It was rough riding last night on the streets of Long Beach, as there were two reported drive-by shootings within 30 minutes of each other and a wrong-way driver killed in a head-on collision. The shootings are thought to involve a maroon-colored van that authorities are asking locals be on the lookout for; a total of four people were wounded between 2 and 3 a.m. in the attacks. The car crash involved a man in......

After being involved in an accident that turned into a hit-and-run in West Hollywood yesterday afternoon, Drew Barrymore followed fleeing vehicle obtaining the license plate number. The incident occurred near Gardner Street and Santa Monica Boulevard, according to Sgt. Kristin Aloma at the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station. Barrymore was not injured by the accident and the police are trying to find the driver. In other celebrity news, comedian Mike Epps nearly got into an unprovoked......

Of Hollywood Way At least two people were injured when a car crashed into a Burbank post office today at noon near Hollywood Way and Empire Avenue reported KCBS. Both victims were taken to a hospital. Of Hollywood Blvd. Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department reported a lunchtime HazMat Investigation at the Hollywood and Highland complex where fumes were coming out of a janitorial area. Three male maintenance workers with minor illness complaints......

View Larger Map In what Los Angeles Fire Department officials called a "dramatic collision," a full size white SUV, brand new still with paper license plates, tumbled off the southbound 170 Hollywood Freeway off-ramp late Saturday night onto Burbank Blvd. barely missing an LAPD squad car that passed by the very same spot just moments before. It was said the sergeant saw the crash, feet away, in his rear view mirror. It appears that a......

Photo by Lush.i.ous via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Speaking of that 14-car pile-up this morning on the 101 freeway, how about this fact via the Daily Breeze? There's a near $11-billion price "cost to society" due to car crashes according to a study called "Crashes: What's the Cost to Society?" According to the study -- conducted on behalf of the American Automobile Association by the transportation policy firm Cambridge Systematics --......

On Thursday with the enlightened press in tow, Frank McCourt broke ground at the LA Memorial Coliseum to prepare for the March 29 exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox. Although the game has been sold out, the Dodgers have added a standing room only section behind the right field fence for 25,000 more tickets. Those tickets will go on sale Saturday for $10 a piece. If that sells out that means 115,000 people......

View Larger Map A two-car crash on Anaheim St. in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles north of San Pedro and the LA Harbor has sent four patients to the hospital in critical condition, leaving one in minor condition. Two had to be extricated from a sedan by the Los Angeles Fire Department. The cause of the crash is unknown at this time, but officials are warning of traffic along this main artery.......

Roger Avary, the Academy Award-winning writer of the 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction, was arrested this weekend on charges of manslaughter. The arrest stems from his involvement in a car accident Sunday night in Ojai that left his wife injured, and one other person dead. Avary, who was at the wheel, was booked on suspicion of DUI, and his passenger, 34-year-old Andreas Zini, a guest of the Avary's from Italy, was taken to the hospital,......

At 10 a.m. this morning, a big rig carrying a cargoload of tires collided with a sedan causing the southbound 5 Freeway to shut down for hours. Read the full story on LAist from earlier today here. More photos of the incident after this post's jump.......

a writer's perspective All right! We got the first finger of the New Year! Stationed outside Warner Brothers, where news broke last night that there would be imminent layoffs for a lot of the staffers, I expected the strikers to be the target of increased vitriol. We had our share of negative gestures today, but the truth is fingers are still few and far between. If we made a drinking game where we drank every......

As the early crowd began to show up at bars in Hollywood last night, a few blocks away at Highland and Sunset at Hollywood High School one of the 17 or so LAPD Airships was making an emergency landing on the football field due to mechanical problems around 9:40 p.m. It landed safely and no injuries were reported according to Cecil Manresa, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman. The LAPD reports that the helicopter is still......

Whats even more shocking than Jamie Lynn Spears being preggers? That it may not be Casey Aldredge's baby. Thats right, reports are that the real daddy is an older man that would surely be charged ith statutoryw rape charges if revealed - Showbiz Spy Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie and her boyfriend of over three years, actor Josh Duhamel are engaged - TMZ Our favorite heiress's fortune has just been pulled out from right under her......

Finishing the book, the high that I got living vicariously through Mr. Jordan Belfort slowly started fading away. As he started sinking deeper into a drug addled paranoia, I began to empathize more than envy and the rooting for the protagonist of his book (so to speak), namely him, took on a new meaning (read Part 1). So what was your favorite part of the book? My favorite part of the book was leading up......

