Zach Behrens

Google complimented us in an e-mail today for catching their short test on street traffic for Google Maps. Unfortunately, that function isn't fully available yet, they tell us. "We're constantly testing new features to improve Google Maps - one feature we're currently working on is traffic conditions for arterial roads," the Google spokesperson wrote. "Unfortunately we don't have a launch date to share, but the positive response from having it live for just a...

Irresponsible, unethical? "Three administrators at Porter Middle School in Granada Hills have been reassigned for allegedly asking a boy to buy marijuana as part of an informal sting operation against another student, according to authorities," the LA Times is reporting. The student is not under investigation but the administrators and alleged drug dealer are....

Yesterday. the City Council extended a three-month moratorium on new supergraphics and digital billboards for an additional 45 days. "The ICO [Interim Control Ordinance] will expire on March 26, 2009, but the legislative process to approve changes to the City’s sign ordinances may not be completed by March 26. If the ICO is allowed to lapse for even one day, a flurry of illegal signs could be installed and be nearly impossible to remove...

Photo by jek in the box via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr That's the hot mess happening in Chicago right now. In a 75-year, $1.15 billion lease between the City of Chicago and Morgan Stanley, the bank gets to operate and earn revenue from 36,000 parking meters and several parking structures in the city. Not only that, the city just significantly increased parking meter rates and expanded hours and enforecable hours--including Sundays, some holidays...

"lol check this out http://tinyurl.com/dgk9dl" That was an instant message we received about 20 minutes ago from an LA Derby Dolls player. Minutes later, local business consultant/comedian Francisco Dao of The Killer Pitch e-mailed us and his friends with a warning not to fall for it. We decided to click just to see what happens: it led us to a page asking us for our gmail password. Oh hell no, don't do it. And...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's mayor's chief ethics officer and legal advisor, Thomas A. Saenz, has been tapped to head up the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division: "'I don't think the president or attorney general could make a better selection,' said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. 'He's a throwback to the great civil rights attorney pioneers, like Thurgood Marshall.'" (via Daily Journal per LA Observed)....

California brown pelicans in Santa Barbara | Photo by dsearls via Flickr Back in December and January, California brown pelicans were found wandering in unusual places: parking lots, coastal streets, highways, airport runways and alleys--far away from their usual coastal homes and almost seemingly suicidal. "Frostbite appeared on many of the bird's pouches and feet because they migrated south about two months late from Oregon and Washington, where they enjoyed unusually warm weather," reported...

Leroy Barnes Last Thursday afternoon, Leroy Barnes, 38, was apparently driving on the wrong side of the road when Pasadena officers pulled him over. They originally said Barnes, a long time criminal, shot at them--they returned fire killing him. Now they say that story is wrong. Memorial at the shooting scene | Photo: Walt Mancini/SXCity "A struggle ensued in the back seat of that car and Mr. Barnes displayed a handgun and pointed it...

The OCC/NASA Early this morning, NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) attempted to launch into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, but as it took off, the payload fairing failed to separate from the vehicle during ascent. sending it flying back to earth into the ocean near Antarctica. The $270 million two-year project, headed by the folks at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, would have studied the entire planet's atmospheric...

Photo by r_neches via Flickr The only good thing about the passing of the state budget last week was that it passed. What it does to the state's services is detrimental, including education: $7.4 billion: The new state budget cuts that much from schools and community colleges this year. $3.2 billion: And this is how much will be cut next year by the budget. $800 million: LA Unified School District, which has almost 700,000...

Photo: CurbedLA "Boycott Forever 21" a sign read at a small protest of around 30 people gathered last Saturday outside the Pasadena location of Forever 21. At issue is the former land of the South Central farm, which was a community farm that was evicted and moved to the San Joaquin Valley, of all places. A Forever 21 distribution center will be the new occupant, once the site is developed. "We're asking for Forever...

It was yesterday in 1944 when the LA Times reported "snow flurries and a violent 10-minute hailstorm [that] laid a white canopy over most of Los Angeles." City Hall from First and Spring is shown here to the right. While that was unusual, a few years later on the same date, a most unfortunate explosion rocked a downtown factory killing 17 and injuring 151, blogdowntown finds. The blast was heard from as far as...