Zach Behrens

On Hollywood Boulevard, if you're around seven feet tall, the paparazzi will love you, even if you're not a star. LAist photographer Tom Andrews last week was walking when he spotted the paparazzi, most notably TMZ, going nuts over her outside Katsuya, almost as if it were Lady Gaga. Surreal? Sure. A Hollywood moment? Definitely....

November 2nd is a big election for Democrats, Republicans, gubernatorial candidates, marijuana, state parks, climate law, the state budget and so much more. To say the least, groups want residents to arm themselves with the right to vote. Today in L.A. County, there will be 11 "drive thru" sites open through midnight (that started at 8 a.m.) where you can register in person.

Last week's car free party on 7.5 miles of Los Angeles streets -- aka CicLAvia! -- was such a success, there are talks of bringing it back at the City Council level -- after all, the route went through five political city districts -- and within the nonprofit that organized the event. "It’s all somewhat up in the air at this time - subject to change - but we decided to plan on 4-6 CicLAvia events in 2011!"

Map via Patch AOL's brand of local news websites are growing faster than ever. Just last week, LAist posted about two new Patches in the San Gabriel Valley and today are two more in North Hollywood/Toluca Lake and in Monrovia. Craig Clough will take the helm for North Hollywood/Toluca Lake, which is likely going to be tough. While some of his fellow site editors have very defined and sometimes relatively small cities and neighborhoods,...

via Wikipedia California's iconic symbol is under attack! Well, at least for now, it's isolated. A pest, which the California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) considers to be "the world’s worst pest of palm trees," has been found in the Laguna Beach area, state officials announced today. They said this is the first-ever detection of the red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) in the United States. The Southeast Asia native insect has spread throughout...

Photo by fredcamino via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr L.A. has suffered a blow this year in regards to the budget. Job cuts, furloughs, impacted city services and more have had a ripple effect on the pubic (library hours shortened by two days, for one). To avoid more of this in the future, city officials are acting now to save the budget, which includes going to the voters at the March 8th municipal election....

One quarter into the 2010-11 fiscal year and Los Angeles' "spending is running $63 million more than expected," according to the Daily News. The information comes from City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, who warned the City Council last week in the latest financial status report. The overrun can be covered by the reserve and unappropriated balance accounts, but come June, there's an anticipated $318 million deficit expected. (h/t LA Observed)...

Photo by red.dahlia via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr In today's LA Times, Martha Groves profiles UCLA Professor and "parking rockstar" Donald Shoup. If you don't know about him, you should, as he's someone local whose ideas about urban planning are affecting cities everywhere. One of his most frequently cited concepts is not subsidizing free parking, putting it at fair market value and using the revenues to improve that neighborhood directly. So what did...

Map via AIDS Walk The 26th Annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles is this Sunday, meaning thousands of people will be taking to the streets to fundraise and bring awareness to the disease. It also means some streets will be closed during the morning. Some streets will close as early as 6 a.m., but the walk starts at 9:15 a.m. at West Hollywood Park. It will head East on Santa Monica, South on La Cienega,...

Thursday night at the Downtown Art Walk | Photo by meddzilla via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Are you part of this trend? Sales of e-books are up 193% this year. Last night's Downtown Art Walk was well attended, despite confusion if it was really on or not (it really was). This haunted house in Sherman Oaks might be worth checking out. AOL's West Coast editorial director for Patch spoke at last night's L.A....