Zach Behrens

Not taken in LA, but kinda looks like it, no? Random Fact: By law, you can only have one rooster per househould. | Photo by sbblackley via Flickr For nearly a year, livable streets activists have been at arms over the actions of Los Angeles officials raising speed limits in the Valley. The city is required by state law to evaluate street speeds and adjust the limits if they want police to be able...

Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr A chase that began around 12:30 a.m. shortly came to its end with an officer involved shooting that left the woman dead a half hour later. "The woman, who at times traveled up to speeds of more than 100 mph and rammed into police cruisers, was pronounced dead at the scene," reported the LA Times. An 18-month-year-old child in the backseat during the chase was not killed, but there...

A list of 250 of the state's top tax delinquents includes three notable names. Burt Reynolds owes $225,000, but Warwick and Sinbad earn much higher spots on the list with amounts totally $2.18 million and $2.5 million, respectively. Ouch! The LA Times made a database, go see if your rich friends made the grade!...

Photo by timtom.ch via Flickr "There must be a believer out there, one with both the foresight and resources to keep our city from becoming a wasteland of corporate chain stores, uninspired conformity and heartless mediocrity, and we think saving Equator Books would be a very good place to start," wrote Max Wheeler, part-owner of Equator, on the Huffington Post yesterday. The 5-year-old Abbot Kinney Boulevard bookstore is "actively (aggressively / desperately) seeking Investors,"...

After her daughter died in a hit-and-run accident a couple weeks ago, the family is moving on, but not back to Santa Barbara. "The intersection [at Jefferson and Hoover] where [Adriana] Bachan was killed is notoriously treacherous for pedestrians, and her mother said she’s on a mission to see that the area’s safety is improved. She said she’d like to see a pedestrian bridge constructed," Santa Barabra's Noozhawk reported. Damien Newton at StreetsblogLA notes...

Photo: TheTruthAbout...via Flickr By law, if police want to use radar guns on streets, cities must measure the average speed cars are going, regardless of posted limits, every 7 to 10 years. If they find that 15% of vehicles are illegally going over the speed limit, the city must increase the limit to allow for radar use. That's what's been happening for nearly a year in the Valley, angering residents and activists who have...

Photo: TheTruthAbout...via Flickr By law, if police want to use radar guns on streets, cities must measure the average speed cars are going, regardless of posted limits, every 7 to 10 years. If they find that 15% of vehicles are illegally going over the speed limit, the city must increase the limit to allow for radar use. That's what's been happening for nearly a year in the Valley, angering residents and activists who have...

In the past 24 hours, thirteen mircroquakes and one minor quake have struck the Salton Sea area where over 400 little quakes have shook the ground in the last month. That minor one, a 3.5 magnitude shaker, happened yesterday afternoon around 3 p.m. Athough, the number of quakes have calmed, "Seismologist Kate Hutton of the California Institute of Technology said it will take a fair amount of quiet time before scientists can declare the...

What once use to be a skyline of cranes, a sure sign of a neighborhood coming back, has now dwindled down to the last one. The construction crane at Concerto, a new condo development at 9th and Figueroa, was taken down yesterday leaving LA Live's long-necked machine as it completes glass work on the Ritz-Carlton tower. For blogdowntown's Eric Richardson, there's nothing wrong with this picture: "Of course, that's not exactly a bad thing....

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power is working to restore power that was knocked out shortly before lunch in Sherman Oaks today. It was caused by a by a falling tree limb and 2,600 customers are affected. "Crews are on site working to repair it as quickly as possible," Spokeswoman Stephanie Interaino said over the phone. However, she had no estimate when power would be back. Crews had repaired the initial damage...

The times are tough and today it reared its ugly head on the front page of the LA Times. An L-shaped ad with a thick black border surrounds a traditional ad and some clearly marked fake editorial content (in a different font, no less) sits in the lower left hand corner, notes freelance journalist Charles Apple on his blog. As controversial as it is, the ad definitely creates buzz in that viral way (example,...

In the past 24 hours, thirteen mircroquakes and one minor quake have struck the Salton Sea area where over 400 little quakes have shook the ground in the last month. That minor one, a 3.5 magnitude shaker, happened yesterday afternoon around 3 p.m. Athough, the number of quakes have calmed, "Seismologist Kate Hutton of the California Institute of Technology said it will take a fair amount of quiet time before scientists can declare the...