Zach Behrens

There are about 30- to 35,000 bears in California, according to Department of Fish & Game officials. With that many, there's no doubt that stories like this morning's--a 300-pound bear wanders into a Camarillo apartment complex--are surprising. Yesterday around noon, two campers' dog and mountain lion dueled in the Cleveland National Forest outside of Santa Ana. Mountains lions usually want to keep to themselves and Fish & Game officials told the OC Register that...

A bear spotted in Tahoe | Photo by RickC via Flickr For the second time today, a North American Black Bear entered an area residential neighborhood. This time one was found in a La Verne, probably in search of water and food, before officials tranquilized and transported it to an undisclosed location in the San Gabriel Mountains. Earlier today, a 300-pound bear was found and captured in a Camarillo apartment complex. With this year's...

Talk about a difference in temperature. That's nearly 30 degrees for areas about 30 miles apart. But as predicted earlier this week, the National Weather Service says today would get hotter... well, at least for the inland areas. Other temperatures in the area include 95 in Woodland Hills, 78 in downtown LA, 71 in Long Beach, 72 in Santa Monica and 90 in Granada Hills. So basically, the Valley got screwed today....

Rep. Terry Morrison Just a quick update from this morning. After the Maine legislature approved gay marriage, Governor John Baldacci, who was thought to be undecided on the issue, signed the bill into law. "I have read many of the notes and letters sent to my office, and I have weighed my decision carefully," he said in a statement. "I did not come to this decision lightly or in haste." Meanwhile, the California Supreme...

via Customs and Border Protection Last month, Customs and Border Protection were waiting when Song Dong of Garden Grove returned to Los Angeles from Vietnam. During inspection, they initially noticed bird feathers and droppings on his socks and upon a further look, "14 live birds attached to two flat pieces of clothe that were wrapped around his calves," according to the United States Attorneys Office. Agents were first tipped off to Dong last December...

The City Council may have learned their lesson by forcing LA Marathon organizers to a Monday holiday rather than the traditional Sunday. Today a council committee voted to hold the 2010 marathon on a Sunday in March. This year, it will be held on Memorial Day, which has not been good participation or the health of runners who choose to run on the traditionally hot day. It will next go to the full council...

Photo: Fred Camino Not owning your own property can be a bitch. And such is life when leasing from the government, one who will now be using some of the land for a transportation corridor. The Orange Line busway extension from the Warner Center up Canoga Avenue to the Chatsworth Train Station is slated to break ground this June. That means the businesses that have been leasing right-of-way property from Metro--some have for 50...

Oof. Not only did The Onion pull their print editions out of our fair city today, so did the free and cheap drink mavens at MyOpenBar.com. In an e-mail sent out this afternoon, they announced a slow down in operations: "Looking for free booze? Oh. Yeah. About that... We had to fire the entire staff after squandering most of the Myopenbar fortune on Cadillacs and Courvosier. Call it an 'MC Hammer,' call it a...

It looks like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken the debate over marijuana to whole a new level, the Sacramento Bee reports: The governor was asked about a recent Field Poll [.pdf] showing that 56 percent of registered voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise revenues for cash-strapped California. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has proposed legislation that would legalize the drug for recreational use, rather than just medical purposes.

Graphic by Kaveh Taherian/DigiSocks Design The state reports 69 cases of swine flu, including six from LA County, but it appears they are not importing data from Long Beach, which runs its own citywide health department. The oceanside city reports five cases, totaling 74 cases for California by LAist's count. Cases in surrounding counties are as follows, says the state: Orange: 2 Ventura: 2 San Bernardino: 4 San Diego: 25 Additionally, they say there's...

Agapito Nicolas | via LA Times The same day USC student Adriana Bachan died near campus in a hit-and-run, a 56-year-old man also died in a similar incident across town. Agapito Gaspar Nicolas was hit by an alleged silver Volkswagen Jetta while in a marked crosswalk on Figueroa Street at Avenue 51 in Highland Park. He later died in the hospital While Bachan's death took the media, police and city politicians by storm, Nicolas'...

Another comic great has left us. Dom Deluise, 75, reportedly died last night at a Los Angeles area hospital. "One of the truly funniest comics, EVER!!! "His brand of humor will be greatly missed," an LAist reader wrote in an e-mail this morning. "I'm actually a thin, serious person, but I play fat and funny, but only for the movies," DeLuise once joked about himself. His death follows last week's loss of Vegas performer...