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The new fires, inside the Hollywood and Highland parking structure and in a Hollywood home's carport, came as authorities deployed hundreds of extra firefighters, patrol cars, undercover officers and helicopters to fight the mysterious ongoing arson string.
LA Observed archive
for December 2011
If you don't find what you want here, check another month or search below.
Mr. Cecil's Ribs on Pico is gone and Orris is going. But there are a couple of fresh new entries in Westwood Village.
The owner of Angeli Caffe got a little emotional with host Lisa Napoli last night on KCRW.
"We are hopeful for a reincarnation of a physical store in a few months at a new location," co-founders Stan Madson and Phil Thompson say.
Los Angeles police and fire officials suspect the string of 35 or more suspicious fires reported since Friday morning have been set by more than one arsonist.
Ink and Paper spends nine lovely minutes at adjacent shops out of another time in the Westlake district, near MacArthur Park.
OR7 crossed the state border yesterday, becoming the first gray wolf known to roam wild in California since the 1920s.
Losses have been mounting, and Kleiman informed her staff that she can no longer cover the restaurant's bills after 27 years.
The Music Machine got a regular gig at Hollywood Legion Lanes bowling alley and in 1966 scored their only chart hit, "Talk Talk."
Rourke, familiar to many journalists as the head of Caltech's communications office from 1986 to 2009, died at home in Pasadena after battling pulmonary fibrosis.
Steve Greenberg's LA Observed cartoon on Jerry Brown makes Joel Pett's selection on the LAT op-ed page.
Sean Collins, a self-taught wave forecaster who changed the way that surfers find out where to take their boards, died yesterday after collapsing of a heart attack while playing tennis in Orange County.
Life magazine has posted online a gallery of unpublished photos from the Encino set of the 1946 holiday classic starring Jimmy Stewart.
Video from the only rehearsal of the local tradition at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Love, from Hawthorne, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year as "popular music’s greatest session vocalist and backup singer."
Twenty two years after the Herald Examiner folded, its final edition papers over a new pizzeria.
The guys at the KTLA Morning News had some fun the other day making new intern Irene bring them coffee on the air. Then anchor Megan Henderson stepped in.
The Wilshire Grand, closing this week to be torn down and make way for a new high-rise hotel and office tower, opened in 1952 as the Statler.
The Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations (and the Anthony Weiner frolics some months earlier) provide fresh material for the January profile.
Bethania Palma Markus was until recently a reporter for the LANG papers east of L.A.
ProPublica landed a major California investigation this week, using internal memos to show how the Democrats secretly and very successfully manipulated the new congressional district lines.
Heikes is the former LA weekly editor. Read the memo on the new Sacto reporter.
On this morning's show, the weatherman and his colleagues made light of him storming off a live camera the other day.
As they did last week, authors P.D. James and Walter Isaacson top the last pre-Christmas bestseller lists at Southern California indie bookstores.
Neil Saavedra, the KFI/AM 640 marketing director, will host the new Saturday afternoon show that's due to start Jan. 7.
The office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has just distributed a summary of Occupy members charged, sentenced or awaiting a resolution of their arrests in the Nov. 30 raid outside City Hall
Instead of the traditional end-of-year look back, I'll be using the holiday down time to freshen up the site.
Critic David Kipen's list of his favorite California-published books of the year includes "Los Angeles Stories" by Ry Cooder, "Tomorrow is Another Song" by the late Scott Wannberg, "Car-Free Los...
The makeover project is costing $3 million and Mark Rios is the architect.
The adult choices range from David Foster Wallace's "Pale King" to the new reissue of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" to baseball numbers guru Bill James opining on true crime cases.
The pair of 5-pound cougars discovered beneath a parked car on Orange Grove Avenue apparently had not eaten in two weeks. They were taken to the California Wildlife Center in...
A roundup for a holiday week.
Video: KTLA's morning weatherman stalks off camera after his segment is cut.
He can't write yet about the reason, but it came as a surprise, Padgett says.
Patrick O'Connor posts on his blog that "This week's cartoon is my last print cartoon for the LA Weekly. I've been on staff since January of 2009 and it's been...
American Masters on PBS on Monday night aired "Charles and Ray Eames: the Architect and the Painter," about the famed Los Angeles design team and couple.
