Zach Behrens

Johnny Pride A 26-year-old Santa Clarita City Council candidate was arrested last night in the city's Valencia neighborhood for various sexual acts with two 14-year-old girls, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. Johnny Pride is suspected of rape, lewd acts with a minor, sodomy, oral copulation of a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was held on $500,000 bail. On his apparent MySpace page, where he encourages people to...

City Attorney Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich today wrote a lengthy response to a lawsuit challenging the city's recent medical marijuana ordinance. It begins as such: "In response to civil lawsuits filed against shops illegally selling and distributing marijuana in Los Angeles, the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access recently claimed that the City Attorney's Office was misreading California law and should dismiss these actions. I respectfully disagree. These lawsuits are based upon the plain language,...

California's unemployment rate increased from 12.3% in January to 12.5% last month, a bit higher than the national 9.7% rate, but 32,500 jobs were added to the payrolls in January, reported the LA Times. Some believe we're nearing the peak of unemployment, which means more jobs could be coming available in coming months. "The construction sector added 16,200 jobs, manufacturing added 8,900, and education and health services added 7,100," said the paper. "Only three...

The 24-year-old woman who allegedly put her newborn daughter into a Redondo Beach trash can says she didn't know she was pregnant until she arrived at a house party when she began to have cramps and had a baby in one of the bedrooms, according to the Daily News. "She is saying she doesn't know she was pregnant," Lt. Joe Hoffman said of Jessie Lauren Canfield. "We are still working to try to contact...

Would you like to redraw the political district lines of California's state legislature? How about the lines for the Board of Equalization, which administers some taxes?

Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena | Photo by okarol via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr The woman who doused and lit an exotic dancer on fire in the Valley was sentenced to life in prison today. Live it up with the Complete Oscar Party Circuit Handbook Sheriff Lee Baca today released 200 inmates early, citing no place to put them. Gee, great: "Two Texas-based oil companies are supporting a campaign to suspend California's landmark...

Despite various studies about how unhealthy it is to live directly next to a freeway, L.A. officials keep approving dense residential buildings that way. Now LA Weekly is blowing the whistle: "Today, in fact, the Department of City Planning chief Gail Goldberg and the Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa concede to L.A. Weekly that nobody in City Hall is tracking, or can even estimate, the number of children who have moved into housing erected...

Before the Asics sportswear ad was installed, a Chase ad was seen at the southeast corner, left, of Hollywood & Highland | Photo by jiazi via Flickr With the Oscars a few days away, it looks like Hollywood and Highland is becoming ground zero in the battle over supergraphics, the large advertisements that often cover whole facades of buildings. Current Los Angeles law bans the installation of news ones. But a large supergraphic installed...

It is claimed to be the world's rarest butterfly and it lives here, albeit endangered. The Palos Verdes blue butterfly was listed as endangered in 1980--thanks to development, non-native plants and off-roading--but within a few years, many scientists believed it was extinct, according to Cooperative Conservation America. That was until 1994 when a UCLA researcher came upon some of the butterflies in San Pedro. In an effort to expand and restore the butterfly's population,...

The Scientology Building near Sunset/Vermont, nicknamed "Big Blue" | Photo by stephenfalk via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Last month, six disgruntled former Scientology employees spoke out on the one-year anniversary of the Anonymous movement. At a panel inside the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, the members described "workplace abuse, forced detention, isolation from outside family and friends and coerced abortion," reported the Los Feliz Ledger on Wednesday. The employees were within the church's...

Is RuPaul, seen here at his drag queen art show in 2009, bad for kids? | Photo by Tom Andrews/LAist Three caucasian teachers at a South L.A. elementary school have been placed on suspension after they allegedly had students hold signs of O.J. Simpson, RuPaul and Dennis Rodman in a Black History Month schoolyard parade alongside students carrying signs of people from an approved list like President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Harriet Tubman....

At Adams & Washington | Photo by DrLAyZ via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman today likened LAX to America's Decline. Starbucks wants to stick to coffee, not be the center of a gun debate. Budget cuts to Los Angeles County Sheriff's means upper management will be out on the streets patrolling with the rank and file deputies. Yes, even The Sheriff Lee Baca himself may pull you...