, according to the Pasadena Star-News...

Photo by Dawn Zarimba via Flickr Following an afternoon and evening of gusty winds moving sometimes as fast as 60 miles per hour about 13,400 DWP customers are still experiencing a disruption to their power services due to downed lines and other outages. While crews worked into the night to restore service, as of their last available update released earlier this morning, service is out and affecting a number of customers in these areas:...

Books on tape? Podcasts? Daydreaming? Favorite albums? Drivers who commute out of the Inland Empire have the most time on their hands to fill while making long treks to their workplace, according to recent census data. "The data said the commute is almost 42 minutes for workers from Lake Elsinore. For Riverside County, the commute is 31.6 minutes...