Lisa Brenner

(Photo by attorneycredits via Twitpic) Some consider it graffiti, others consider it art, but Encinitas city leaders have considered it gone after unanimously voting to remove a mysteriously appearing, religious themed, stained-glass mosaic that popped up on Encinitas Boulevard between Highway 101 and Vulcan Avenue over Easter weekend, reports NBC San Diego. After its meeting last night, the Encinitas City Council unanimously voted to spend up to $2,000 for a Los Angeles-based art conservation...

The Los Angeles Police Department have announced the locations of two sobriety and driver’s license checkpoints this weekend as part of their ongoing campaign to remove dangerous drivers from the roads and educate the public on safety risks of driving under the influence. Checkpoint 1 - Saturday May 21, 2011 Manchester Avenue between Main Street and Broadway from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Checkpoint 2 - Saturday May 21, 2011 Canoga Avenue between Victory...

A gang sweep early Thursday saw a busload, literally, of arrests for drug trafficking. As part of a multi-agency effort, "30 to 40 members of the Black P Stone gang in Baldwin Village, affiliated with the Bloods," were taken to the Sports Arena complex south of downtown with TV crews recording "a police bus on scene" helping to manage the quantity of arrestees, reports LA Now and a Los Angeles Police Department Advisory. A...

via GCS The California Geological Survey (CGS) has released a new map showing the susceptibility of California to deep-seated landslides and where landslides are more likely to occur. The map is ranked on a scale of zero to 10 combining factors of rock strength and degree of slope; greater slope + weaker rock = highest susceptibility. State Geologist of California and head of CGS, Dr. John Parrish, says the information provides an overview for...

Photo by vmiramontes via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Leaders of SAG and AFTRA held a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night in Los Angeles to hear opinions on the possibility of merging the two unions, reports the Hollywood Reporter. According to sources, approximately 235 attendees were split roughly 50-50 for and against such a decision. However, those percentages are reportedly "not representative of the electorate," as SAG’s Hollywood Division is strongly pro-merger having...

Photo by Rajiv Patel via Flickr Burglars have reportedly been targeting ATMs and stealing entire machines from outside of businesses on the Westside and Midtown in what the LA Times is calling "a mini-crime wave." A series of burglaries, from Venice to the Wilshire District, began in April, Los Angeles police say. Two suspects pried open a number of machines to steal cash, occasionally making off with the whole device via a white pickup...

Photo by bbonen via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr A Portrait of California, a new report released Tuesday by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) divides the state of California into five population segments ranked by quality of life based on health standards and living standards, among other factors, as well as ranks the state's major metropolitan areas, notes the Los Angeles Business Journal. Using a created "composite measure of health, education, and...

Photo by Brian Bubonic via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr A Metro bus driver was taken to the hospital and treated for a "stress reaction" when an underground electrical transformer bank exploded Tuesday morning in Westwood causing a manhole cover to fly up from the street and strike the back of a bus parked near the UCLA campus, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Los Angeles city fire officials, reports LA Now....

Photo by Greg Lilly Photos via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Help us, Burbank Airport. You're our only (Bob) Hope. Airport officials were surprised to see a learn of a sharp drop in passengers, as well as a decline in parking revenue. The number of passengers dropped 5% in March, a percentage greater than expected, reports the Glendale News-Press. The loss of 7,497 passengers compared with the same period last year was 2%...

Photo by Mark Luethi via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr 50 million classifieds are posted on Craigslist every month including ads selling pharmaceutical and illegal drugs, notes ABC Local. The police know. And they know what "Tina Turner tickets" means when Tina isn't on tour. In a sting operation by members of the Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force (HALT), a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency unit that includes agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's...

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) With California state revenue exceeding expectation, Gov. Jerry Brown wants to use to use an unexpected $6.6 billion "to boost education spending and help repair California’s battered finances," notes the LA Times. Brown's revised budget plan, released Monday, puts about $3 billion more into school spending than initially proposed in January and seeks to eliminate several high paying "patronage posts" as well as "43 boards, commissions, task forces, offices and...

(Photo by Samuel M. Livingston via Flickr) A 300-pound hallucinating man detoxing from pain medication drove head-on into another car around noon on Sunday, stabbed the driver, tried to stab the passenger, fled to a nearby residential garage, and then stabbed himself repeatedly in the neck with a cordless drill, reports the LA Times and Temecula Patch. The suspect, 38-year-old Menifee resident Garrie Aspengren Jr., who reportedly had not slept in several days, was...