After my post last night about Mayor Villaraigosa attending Sunday's Broncos-Patriots game, City Hall reporters put the key questions to the mayor and his staff.
Adding David Fincher to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" story "has proved counterproductive," says the L.A. Times reviewer. A.O. Scott is more enthusiastic in the NYT.
There's less demand in NoHo for an "organic, sustainable fast food restaurant that embraces local, hormone-free and pesticide-free food, compostable containers and other green components" that one might have thought.
he Los Angeles Times has tapped Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey to revamp the Top of the Ticket politics blog with cartoons and commentary.
Gov. Jerry Brown's wife, Anne Gust, just tweeted this picture of hubby doing a pushup.
Dan Walters, the venerable political presence in Sacramento, is the latest holdout to fall.
City Council tensions, Bay Area's Warren Hellman dies, giving credit to Dalton Trumbo and celebrating Esther MCCoy, plus more.
I can't imagine that Channel 2 weathercaster Jackie Johnson could be too happy at how the station's website arranges its photo galleries.
The Levitated Mass boulder is still in Riverside County, despite what Los Angeles magazine says.
Two local Hamlets remain from the chain that made its mark in part by hiring African Americans in visible positions when many L.A. restaurants didn't.
Getty Images photographed Villaraigosa on the Denver sideline with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, left, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Heather Havrilesky's immediate point in the NYT Magazine is her disappointment in "Homeland" and "American Horror Story."
Death was attributed to a "severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack" in the report on North Korea television in Pyongyang, delivered by a tearful woman dressed in black.
With the last American troops crossing out of Iraq into Kuwait tonight, the L.A. Times photo blog Framework has posted an impressive gallery of images from the war.
Tonight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, UCLA's women's volleyball team beat Illinois to win the NCAA national championship.
Westbound lanes of the 60 freeway were opened about 11 a.m. on Saturday. The eastbound lanes were back in service by about 3 p.m.
News item: Brian Wilson will rejoin the Beach Boys to make a 50th anniversary album and go on tour.
NBC bills it as an interview with the Santa Cruz paramedic who was beaten at Dodger Stadium on opening day of the past season, possibly because he was a Giants fan.
It's her move, says TMZ, which reported that Vanessa Bryant cited "irreconcilable differences" in Friday's Orange County filing and that a source says "the last straw" was infidelity.
The employee at Southern California Edison's information technology facility in Irwindale, reportedly a systems analyst, began methodically shooting co-workers this afternoon before killing himself.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was on stage in 1986 when KCRW held its first live music show ever, at the Olympic Auditorium.
Baseball's all-time home run leader can appeal before serving his sentence.
The posting for a new co-host to work with Madeleine Brand has reached Journalism Jobs, and it's a little more svelte than the original detailed posting we told you about...
The station's longtime producer, voice and spokeswoman has a note on the KCRW members blog.
It's not the respondents who call themselves likely voters, though they lie too.
Pomona Freeway stays closed, State Senate pays for sexual claim against Rod Wright, Villaraigosa defends Asia trip, Hahn won't endorse and another housing authority report tonight on "SoCal Connected."
The author and Vanity Fair contributing editor has died of cancer at a hospital in Houston, the magazine announced.
Wildlife trackers in Oregon have followed a lone male gray wolf on a 730-mile trek across the state, south toward the border with California. "He could be in Yreka in two days if he wanted to be," a California fish and game official says.
The item on the Huffington Post site about New York City doesn't feel right.
Manuscripts, correspondence, calendars and other archival materials are included in the acquisitions, as well as some photographs of course.
The note is from Marcia Parker, West Coast Editorial Director for AOL's Patch websites.
60 freeway stays closed into weekend, Laura Chick endorses Buscaino, Gerald Rivera coming to L.A. talk radio, the Kinde Durkee story, Golden Globe nominations and the owner of Junior's Deli dies — plus more.
The list ranges from Mom's to Lazy Ox Canteen.
Not many people probably know that there is a Mental Health Courthouse in Los Angeles County, or that when you report for Superior Court jury duty Downtown you could be sent to this building on San Fernando Road.
P.D. James claims the top fiction spot with "Death Comes to Pemberley."
The point guard the Lakers coveted is coming to L.A. anyway, he just won't have the nice dressing room.
The MTA, not surprisingly, didn't care for Reason.tv's lampoon of light rail the other day.
Time's Person of the Year cover was designed by Shepard Fairey from a Ted Soqui photograph of an Occupy LA protester in Downtown.
LAUSD cuts, animal shelter tech fired, a 2006 view of Herb Wesson, the Christian film John Atterberry was working on, a Lenin bust on La Brea and more.
Kevin McCollister, the photographer whose book and blog are both called "East of West L.A.," was out Sunday and Monday nights for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In its story tonight about editor Russ Stanton stepping down, the Los Angeles Times introduces in the fourth paragraph the idea that the "mutual decision" to leave comes amid dissension over more newsroom cuts. Did the axe man lose his stomach for more cuts?
It can't be a bad sign for your chances when the incoming president of the City Council publicly endorses your campaign to be elected to said council.
Shock and dismay in the Burbank newsroom over News Director Vicky Burns deciding to let reporter and sometime-anchor Jennifer Bjorklund go.
Russ Stanton, who stepped down today as editor of the Los Angeles Times, sent this note to the staff. A note from LAT president Kathy Thomson follows.
The Times story says simply that Russ Stanton "will step down as the editor and executive vice president of the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 23," and that Managing Editor Davan Maharaj will take over the top newsroom job.
More Housing Authority, poll says Brown looks good on taxes, Brokaw and Olney to be feted, and more.
Lots of roads in the higher elevations of Los Angeles County are having snow closures after Monday's storm.
Major League Baseball and its partner association of sportswriters have become the first major sport to issue dress guidelines for the media working games. It applies to camera people and...
The Department of Water and Power has apparently decided to reopen its once well-regarded cafeteria to the public, KPCC says.
The libertarians at Reason.tv made an entertaining video on traveling by rail from LAX to Burbank, accompanied by their research on how much the public subsidizes the transit system.
In an Occupy video of the Nov. 30 LAPD raid outside City Hall, City News Service reporter Calvin Milam is observed being thrown to the ground and arrested after he crosses (outbound) through the police skirmish line.
The music industry veteran who was shot in his Mercedes by Tyler Brehm in Friday's rampage in Hollywood died of his injuries this afternoon, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced.
And just because it's been one of those sports weeks, the Los Angeles Kings have removed coach Terry Murray — "relieved him of his duties," in press release speak.
And we thought the Frank and Jamie McCourt melodrama was intense.
Good deed by music writer Kevin Bronson, Ridley-Thomas responds to Times, Mike Downey has an idea for the Dodgers, Steve Lopez writes on his father's deteriorating choices and Bill Moyers returns to KCET
You can probably guess handle the Secret Service used for the actor.
Sunday was media day at the Lakers training camp in El Segundo. Then the Clippers traded (apparently) for Chris Paul.
Top aide to Mayor Villaraigosa heard the shots and the screams, and a local photojournalist takes the money shot of the gunman lying wounded.
The pod of 12 killer whales logged previously in British Columbia was spotted off Ventura on Friday, off Rancho Palos Verdes on Saturday and off Newport Beach today.
The L.A. Film Critics Association is tweeting out the news from their annual vote.
Guest spot on 'Weekend Update' as the pilot that threw him off his AA flight at LAX.
The Lakers get a first-round pick in 2012 from Dallas for Lamar Odom, who came back to the team after his trade to New Orleans (with Pau Gasol for Chris Paul) was voided by the league.
The earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 struck in Guerrero state about 5:45 p.m. our time.
The producers of the documentary on the troubled life of USC football phenom Todd Marinovich premiering tonight on ESPN write that "for six months we tried to track him down and were greeted with radio silence."
This amazing photograph of the old Plaza downtown, and showing La Placita and Fort Moore Hill in the background, is one of the 19th century treasures by photographer Carleton Watkins.
Metro says it has no cause yet for the failure of a retaining wall section on the 405 freeway improvement project in Sepulveda Pass.
Fans are invited to today's 11:30 a.m. press conference at the stadium in Anaheim where the Angels will show off the newest SoCal megastar.
The Central Library has an impressive collection already and is looking for more.
