Brandan09997/YouTube/KTLA

Brian Beaird, a 51-year-old ex-military man, was fatally shot by LAPD officers on live television last weekend. He was unarmed, briefly raised his hands, and appeared to have his back to police when cops opened fire following a long and perilous pursuit from southeast L.A. county to downtown.

See also: Brian Beaird, Corvette Chase Suspect, Might Have Been Accidentally Shot by Cop (VIDEO).

This afternoon the LAPD sent out a statement in which Chief Charlie Beck says he's "very concerned" about the shooting. The top cop said the three officers who opened fire ...

More »

4th and Vernan avenues via Google Maps

A teenager shot in Venice this afternoon was hospitalized in unknown condition, authorities said. The victim, possibly 18, was reportedly shot in the face, LAPD spokeswoman Norma Eisenman told the Weekly.

See also: Boy Dies After 3 Shot in West L.A.

There are indications that the attack could be the result of an ongoing feud between Westside gangs -- the Playboy Gangster Crips of Crestview and the local Venice Shorline Crips:

More »

File photo by Nanette Gonzalez for LA Weekly.

Bad news for pot smokers who started with weed when they were teenagers.

A new study that claims to be the first to use MRI scans to target "deep subcortical gray matter" says that folks who were daily tokers as teens ended up with memory problems, brain abnormalities and mental performance issues when they reached their twenties.

Researchers focused on ...

More »

Gatto

In what is being trumpeted as "the first purely crowdsourced piece of legislation in the United States," L.A. state Assemblyman Mike Gatto is inviting you, the average citizen, to help draft a new law.

He has turned to Wikispaces to let anyone -- anyone! -- weigh in on this proposal, and the lawmaker has vowed to introduce the final product in the legislature no matter what he ends up with.

But before you start jumping around and saying, Legalize it!, an idea that would surely dominate this exercise, there is a caveat:

More »

File photo by Nanette Gonzalez for LA Weekly.

In a town where weed is medically legal and quite easy to find, bad guys still find incentive to rob and plunder marijuana dispensaries.

Case in point:

A Valley Village pot shop was robbed by two big guys yesterday afternoon. The suspects reportedly got away with a whopping 40 pounds of bud:

More »

L.A. County Sheriff's Department

Sheriff Lee Baca has had a rough couple of years, but it's gotten really bad in the last two weeks, ever since federal prosecutors brought corruption charges against 18 of his deputies.More »

uber.com

The story of one woman's $357, 14-mile UberX ride Saturday night in L.A. has everyone talking about "surge pricing" -- and some Angelenos now say they suspect the rideshare app took advantage of them because they had been drinking.

See also: Uber's $357 Crosstown L.A. Ride Highlights Controversial 'Surge Pricing.'

We talked to two L.A. UberX users who requested late-night rides following evenings of revelry last weekend. They said they had no idea the cost of getting home would be multiple times Uber's normal rate, let alone double and more than the cost of the very taxi trips they were trying to avoid.

Is Uber taking party people for a ride?

More »

Colin Young-Wolff

Living in L.A. should be gift enough, right? On good days, it certainly is. But on the days you pop your tire on a pothole or pay $357 to ride across town or, you know, pay your astronomically high rent, you start to make a list of things you wish this city had.

If Santa or the universe or some sort of higher power is listening, here are the things we'd really like Los Angeles to receive this Christmas. We've all been really good this year, haven't we? We deserve it.

More »

She's edgy because she has a knit cap on. Urban Outfitters/Facebook

Hipsters rejoice. 'Tis the season to shop, and now you don't have to go to the mall anymore. Urban Outfitters is coming to where you are.

Specifically, the store is opening the doors to its latest location, in downtown L.A., tomorrow. But you can seek to warm yourselves in the glow of the commerce of cool tonight!

More »

Colin Young-Wolff

A trip to the Far East may be out of reach, but if you can make it to the far east of Hollywood you'll find the vibrant neighborhood of Thai Town, where Thai traditions meld with urban trends on a six-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between Normandie and Western. Photographer Colin Young-Wolff captures it all in this stunning gallery of one of L.A.'s lively ethnic enclaves.

More »

WorldNewsNENC/YouTube

Cops are looking for two suspects who brutally beat up a homeless man in Venice over the weekend.

The attack was captured on video (on the next page). A Los Angeles police lieutenant told us the victim's injuries were not life-threatening. But ...

More »

An illustration of AltaSea via the Port of Los Angeles/Facebook.

In the next few years an old, unused pier in San Pedro will be transformed into a half-billion dollar ocean research campus with the world's largest seawater wave tank. It's called AltaSea.

