Zach Behrens

Last year this time, gas was a daily news story as it climbed to its all time high on June 21st at $4.626. However, in these recession times, gas prices are not, thankfully, news breaking items. Gas has risen 19-cents in the last two weeks, now at the price of $2.743 per gallon of regular. Luckily, some are predicting gas prices will actually go down and not go out of control like last summer....

Jennifer Perla and seven others, including her sister, were on the way to their Taft High School prom night at the California Science Center when the driver lost control, overturning the vehicle on the 110 Freeway. 16-year-old Perla, the only one not wearing a seatbelt, died when she apparently was thrown from the 2003 Chevrolet SUV. She was wearing a purple dress. "She looked so beautiful in that dress. She was stunning," her older...

Hello, June. Today means two basic new water rules. Firstly, no using sprinklers on days other than Monday and Thursdays. Easy enough, right? Well, if you're the tattling type and catch a neighbor breaking the new law, you can contact the LA Department of Water & Power's drought buster unit at (800) DIAL-DWP or via e-mail at waterconservationteam@ladwp.com. Also, new rates begin today trying to get people to reduce use by 15%. If not,...

The big media news today is that LA Weekly's Editor, Laurie Ochoa, is "parting ways" after eight years of leading the paper (she also worked there in various roles from 1978 to 1998). As that news hit, foodies were abuzz that is must be due to her husband, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold, being offered the Food Editor position at the New York Times. However, a source close to the matter at...

LAist had a whirlwind of a week regarding the upholding of Prop 8, prompting various protests and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to call the state "fundamentally broken." Case in point, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed cutting all welfare and 80% of state parks from the budget after voters rejected a number of deficit solutions. SFist, as expected, also tried recovering from the shock of this week's Prop. 8 ruling. Phillyist dined out with young'uns....

Hermosa Beach | Photo by jakerome via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr A large fire at a North Hollywood whole sale shoe manufacture kept over 120 firefighters busy this afternoon. The blaze left one firefighter and civilian with non-life threatening injuries Speaking of fires, a parking garage in Culver City has fire extinguishers on the first floor. But what if you need one and you're on the fourth floor? Last night was...

Photo by Quarrygirl, used with permission Cruzer Pizza in Los Feliz started offering vegan pizza yesterday with a new cheese that vegans are calling "revolutionary." Yes, it's vegan cheese, from Daiya Foods, that apparently melts and stretches like real cheese, says vegan blogger Quarrygirl. "It beats all other vegan cheeses, by far," she wrote in an e-mail to LAist. She also noted that it isn't available anywhere else on the West Coast. It's not...

That's the what the National Weather Service is predicting for mostly the Antelope and Cuyama Valleys with the possibility of them heading towards the Valley and Los Angeles basin by late this afternoon or later tonight. We like thunder so we hope it does end up heading our way. From the beaches to the Valley, temperatures are in the 60s today with cloudy skies overhead. As you head up into Santa Clarita and Antelope...

Some people agree with DUI checkpoints and some hate them. Well instead of setting one up in the LAPD's Southwest Division tonight, they're doing a saturation patrol, meaning the area will be flooded with cops on the look out for drunk drivers. The division covers the the area just southwest of downtown including the USC campus (.pdf map). Compared to last year, the division has experienced a 32 percent increase in Driving Under the...

In Boyle Heights | Photo by Scani - Salina Canizales via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr You've got the original Eastside--LA city neighborhoods east of the LA River including unincorporated East LA--and you've got the newish Eastside--Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park--battling it out for their title. Tomorrow in the LA Times a feature, which is already posted online, dives into the issue head on: It's a threat to their community's identity,...

A U.S. Bank branch at Woodman and Riverside in Sherman Oaks was robbed this afternoon at around 2 p.m. Now a perimeter has been set up as police look for two suspects who may be armed. "There are choppers everywhere," exclaimed Beth Oslander, a resident nearby who e-mailed LAist asking what was going on. A bomb squad was also called two the scene because of a suspicious package left at the bank by the...

Beginning Monday, mandatory water conservation in Los Angeles begins. That means things like a different rate structure (.pdf) and a stricter sprinkler ordinance (.pdf). Speaking to watering lawns, which consumes the most amount of water in households, homeowners don't necessarily have to sprinkle anything. Isla Earth, the daily podcast from the Catalina Island Conservancy explains some xeriscaping basics in an episode from 2007 that are still relevant today: