Actress Heather Locklear, 47, was arrested yesterday afternoon in Montecito after an area resident alleged she was "driving erratically," according to the Associated Press. Her vehicle was parked on a state highway when she was approached by a CHP officer, who "determine[d] that she seem[ed] to be under the influence of something," and then took her the local police station for testing. "She was booked at 7 p.m. on suspicion of driving under the influence......

It's not every morning that we have clear skies. And depending where you live, today might not be so different. But it's Friday. Relax. Take a deep breath and enjoy these wonderful sunrise photos from the past, some of them from our LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr.......

Part of the festival map Despite the criticism thrown towards Glow in Santa Monica earlier this summer, it did prove one thing: concerts and festivals on the beach, especially at night are something people enjoy. Santa Barbara's West Beach is not the most popular in terms of swimming, but the location is used for events like 4th of July and will host space for this weekend's second annual 3-day West Beach Festival that begins......

LAist was among a couple hundred lucky fans left with goose bumps after being treated to an intimate set of music by Brian Wilson. The former Beach Boy debuted material from his brand new, Van Dyke Parks-produced album, That Lucky Old Sun backed by his energetic 10-piece band. Classic Beach Boys faves "California Girls," "I Get Around," "Good Vibrations," and more. A couple audience members were chosen to ask Wilson questions mid-set and inquired......

Via Xeni Jardin at boingboing, we find that Radiohead is doing a live webcast of tonight's concert at The Bowl in Santa Barbara. "It's one of our favourite places to play; I think we've ended tours there before," Colin Greenwood wrote in an e-mail. "It's not too big, in fact it's very intimate, a small arena with a dirt floor, set in pretty countryside. It should be a special night, for lots of reasons, and......

A firefighter continue to clear brush from the path of the gap fire on Sunday July 6, 2008 (AP Photo/ LA Times, Spencer Weiner) With another spike in temperatures on its way, firefighters may not have as much help as they did this weekend with the cooler weather with its moist air currents. 100+ degree weather will take over starting today in the San Fernando Valley. Up north in Santa Barbara County near Goleta,......

If a huge fire forcing 1700 homes to be evacuated wasn't enough, now residents of Goleta are being asked to conserve energy until 5:00 p.m. tonight. "A regional manager with energy company Southern California Edison, Cathy Hart, said it is inevitable more power lines will be burned by the Gap Fire," KSBY reports. "If residents keep stress off the system, outages could be kept to a minimum, Hart said." Last night, about 40,000 customers lost......

70 miles east of Los Angeles in the San Bernardino National Forest, a fire, dubbed the Ridge Fire, that broke out at 1:30 p.m. has already burned at least 100 acres. Over a 1700 fires have burned throughout the state in the past few weeks, but few have hit Southern California. The closest major fire is the Gap Fire in Goleta, which has burned 2400 acres so far forcing Santa Barbara County officials to declare......

A wildfire erupted last night in Goleta, eight miles Northwest of Santa Barbara. It began in the Los Padres National Forest forcing mandatory evacuations of about 40 homes. Yesterday, a small fire was knocked down in the Canyon Country neighborhood of Santa Clarita and nearby in Agua Dulce, a truck caught fire on the Northbound 14 Freeway, but was quickly doused before it could spread to surrounding brush.......

Amidst the rain and cold weather, 4,000 participants gathered at the Live Oak Campground in Santa Barbara to dance, play, and frolic in Do Lab's Lightning in a Bottle Arts and Music Festival....

The Do Lab made a name for themselves by designing mesmerizing interactive art installations for huge, multi-day music festivals such as Coachella and Vegoose, but they have also been producing their own music and art festival, Lightning in a Bottle, for several years now, and the 2008 edition kicks off tomorrow at Live Oak campground (near Santa Barbara) and runs all the way through Monday. The LA-based Do Lab (their headquarters is downtown) describes themselves......

Photo by Michell Zappa via Flickr As predicted and wished for here on LAist back on February 7th, Radiohead has confirmed their summer tour dates, four of which include Southern California including two Hollywood Bowl performances. Rawk! After a show in San Francisco, here's the deal: August Sun 24: Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA) August Mon 25: Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA) August Wed 27: Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre (Chula Vista, CA) August Thu 28......

All photos by Kelly C. Gallamore for LAist.-->Lucent Dossier is the spectacular LA-based vaudeville circus that highlighted The Do LaB's awesome Lucent L'Amour Valentine's Day party last month. You may have even seen them performing at the official Grammy Awards party (no, that wasn't Cirque du Soleil, it was Lucent Dossier). Stretch your legs and enjoy the photos below of Lucent Dossier members getting their vaudeville cirque on at the Lucent L'Amour bash. Want......

Photo by Jonathan Alcorn (aka Sundogg) via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr An update on last night's Midnight Movie (you really need to watch this): Curbed has the rendering of the proposed development and for five-stories, it looks a bit... out of proportion. Authorities are on the hunt for the killer of a 25-year-old homeless man whose body was found Sunday night in Venice. The victim was apparently beaten to death. Another......

The UCLA Bruins were gifted their third consecutive Pac-10 title by the referees in their game against the #7 Stanford Cardinal. With less than two seconds to go at the end of regulation Darren Collison drove to the basket and pulled up for a five-footer. Lawrence Hill went up and blocked the shot. Replays clearly showed that Hill got all ball and absolutely no body contact. So of course Hill got called for the......

CSC's Juan José Haedo and High Road's Mark Cavendish stretch for position. Cavendish took 6th and Haedo 7th. | Photo by Matt Cohen San Francisco based photographer Matt Cohen reports from yesterday's Tour of California with photos and explanations of what happened: On its seventh and final stage yesterday at the 2008 AMGEN Tour of California, riders raced from Santa Clarita to Pasadena, often in very heavy rain. The 93-mile Stage 7 was the......