"Man, was it *cold* up there on the bluffs!," says Venice photographer Anthony Citrano.
The longtime talk radio host takes over mornings from Peter Tilden, paired with Terri-Rae Elmer, until this week a fixture at KFI.
Dodgers first baseman James Loney says he remembers colliding with the first car on the 101 freeway on Nov. 14, and hitting his head, then nothing more until he woke up in the hospital and was sent home.
Tonight's total lunar eclipse begins at 4:45 a.m., reaches its peak about 6 a.m., and is expected to create a deep red shade on the moon with a hint of turquoise. NASA explains in the video.
City Councilman Paul Krekorian's latest emailed newsletter got my attention, and not for any of the headlines or stories.
Actually, it's the pictorial spread the former actress did for Playboy. Here's one somewhat safe for work example.
Lamar Odom was a no-show at Lakers camp today and from the sounds of it, he doesn't intend to make an appearance any time soon.
Anyone who has spent much time around new media and blogs in the past ten years, especially in Los Angeles, has read or heard Xeni Jardin.
Even the janitors at the New York Post and NY Daily News are probably having a good laugh about La-La-Land and the "citizen journalism" power of Twitter and cellphone cameras.
Twitter video from above shows the gunman in the Hollywood intersection and cars jamming on the brakes and making u-turns to escape. The gunman was later killed by police....
Award-winning site lays off four, cuts budget and refocuses the core mission.
Prop. 8, Kinde Durkee, Walmart pepper spray, Occupy LA arrestee and more.
Stella Ajose, a photography student from Russia, has been shooting a series of pictures of immigrant fruit vendors on the streets around L.A.
On January 1, a new amnesty program allows drivers who ignored their traffic tickets before 2009 to pay half of what they owe and clear their record. The Legislature saw...
Reporter Mona Shadia, who was born in Egypt, has been assigned to write a weekly column about living as a Muslim-American in Orange County for the three Times Community News papers.
Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol now have to report to Lakers camp on Friday.
Berman's friends in the House are lending their name to a "California wine tasting" fundraiser next week in Washington.
In stories posted within minutes of each other, one top deputy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says the mayor most everything, and another says he knew nothing.
Even though Mayor Villaraigosa's office now admits the boss approved the sweet golden parachute with Rudolf Montiel, interim Housing Authority chief Ken Simmons "is resigning at the Mayor's request."
A wild twist to an already topsy-turvy day, says the L.A. Times reporter.
President of the Huntington Library and botanical gardens asks for financial help to clean up "extensive" damage from last week's winds.
KCET quotes deputy chief of staff saying Villaraiogsa knew of and approved deal with Rudolf Montiel.
Kent Twitchell's mural of L.A. Chamber Orchestra players started going up in 1991
James Loney allegedly hit several cars, exhibited strange behavior and was taken to the hospital and put in leg and arm restraints after last month's crash, TMZ reports.
Baseball's biggest free agent, possibly ever, is coming to play in Los Angeles of Anaheim.
Edison says the power is on, more Housing Authority on KCET, who really runs the jails, Romney leaves town with $1 million, Joan Didion on "Bookworm" and more.
It didn't take long for Michael Connelly's newest Harry Bosch mystery to take over the top spot in Southern California independent bookstores.
The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists will honor these local journalists.
Barbara Orbison, who was 60, died here in Los Angeles on Dec. 6, the 23rd anniversary of the death of her husband Roy Orbison.
Meg Sullivan photograph from the Rancho Park neighborhood.
Wow, just take a look at Harry Morgan's career.
Mayor chooses distance from Housing Authority scandal, DWP approves water rate increase, more politics and media notes, plus the most powerful images of 2011.
On her blog, the novelist uses verse to mark the century-old eucalyptus' passage into firewood and sawdust.
I was told by City Hall late tonight that Villaraigosa's group did fly out to Chongqing without incident. Plus a fashion report on Lu Parker.
Candidates who don't clean up their old campaign signs.
Artist Gaelan Kelly draws what public radio reporters and hosts look like in his head, based on their voices.
Dobie Gray, born in Texas, moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to be an actor but had greater success as a singer. (He did spend a couple of...
Coming in time for next April's 20th anniversary of the so-called Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, King has signed with HarperOne to deliver his memoir: "The Riot Within."