How's this for a lede? "If you get in a car crash in the San Fernando Valley, there's about a 50-50 chance you'll flee the scene - and get away with it." Ha! That's almost instructional. In a comprehensive report on hit-and-runs by the Daily News, it is found there is a lot of hitting, running and general douchebaggery in Los Angeles. Yes, we all knew that after day one, but here are some......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

LAist reader Drew wrote in with some news in his part of town, and he was nice enough to attach some photos. Wow, thanks, Drew! Hey Tony! Apparently an elderly driver was leaving the UPS store in the little shopping corner on Riverside and Laurel Canyon (where Starbucks and Subway are), backed into THREE cars and then tried to flee the scene only to hit another car pulling into the parking lot and ended......

Cable networks continue to fire on all cylinders this last week. A new episode of Mad Men on AMC has revealed that everyone is flawed and that they're all potentially unredeemable. Last night's angel-stalked Holly Hunter (Saving Grace, TNT) has her thinking about cleaning up her act but despite being a tough girl, she's weak and human and falls back into old habits. Tonight we get to see just a glimpse of the Machiavellian......

Steve Buscemi really is a minor miracle. As I'm looking through his prolific resume on IMDB, I can't find an instance where I didn't enjoy his work. Sure, he's had his clunkers (Mr. Deeds, Domestic Disturbance) and has even fallen under the dark spell of Voldythingy, er, Michael Bay (Armageddon, The Island), but somehow Buscemi always seems to emerge untainted by the mediocrity surrounding him. And when he gets a great role (here, here,......

If a film has an intriguing premise and solid acting, I'm willing to forgive the occasional odd directorial choice or weak script moment. This is especially true with low-budget films and specifically the case with Into the Arms of Strangers. As the film opens we meet Andy (Ron Carey) and his wife Erin (April Wade). They appear to be a loving couple but cracks soon begin to show. Andy has been suffering from amnesia......

Everybody knows that when you get into a car accident, everything goes in slow motion. Time suddenly slows to Matrix speed. Every detail normally blurred and insignificant, is now in HD detail, and crystal clear like wine glasses washed in Cascade. That's nothing new. But what everyone might not know is that afterwards, you have to talk to a lot of people. A shower of people that appear like worms out of the muddy ground......

- Hi New LAist Readers: Skid Row gets an Internet Cafe - UPI - Best LA Daily News Headline of the Week: "Moms + kids + wine = big-time buzz" - Daily News - Those Aqua Teen Hunger Force "bombs" were headed to LA - LA Times - Mello and Brand jockeying for Yao's All Star spot - AP - Rush Limbaugh nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize - PR Newswire - Wisconsin Police......

Dear Sabrina's Vagina is a weekly column that gets published when the parts connected to the vagina get up off their ass and reply to poorly written letters, very poorly. If you feel the need to have a vagina berate you with insulting comments please send all messages here. Otherwise, you can visit the author here and watch her yell at countless amounts of other people. Dear Sabrina's Vagina, Recently I went on a......

There's nothing new about crashing your car in LA. But this video taken on the 405 South last Spring in the Valley is a must see. CalTrans doesn't always close lanes that safely, but what's with these people? And how did this guy survive filming this? Embedding disabled by request, click on the picture to view.......

Seems that the Sixth Sense kid, actor Haley Joel Osment, has grown up and finally made the Hollywood headlines the old-fashioned way: He got into a car accident around 1 a.m. this morning driving around La Canada-Flintridge and landed in the hospital. According to an Associated Press story: [Osment] was driving a 1995 Saturn about 1 a.m. when the car collided with a brick pillar and flipped, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Greg......

We were annoyed yesterday when we caught headlines and stories announcing that LA County Sheriffs would be investigating the BB gun attack on a photographer outside of a wedding that Britney Spears attended over the weekend which then seemed to be updated hourly with new details and pseudo-information. The sheriff's office said it was putting the situation "on the front burner" because of media attention. That's great. Over-aggressive media coverage of Spears leads to......

Last night, we were in the Silverlake Lounge trapped in a conversation with a guy named Mikey who, seemingly has more stories and more freestyle rhymes than we have words. Innaway is setting up the stage while this guy Mikey keeps going on stage and standing behind the turned off mic trying to get all eyes on him. It occurred to us that the stranger probably shouldn't have had that last shot, that we......