All photos by Scott Groller This weekend, the AMGEN Tour of California hit two Los Angeles area cities, Santa Clarita, yesterday, and Pasadena, today. Photographer Scott Groller was kind enough to share some photos from the finish line of Stage 6 in the Valencia neighborhood of Santa Clarita. The cyclists traveled 105.4 miles from Santa Barbara for a ride that lasted over four hours.......

The use of sonar by the Navy off the shores of Southern California has prompted vehement opposition by animal rights and environmental groups, and earlier this year a court order put in place restrictions on the practice. However, reports that a dolphin's death in late January on the island of San Nicolas might be linked to the Navy's use of sonar in a training exercise has once again brought the issue into the spotlight. The......

And you thought the Burger King Chicken was crazy? Check out the Crazy Chickens this week at the Mayan / Photo by upslases via flickr. TALK Could you not get into Michael Pollan last night at the Central Library? No worries because American eating habits and food policy are a hot topic this week. Tonight, the Center for Healthy Communities presents “Hungry for Change: The Politics of Food with Marion Nestle.” The nutritionist, author......

Local singer/songwriters Meiko (MySpace) and Priscilla Ahn (MySpace) share similar qualities -- they are part-Asian (Meiko is quarter-Japanese and Ahn is half-Korean), and originally from back east (Meiko from Georgia and Ahn from Pennsylvania). So perhaps it was coincidental that both were booked in back-to-back shows last week at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, with Meiko onstage last Wednesday and Ahn last Thursday. Meiko, a one-time Hotel Cafe waitress, became a favorite of controversial......

We get to call it a "Winter Storm" because it's storming and it's January, and not to overstate the obvious, but it is Winter Storming like nobody's business out there. Although the rain may have tapered off somewhat in the overnight hours, the greater Los Angeles area is bracing for another onslaught of downpours, with more high winds, flood risks, and snow. Snow? What? Huh? Yes, Angelenos, we're talking the little white specs that......

Brace yourselves, Southlanders--there could be tornadoes brewing out there. The National Weather Service in Oxnard has issued a Tornado Warning for southwest Los Angeles County in southwest California, including the cities of Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Topanga until 9:45 p.m. PST. [KABC] Although it's a brief warning, the overall weather picture remains grim here in the greater Los Angeles area. We're under warnings and advisories galore; the flood advisory is still up for Ventura and......

Well, whatcha know, Radiohead's In Rainbows, which hit stores on New Year's Day, sits atop the Billboard charts nearly three months after the band offered the album as a pay-what-you-want digital download via their Web site. Today we have confirmation of the cities (albeit neither venues nor dates) that our favorite Glaswegians Englishmen will visit this summer. California stops include Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and San Francisco:The first leg will come prior......

There are two media stories in January's Los Angeles Magazine that everyone should read. One is about the Santa Barbara News-Press debacle. The other is a little closer to home -- a profile on Jill Leovy of the LA Times' The Homicide Report (subsequently, NPR interviewed Leovy on The Bryant Park Project). The blog, which set out to cover every homicide in Los Angeles County, is one of the most genius blogs out there,......

Best way for LA to bring in the new year: win the Rose Bowl. USC killed Illini at 49-17, winning their 23rd Rose Bowl title. 750 bills go into effect this year and the minimum wage is now $8 per hour! The news battle in Santa Barbara continues: Wendy McCaw, owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, has lost in court over illegal firings. She "must re-hire and give back pay — to at least......

Before the questions are asked, please let me state for the record that I graduated from UC Santa Barbara, a college sports powerhouse that hasn't lost a football game since 1990, so I don't have a dog in this fight. Having said that, I was a little surprised at how sensitive it appeared Bruin fans are about the firing of their head coach this afternoon. Again, I am out of the loop, but when......

Ah, Santa Barbara. Wine, adobe buildings, wine, nice scenery, wine... So a few months ago I shot a beautiful, simple wedding at the Santa Barbara Courthouse (Most of us bloggers have a life outside of LAist, dear reader. I happen to be a photographer.) Afterwards, we walked through the huge grassy courtyard, across the street, and right into this gorgeous little restaurant called Elements. We had some unbelievably good sandwiches and wraps at the......

CIA recruitment on UC campuses have always been a controversial topic. But Thursday UCSB students sent in the clowns to "rescue" a protester who was being "waterboarded". To add insult to injury the clowns then followed the CIA recruiter out of the building and chased him to his car before he sped out of town. A group of several protesters dressed in clown costumes and painted faces followed a CIA recruiter last night from......

With reports of The King of Pop's financial troubles continuing to moonwalk all over the press, it's hard to feel sorry for the middle aged superstar, considering he hasn't really seemed to try to work out his issues - literally. You'd think a guy like Michael Jackson could do a few concerts and collect the $212,963 that's reportedly outstanding on his $23,212,963 mortgage on his sprawling ranch north of Santa Barbara. This summer Pollstar......

Last Thursday, pornstar and director (and Fleshbot Crush Object, link NSFW) Dana DeArmond (MySpace) and her boyfriend Daniel (MySpace), along with pornstars Justin Long (NSFW) and Jon Jon (NSFW), were featured guest speakers in Professor Kassia Wosick-Correa's Sociology of Sexuality course at UC Irvine. According to TIME, the study of pornography on a collegiate level originated in the early 1990s, as the article mentioned Professor Linda Williams' Film and Rhetoric course at UC Berkeley,......