Zach Behrens

Once again, a Miss California USA contestant is causing controversy and it's not just her anti-gay views, which are in line with former Miss California Carrie Prejean. Lauren Ashley, 23, has been claiming herself as Miss Beverly Hills, but the city of Beverly Hills says they do not sponsor a beauty pageant or have any association with Miss California USA, according to the LA Times. Furthermore, the city says she lives in Pasadena....

Finally. There have been various food truck-related websites and iPhone apps introduced to us over the past few months, but none of them satisfied our taste for real-time data until now. truxmap is a Google Maps mashup pinpointing the locations and times of where trucks are right now, where they'll be later and where they have been. And yes, there's a mobile version. They do, however, have one small warning: "Our program is 99.9%...

There's the old (and incorrect) adage "lightning never strikes the same place." Maybe we can now add another wrong one: "man never gets struck by a train twice." Yesterday morning, a man was hit by a Metrolink train in Laguna Niguel. He wasn't hurt too badly--hand and arm injuries--but police are scratching their heads because he's the same guy who was hit by the commuter rail line two weeks ago. "That's a bit peculiar,"...

In Chinatown | Photo by jtstrathdee via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr Let's go Dodgers... Now the lowest priced ticket at games will be $15, thanks to recent price hikes. Downtown's king of bars, Cedd Moses, is nearing the debut of his latest venture, Las Perlas, which will feature tequila and mezcal. City operated child care facilities will take a blow due to the budget crisis. 3D is hear to stay, it seems. The...

Jesus Sanchez at The Eastsider LA points out that the city could save money by offering free admittance to high school dances instead of the $1,000 reward given to those who tip off officials to taggers that are successfully prosecuted. At Eagle Rock High School, three taggers have been turned in by fellow students, who received free tickets. We'd argue that if more teens new about the $1,000 reward, the tagger culture would suffer...

The LAPD is on the lookout for a armed robbery suspect who they say, in a press release called "Armed Robbery Suspect Dressed for Success", "appeared to be dressed more for a job interview, than a robbery." The incident took place on February 5th around 7 p.m. when the suspect walked into a business on the 3100 block of Pico Boulevard in the Country Club Park neighborhood and robbed it. The man is described...

A payphone on Melrose Avenue | Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist We've seen this before--bacon scrawled on some wall or object on the street--and it makes us wonder if this is some performance artist mocking or making a comment on taggers who take their work so seriously they're willing to kill over it. Tagging, "bacon!" or otherwise, is bad for neighborhoods and the city economy (perhaps you could say it's good for cultural/political debate if...

As expected, the last of the three top financial credit agencies today action on Los Angeles' credit rating, downgrading it. The move by Standard and Poor's follows Fitch's downgrade in November and Moody Investors Service's "negative" financial outlook last week, the latter which prompted the beginning of 3,000 job eliminations...

Several calls came into the California Highway Patrol this morning reporting a skateboarder on the 405 Freeway in the Costa Mesa area...

Photo by mangpages via Flickr As California's largest for-profit health insurer comes under fire for raising premiums an average of 25%--up to 39% for some--the state's Insurance Commissioner yesterday released findings that the company has broken the law at least 700 times. "When consumers pay their premiums every month, they expect insurance companies to uphold their part of bargain and pay claims quickly, correctly and comply with all other legal requirements," Commissioner Steve Poizner...

When a City Controller does an audit, the results are usually scathing, finding millions in waste. Today, Wendy Greuel announced that an audit of purchasing controls within Los Angeles' Supply Management System (SMS), where $500 million is spent on goods, was "working well." She still, however, found a few loopholes: "126 City employees with SMS access rights have been terminated from the City, and more than 50 individuals have duplicate SMS user IDs," she...

With L.A. Live in place and the recent opening of the J.W. Marriott (the hotel includes convention space inside), Los Angeles could be a prime candidate for Comic-Con's new home. That is, if rumors are true regarding the famous convention that draws some 126,000 people. The convention's contract with San Diego expires in 2012 and locals are scrambling to keep it from moving to Anaheim, Las Vegas or Los Angeles. The Comic-Con board is...