Zach Behrens

Photo by ...bumblebee via Flickr CurbedLA first noticed these paper mache bee hives appearing around town in company abandoned public telephone booths. Alas, last Friday, mystery solved. The artist, bumblebee, has a Flickr page and a statement: Telephone companies have been abandoning their public telephone booths by taking out the phones and leaving the structures beehind. (Probably due to the rise in cell phone users.) I want to reuse these structures as a way...

Photo: Casey Schreiner/Modern Hiker Casey Schreiner over at Modern Hiker took a walk in the Verdugo Mountains between Glendale and Burbank on Sunday finding a few patches of wildflowers. Blogdowntown's Ed Fuentes also found himself walking on Sunday, albeit in South Park where he was enjoying the full bloom of cherry blossoms on 12th street. The late-winter, early-spring flower season can come and go in a blink of the eye if you're not paying...

At Malibu Creek State Park | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist Over the last forty years, the California State Parks Foundation along with its 100,000 members has grown into a powerhouse advocacy group on behalf of keeping nature available to us. Now in their 40th year, they are celebrating by producing 40 short podcasts, each with a resident sharing their favorite trail. It all began yesterday with none other than rocker Sammy Hagar who is...

That's how many "active-duty sworn officers" we have on the LAPD as of yesterdays big news press conference (well, at least 63 of them just started police academy). Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's goal was 10,000 officers by 2010 and it looks like that post will be hit. At the press conference yesterday, Councilman Bill Rosendahl hinted towards the next goal being 12,000 officers. Still, Los Angeles will be behind a police officer to population ratio...

Photo: billaday Today's election is expected to bring out the usual low voter turnout. Speaking to that in an earlier LAist post about today's election, commenter Rizzo makes a good case on why it's also important to vote in local elections, not just presidential ones. "I was the lone voter at my polling place in Silver Lake. Granted it was at 11:15 am but the poll workers said it had been dead all day....

Gunshots in neighborhood. Double drive-by. Police, LAFD on scene," City Council President Eric Garcetti tweeted last night about two shootings in his district and neighborhood. "One homicide, one attempted homicide, another homicide in second location/neighorhood," he followed up a couple hours later.Then today, another update with two simple words: "arrest made."

Photo: jslander Tomorrow, Famima is opening a new store at 700 Wilshire. Next week, another is expected to open at the Roosevelt Building and by the end of May, one more at Union Station. When all is said and done, downtown will have seven Famimas. And beyond that, the company hopes to open 20 in the region by the end of 2009 including ones in West LA and another in Pasadena (however, none are...

Photo by Atwater Village Newbie via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Just short of four months from the last election day, tomorrow Los Angeles will vote. Traditionally, the March election is not exactly a well attended one, but tomorrow we vote for Mayor, half of the City Council districts, City Attorney and Controller, some LAUSD and Community College seats and a five ballot propositions. Who and what are we voting on? Here are some...

Photo: A National Acrobat Sewer work on a small section of Cesar E. Chavez Ave. between North Broadway and New High will resume today lasting up to two weeks (.pdf). Crews will reduce traffic lanes on North Broadway and Cesar E. Chavez Ave. to rehabilitate aging pipeline as part of a $2 billion settlement agreement with the EPA and Santa Monica Baykeeper. In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency sued the city of Los Angeles...

No, it's not as exciting as you think. This is a more functional alert courtesy of NavigateHollywood thanks to the premeire of the eagerly awaited cult movie Watchmen. The website was born out of the frustration with the constant movie related street closures in the Hollywood Entertainment District. As of 12 a.m. this morning to 6 a.m. tomorrow, "all Westbound lanes of Hollywood Blvd., between Orange Dr. and Highland Ave., will be closed," the...

Following up on a spectacular weekend of great weather, we're getting tiny bit of the much needed rain--about a tenth of an inch according to the National Weather Service--but it won't be enough to help the current drought. Tomorrow and Wednesday is expected to be partly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain. As for the rest of the week into the weekend, there's a slight chance for more rain but that's "a little...

A minor car crash caused a fairly good sized power outage this morning, leaving 2,200 cusotmers without power in Westchester and Del Rey. The car hit and pulled a guide wire--the suspension wire usually seen at a 45-degree angle from the power pole to the sidewalk--causing the power to go out. Crews are on scene addressing the problem, but the LA Department of Water & Power has no estimate of when power will be...