Zach Behrens

Photo by maria gracia inglessis via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr The L.A. City Council today approved $450,000 in settlements with a number of reporters and news crew members caught in the middle of the LAPD during the May Day Melee in 2007. The highest payout went to a cameraman for KCBS/KCAL -- he got $250,000. The Mayor of Hawthorne is accused of stealing a local school's giant mixer so he could make pizza...

Photo by Synapped via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Huntington Beach is not just Surf City USA, but now one magazine is claiming it has the best dog beach in the country. As pointed out by the Orange County Register, FIDO-Friendly magazine has published the top 10 dog beaches, finding Huntington Dog Beach at the top. Reasons include the amount of coastline, rules letting dogs be off leash and nearby pooch-friendly eateries. It's an...

Twitpic photo by kkboogie Westside traffic is slowly crawling back to its normal crawl after a morning crash involving a CHP motorcycle officer on the northbound 405 Freeway this morning that prompted both sides to be closed. "The northbound 405 is so eerily clear," noted an LAist tipster around 5 p.m. today, about 15 minutes after all lanes were re-opened. 52-year-old Officer Phillip Ortiz had pulled over a Honda SUV around 8:35 a.m. when...

The Mormon Church will be fined $5,538 for failing to report some $37,000 worth of contributions in their effort to pass Prop 8, which banned gay marriage in 2008. The church said they "unintentionally failed to file daily reports detailing approximately $37,000 in non-monetary contributions," according to their website, via the LA Times.

Photo: compujeramey/Flickr Inspired by LAist's own 7 Reasons to Love L.A. series, Zach Brooks at Midtown Lunch took a stab at his own version: 7 Reasons to Hate L.A. (Lunching, That Is). "As much as I love much of the food in L.A.," he said, "there are some things about lunching in this town that really piss me off." Of those include people who go to Chipotle (this city has so much Mexican to...

A 5-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department was arrested today for selling narcotics, officials have announced. Yoshio Romero, assigned to patrol Southeast Division, became the subject of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation in April for selling methamphetamine while off-duty. When the LAPD was informed, an internal administrative investigation was also launched. On Monday the 28-year-old was arrested in Riverside County under a federal arrest warrant. The investigation is ongoing....

There's no telling how much a coalition of food trucks that rallied around a candidate helped, but in any case, their choice won. Betsy Butler won the Democratic nomination in Assembly District 53, which covers parts of the Westside and South Bay. "She sees the benefit of food trucks in that area," said Matt Geller with the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association, which represents over 60 food trucks. Butler will face Republican Nathan Mintz...

It's election day, so don't forget to vote and pick up your sticker (which, for the nerdy, is a new design this year!). The L.A. County Recorder-Register/County Clerk launched an election day-based webpage today that makes it easy to figure out your logistics. Need to find your polling place? If you voted by mail, you can track your ballot. Not even sure if you're registered, check here. And as the day goes on and...

Plaintiff Attorney Theodore Olson, left, speaks in front of attorney David Boies, right, during a news conference in San Francisco in January (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) By next week Wednesday, LA Pride will have come and gone, but the current issue surrounding equality will still be in question. Today the federal court released the schedule for closing arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case that is challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8, the ban on...

A group protests outside the White House last Thursday | AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais If people don't like the Los Angeles City Council "meddling in the affairs of another state,” then too bad -- because they did it again. Today the Council voted to file an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging SB 1070, which requires "police to demand 'papers' from people they stop whom they suspect are not authorized to be...

Reading at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles | Photo by TheDailyOrdinary via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr 1,000 backpack "survival kits" were handed out to homeless around L.A. County yesterday It's getting hot out there! Two heat exhausted hikers in the Angeles National Forest had to be rescued by helicopter on Sunday. That KFC-turned-medical-marijauna-dispensary is now shut down, but owners vow to make a return. On redevelopment: "Not until 1999 when they built...

Stock duck photo | Photo by Synapped via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr A family of ducks attemping to cross the southbound lanes of the 405 Freeway caused some traffic around Sunset Boulevard. Based on caller logs, here's what happened. At 8:27 a.m., a caller notified the California Highway Patrol of the family on the right side of the freeway. Three minutes later, someone tried to slow down traffic by using their hazard lights...