Controller Wendy Greuel and her predecessor issue letters on the deal given Rudolf Montiel.
Raphael J. Sonenshein, the Cal State Fullerton professor, author and analyst of Los Angeles politics, has been named executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs.
Voters want a do-over on high speed rail, DWP board takes up rate hike, a different Villaraigosa joins the Young Democrats, naming a Navy ship after Cesar Chavez and more.
Volunteers have restrung most of the the wind-damaged lights on Altadena's traditional Christrmas Tree Lane and say they will flip the switch on Saturday at 6 p.m. — as scheduled before last week's freak wind event.
L.A. Creek Freak pretty much destroys the official notion that an oily sheen on the runoff in Ballona Creek comes from overflows at the La Brea Tar Pits — or is even a problem at all worth spending millions to fix.
As the year winds down, says Zócalo Public Square, "we want to give a shout-out to the books that incited our passions, changed our minds, or made proselytizers out of...
Fun story on Off-Ramp over the weekend about architect Arthur Golding's concept of an open-air mercado with cafes spanning the Los Angeles River.
This isn't a total dose of bad bookstore news, just a demi-dose for people in Valleywood.
In exchange for a special early viewing of David Fincher's "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo," David Denby and other members of the New York Film Critics Circle agreed to embargo any reviews.
Brown's poll numbers, $1 million-plus for Rudy Montiel, JIm Newton calls for a raise in DWP rates, and Giuliana Rancic goes for the double mastectomy.
The amateur musical groups selected to perform in the free holiday concert at the Music Center on Christmas Eve get 20 minutes each to rehearse — in one day-long marathon on the fourth floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. LA Observed was there Saturday.
Bill Fulton, a well-known writer on California affairs and the nitty gritty of urban planning before and since he became an elected official in Ventura, is moving away largely because he is losing his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa.
Today, like every other day this year, artist Erik Shveima will interpret what he sees on the front page of the Los Angeles Times and post his drawing on his blog.
With some of his “Rings” earnings, he founded Perceval Press, a small L.A.-based publishing house specializing in art books and poetry.
Lumachi died early Saturday in a car accident in Florida, where he was attending a conference in St. Petersburg.
Steve Soboroff shared a photo after last week's news about the e-book of "Fahrenheit 451." Plus: a typewriter documentary?
He cites distractions and blames enemies and the media, of course.
San Fernando Mayor Mario Hernandez is expected to face a crowd calling for his resignation at next week's City Council meeting, but his girlfriend will be in Israel.
Media and politics notes, plus a Hollywood obituary and more.
Over half the specimens at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden suffered some kind of wind damage. Sobering pictures.
Tonight's report, at 8:30 p.m., focuses on extravagant spending by the agency and its officials, including on personal items.
Confirming what we reported in October, Barnes & Noble stores CEO Mitchell Klipper says the only reason the store is leaving Westside Pavilion is the mall's rent hike when the...
The state has taken the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve off the parks closure list.
The National Weather Service update for Mammoth Mountain contained a startling fact.
The animal sanctuary on Little Tujunga Canyon Road is again on the verge of financial collapse and closure, founder Martine Colette says.
San Gabriel Valley catches a break from winds, Occupy LA arrestees still in jail, Villaraigosa headed to Asia and Cuomo coming to town, plus more.
Main Street, Santa Monica by Judy Graeme.
Protesters occupy railroad tracks in a German forest to block a train carrying nuclear waste.
What's that, half a million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area bedding down for a second night without electricity?
A couple of hardy surfers hit the waves today on Lake Tahoe — at 6,225 feet above sea level.
DWP's map of outages is impressive. Plus: historic Los Feliz deodars down.
Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Phil Spector, even Conrad Murray — Sgt. Steve Wheatcroft has walked them all past the paparazzi and into court.
Ed Fuentes, the Downtown photographer and muralist, examines the case for preserving the mural created on the plywood box that city crews had erected in the Occupy LA camp to protect a fountain.
Pasadena really took the brunt of last night's wind storm.
The air over the Pacific Northwest has been at his highest barometric pressure in a long time. Instant wind down here.
Winds close schools and more, Baca was told of jail abuse but did nothing, Occupy LA aftermath and more.
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
