USC Expert David Cruz Predicts Prop. 8 Supreme Court Decision is Unlikely to...
Updated at the bottom: David Cruz provides new details of his views. First posted Tuesday afternoon. David Cruz, an expert on civil rights and constitutional law, made his way from USC to D.C. to...
View ArticleDisabled Placard-Abusing A-Holes Busted by DMV
Say what you will about the DMV and its cliched sassy workers, long lines and exorbitant fees. This bureaucratic organization put its gun belt on, metaphorically speaking, and answered your prayers....
View ArticleCrack & Powder Cocaine Convicts Would Get Same Prison Time Under New Bill
A Westside Democratic state Senator wants to reduce the length of state prison sentences handed out to people convicted of selling crack cocaine. Sen. Holly Mitchell, who represents Culver City and...
View ArticleEncyclopedia Britannica Insulted L.A. — So I Fought Back
Every once in a while, some well-meaning but ignorant individual accuses me of hating Los Angeles. You don't understand, I say. I was born here. I've lived here my whole life. I know the entire lyrics...
View ArticleHow "Superman of Renters" Daniel Bramzon Revolutionized L.A.'s...
Department 94 is unlike any other courtroom in Los Angeles. Most courts are quiet, orderly affairs. Parties show up on time and speak when spoken to. Department 94 is different — one part game show,...
View ArticleUnfair Traffic Tickets Put the Poor in a Hole; a Proposed Law Could Fix That
Here's a proposed law that's been a long time coming. State Sen. Bob Hertzberg of Van Nuys this week announced that he has introduced a bill, SB 405, that would allow some drivers grounded by tickets...
View ArticleHow a Prisoner's Cartoons Led to Fresh Panties at L.A. Women's Jail
Although the inmate entrance is called "Reception" at L.A. County's only all-female jail, that term is loosely applied. Cold, stark and made of concrete and steel, Reception is where women enter...
View ArticleBig Legal Guns to Take Up the Fight Against L.A.'s Housemates From Hell
They became, in the eyes of 68-year-old Venera Mendoza-Baez, the housemates from hell. After retiring as a preschool teacher, she decided two years ago to rent out one of the five bedrooms in her Van...
View ArticleKim Biddle Saves Teenagers From a World of Coercion and Pimps
One of the 54 fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People Issue 2015. Saving Innocence founder Kim Biddle describes her realization that child sex trafficking was "shockingly common" in L.A....
View ArticleAn App That Fights Parking Tickets Has Arrived in L.A. – But Does It Work?
To live and drive in Los Angeles is to know the utter powerlessness of getting a parking ticket from the Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau. Bad enough the ever-present totem pole-esque stacks of...
View ArticleTanaka Indictment Shows, Once Again, It's Not the Crime, It's the Cover-Up
Former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges that he obstructed a federal investigation into inmate abuse in 2011. Tanaka, who was Sheriff Lee Baca's...
View ArticleKingpin of L.A.'s Israeli Mafia Sentenced to 32 Years
Moshe Matsri, the reputed boss of L.A.’s Israeli underworld, was sentenced this morning to 32 years in federal prison. Matsri, 48, was convicted in U.S. District Court last fall of 14 counts of money...
View ArticleThe L.A. County Board of Supervisors Thought No One Would Notice Its Dirty...
It came as a surprise to nearly everyone. After years of tangled disputes and false starts, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors held an unannounced vote on Aug. 11 to build a new "treatment-based"...
View ArticleRich, White Manhattan Beach Keeps Out the Riffraff With a Weird Law Against...
Manhattan Beach is Venice if it went to college, an idyllic Los Angeles suburb that anyone can enjoy if they're willing to brave the traffic. Well, maybe not anyone. The city has made it illegal to eat...
View ArticleOn Jury Duty, $8 Million Turned Out to be the Price for a Dead Son
A couple weeks ago, I sat in a small, cold, white room with 11 other people, calmly debating the monetary value of love. Specifically, the monetary value of a dead son's "love, companionship, care...
View ArticleIf You Hate the DWP, It's Offering the Public Refreshments and a Mic This Week
They're calling it a community meeting, and it's the public's chance to meet a key DWP leader and give the agency a piece of your mind about how L.A.'s least-popular department can go green, perhaps...
View ArticleThese Savvy Women Have Made Black Lives Matter the Most Crucial Left-Wing...
There was a time when Melina Abdullah wanted to be the next Maxine Waters. A year or two ago, I recognized that those middle-class aspirations are done,” Abdullah says now, in the soothing voice of a...
View ArticleIs Lighter Drug Punishment Really Causing Mayhem in L.A.?
The tough-on-crime crowd is blaming Proposition 47, the voter-approved measure that downgraded some low-level drug and property allegations from felonies to misdemeanors, for a spike in local crime...
View ArticleAttorneys Claim Greed Was a Factor in the SoCalGas Leak in Porter Ranch
Attorneys and elected officials are faulting Southern California Gas Co. for removing a safety valve from a well that has been leaking near Porter Ranch for more than two months. Several attorneys...
View ArticleBlack Lives Matter Activists Were Shackled in Jail at Christmas for Closing...
In the two days before Christmas, Black Lives Matter activists staged protests nationwide. Hundreds swarmed the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Protestors in Chicago hit the area's so-called...
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