This week the L.A. City Council unanimously approved a 50-year lease between the Port of Los Angeles and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors that will allow development of the 35-acre think tank to get started:

More »

A performer at Flaunt's Miami party. Photo by Morgan Coleman/Miami New Times.

L.A.'s Flaunt magazine was never known for being free-flowing with its pocketbook -- not, at least, among journalists in town.

Flaunt has featured everyone from Beyonce to Selena Gomez on its covers. But for all its aspirational photo spreads and luxury-goods advertisers, the glossy has been considered somewhat of a poseur publication -- heavy on image, light on substance -- for some local writers and photographers.

See also: Kendrick Lamar at Mana Production Village (NSFW).

And now a Miami events organizer claims that Flaunt skipped out on a bill after throwing a party with Kendrick Lamar during the recent Art Basel festivities. Flaunt's publisher vehemently denies the allegation.

More »

Uber

Uber is one of the hottest tech companies around right now. The app-based ride-sharing service has been valued at $3.4 billion or so, and its gross annual revenues alone are projected to be a whopping $1 billion a year.

See also: Ride-Sharing Apps Fight Back.

So why did it just charge a Los Angeles woman $357 for a 14-mile ride last Saturday night? The company calls it surge pricing:

More »

cogdogblog

Could this explain the Bermuda Triangle at the Bell Gardens USPS?

Attention holiday shoppers: The USPS Sorting Facility in Bell Gardens puts the snail back in snail mail. Lost and undelivered packages have inspired frustrated customers to deem it "The Black Hole of Bell" on Yelp and other review sites.

By all means avoid letting your mail be sorted at the sprawling Bell Gardens USPS facility this Christmas season. The time you spend at a long line at your local post office, and the unbelievable patience you display when a child there launches a temper tantrum, could all be for naught if your gift gets sorted in Bell Gardens.

Take Glendale resident Vincent Krimmel, whose heartfelt letter to his mom never reached her hands:

More »

Ken Tarr via C.S. Muncy for the Village Voice.

A man the Village Voice calls "one of the most prolific television hoaxers in U.S. history" was charged today with felony eavesdropping for allegedly making prank job-offer calls to football coaches and capturing his end of the shenanigans on video.

See also: Ken Tarr Launches a Hoax Campaign on an Industry Immune to Shame.

Of course, this milieu is nothing new. Any Howard Stern listener would recognize this modus. But the L.A. County District Attorney's office says that recording the calls was illicit:

More »

$25 mil in Beverly Hills. Photo via ZipRealty.

If a national online real estate broker told you L.A. was the best party house town in the nation, you might yawn. After all, this is the home of the Playboy mansion, many a hillside venue, and this place.

See also: Teens Do $1 Mil in Damage, Steal Snow Leopard at House Rave, Cops Say.

We know how to do this.

But it's nice to be recognized for our achievements once in a while. Just in time for the holidays the firm ZipReality looked at 1.7 million real-estate listings and crunched the data based on home entertaining:

More »

A place called Long Beach by Tony DeSantis/LA Weekly Flickr pool

Blame global warming. Or, if you're not a believer, simply point to the long-term ebb and flow of SoCal's stormy-or-mild winters.

But it's dry out there. And we're not just talking about the recent beach days we've seen in SoCal. (LAX tied 1985's record high temperature of 85 yesterday).

We're on track to record the driest year L.A.'s ever had. Ever:

More »

Mark "Cobrasnake" Hunter

Ah, the holidays.

Slack off a little, eat up and take a nip from that flask in your bottom drawer. It's the time of year when we appreciate loved ones, colleagues and even 'round-the-way faces just a little more. It's party time.

Beware the pitfalls of the holiday party, however. Be it work-related, bro-promoted or simply at the club, memories of a good FAIL at the festivities can last a lifetime. Here are the six holiday party fouls we see way too often in L.A:

More »

Courtesy of YouTube

Jordan Belfort dubbed himself The Wolf of Wall Street -- and is now being played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a new film by Martin Scorsese.

These days, Jordan Belfort is flying high again. Not only is the real-life "Wolf of Wall Street" living high on the hog in beautiful Hermosa Beach, he's making money as a motivational speaker -- a business that will surely only increase in light of the new Martin Scorsese movie based on his life, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

But as the Weekly reported yesterday, Belfort is hardly penitent -- in fact, lawyers and prosecutors say he's continued to screw his victims, only repaying pennies on the dollar of the millions he swindled from them.

See also: How the "Wolf of Wall Street" Is Still Screwing His Real-Life Victims

And that's not the only reason we think he's a schmuck. We did our homework so you don't have to, both reading his book and studying the court record. Here are the 10 reasons why we refuse to glamorize him -- DiCaprio or no DiCaprio.

More »