Zach Behrens

Photo via Curbed LA Apparently, an East Hollywood woman had a crew come out last year Fourth of July to remove a city curb for a big private driveway. Alyssa Romano, resident and fourplex building owner on the 1100 block N. Westmoreland Avenue, did not obtain a permit for her illegal driveway. Curbed LA reports: Since Romano removed the city-owned parking space without a permit, she was instructed by the Bureau of Street Services...

The Obama Administration certainly likes Los Angeles a lot more than the Bush one. President Barack Obama has already done a Los Angeles visit, now it's his counterpart's turn. Vice President Joe Biden will be in town tomorrow to highlight the progress of the Recovery Act, according to the White House today. He'll be touring the Esperanza Community Housing Corporation in South LA with Mayor Villaraigosa, Rep. Xavier Becerra and Ron Simms of the...

Okay, random. LAist reader Jon Zack was walking on the beach yesterday when he saw this 5 foot plaster-made snowman between the walking path and the water. "He looked happy, but a little melty," he joked. And it's still there, he says. A few minutes past 4 p.m., his girlfriend found it near a wooden fence against the path....

Planning for the weekend, the weather is looking to be pretty sweet. Basically, today through Sunday, the weather will be in the 70s on the beaches, low 80s inland and a little hotter in the hills and Valley, according to the National Weather Service. Oh yes, for the win. The skies will remain clear and sunny until Sunday night and Monday morning, when patchy clouds and fog will roll on in before it once...

Now here's not a fun way to start your second term in office. The June cover of Los Angeles Magazine will hit homes and newsstands with a cover story, actually an open letter, perhaps to put Mayor Villaraigosa back on track to serve Los Angeles and not his political career when his new term begins on July 1st. "We are bitter because you promised us so much," a teaser reads on LA Observed. "What...

Chief Bratton | Image via LA Weekly It's frowned upon for police chiefs to endorse candidates during campaigns. But so far, Chief William Bratton has endorsed candidates appearing on next Tuesday's ballot, including City Attorney hopeful Jack Weiss. “If Weiss gets in, he is going to owe Bratton,” warned former Chief Daryl Gates in an LA Weekly story by Daniel Heimpel today. That would be a "real problem since one of the city attorney’s...

Los Angeles is in heavy need for watchdog websites like this. Now, thanks to MapLight Los Angeles, you can easily search campaign contributions to Los Angeles city politicians by date, industry and more. The information has always been available via the City Ethics Commission website, but MapLight parses out the data to be more easy-to-use and accessible. For example, City Attorney candidate has taken $8,500 from the Outdoor advertising services industry--you know, billboards and...

Photo by Atwater Village Newbie via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr "City of LA's Bureau of Street Services successfully cleared vehicles from the streets of Atwater Village by 6:00am, but haven't started much work here 2 hours later," the neighborhood blogger noted today in this Flickr photo. Another photo shows a car ticketed for street sweeping restriction: "City of LA is leaving $58 parking tickets on cars that had to move off...

Star Trek made a killing this weekend for obvious reasons: it was really, really good and it didn't matter if you were a Trekkie or not. And the fact that it wasn't 100% green screen and computer generated graphics was one of the redeeming factors. “So much incredible stuff happens in Star Trek that I wanted to keep it feeling as real as possible,” Director J.J. Abrams said in production notes provided by Paramount Pictures, via Wired Magazine's Underwire. “I didn’t want to have it all be green screens and CG.”

Former Miss USA and New York and more recently California's pageant director Shanna Moakler today resigned citing the recent Miss California controversy. "I cannot with a clear conscious move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it, or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth," she said in a statement. "I want to be a role model for young woman with high hopes of pageantry,...

With the economy in the dumps, two Fullerton college students have joined forces to save a buck or ten when it comes to beer. David Echanique (Cal State Fullerton) and Brandon McKenney (Orange Coast Community College) last week announced ThriftyBeer.com, a website where you input your city or neighborhood and it outputs the top ten locations that have cheap beer (with a Google Map, too). In Hollywood, for example, you can 30 Bud Lights...

Foreclosed homes feelings oft beget strong feelings and emotions for owners, but this Riverside man took it way too far. Says the LA Times: "A U.S. Bank representative was checking the house Tuesday in the 1400 block of Orange Street when he discovered several explosives outside the structure. Officers from the Riverside Police Department arrived about 2:45 p.m. and confirmed the explosives were made to look like pipe bombs, officials said in a statement."...