AltWeeklies Wire
Barry Minkow 2.0new
L.A.'s fraud king is back -- and taking the media for another ride
L.A. Weekly |
Beth Barrett |
10-18-2010 |
Crime & Justice
Patch, the WalMart of News?new
AOL takes on longtime local bloggers with its hyperlocal news sites in Los Angeles.
L.A. Weekly |
Tibby Rothman |
09-30-2010 |
Media
Rodney Alcala's Final Revenge: Alleged Serial Killer Ratchets Up the Sufferingnew
In letters to him, Bruce Barcomb compared Rodney Alcala to notorious serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, and begged him to spare the victims' relatives from a painful trial — including Barcomb's own elderly mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy.
L.A. Weekly |
Christine Pelisek |
02-26-2010 |
Crime & Justice
Fines Jacked Up by L.A. City Council Send Strapped Residents to Community Servicenew
What to do when, as Professor Thomas Griffith puts it, "we're running out of tricks"? Raise fines and fees: parking tickets coupled with meters that now must be fed well after 6 p.m.; "Denver" boots on cars; tow-away surcharges; littering fines. None of it has to go before L.A. voters.
L.A. Weekly |
Michael Goldstein |
02-26-2010 |
Transportation
Employers Skim $26.2 Million Per Week from Lower-Income Workers Paychecksnew
Ruth Milkman should have moved this statistic from the 53rd page of her study to the front, where it might have been read by local media: Every week, employers in Los Angeles County pilfer $26.2 million from the paychecks of the poorest 17 percent of workers.
L.A. Weekly |
Max Taves |
02-19-2010 |
Business & Labor
When Life Takes You Out of Your House and Into Your Carnew
Maybe one has even parked on your street: a conversion van, curtains drawn, or a camper with signs of everyday life. They are so ubiquitous in Venice, Calif. that some have been trying to turn the onetime hippie enclave into a parking-permit-only town as a way to ward off "undesirables."
L.A. Weekly |
Linda Immediato |
02-05-2010 |
Economy
One Man's Murderous Romp Through Polite Societynew
Rodney Alcala, the UCLA fine-arts grad, former Los Angeles Times typesetter, amateur photographer and film student of Roman Polanski's is believed to have used his charm and access to entrap and murder seven women and girls, and to rape several others.
L.A. Weekly |
Christine Pelisek |
01-22-2010 |
Crime & Justice
Microstipends For Parentless Youths Got Slashed by Arnold. Will Kids Fight Back?new
A week after Schwarzenegger signed six bills touted to help foster youths, the state Department of Social Services told the public foster-care systems up and down the state that new cuts were coming, including one trim that wiped out the entire $3.6 million budget for so-called Emancipated Foster Youth Stipends.
L.A. Weekly |
Daniel Heimpel |
01-08-2010 |
Children & Families
Los Angeles' Red-Light Ticket Ripoffnew
I was captured on camera doing a “California roll” while making a right turn at a red light. The damage was $446 plus a $64 traffic-school fee and a pricey separate fee that an eight-hour traffic school charged.
L.A. Weekly |
Michael Goldstein |
01-04-2010 |
Transportation
LAPD Audit: New Chief Releases a Report Showing Broad Mismanagementnew
The city may not be as safe as the 1950s like Bill Bratton often boasted, but apparently the bookkeeping by the Los Angeles Police Department is “stuck” in that decade, and a new and embarrassing audit is roiling City Hall—by explaining how bad things really are.
L.A. Weekly |
Patrick Range McDonald and Christine Pelisek |
12-18-2009 |
Economy
Brentwood's Toxic Grave: Historic Dumping Grounds Finally Get Testednew
After years of promises to complete tests and determine what is really buried there, indications show that the historic Veteran's Administration property has not been well monitored. A disturbing collection of abandoned soldiers’ tombstones have sat for months.
L.A. Weekly |
Michael Collins |
12-11-2009 |
Environment
L.A.'s Medical-Weed Warsnew
Today Los Angeles stands as the nation's pot capital, a mecca for buying and selling the drug under the guise of the medicinal use initiative California voters approved 13 years ago. The conditions are testament to a breakdown in basic governance unseen in any other major California city.
L.A. Weekly |
Patrick Range McDonald and Christine Pelisek |
11-30-2009 |
Drugs
Chaos in the Casitas: Lawless Speakeasies Get a Grip on L.A.new
The casitas operate in what appear to be shuttered, recession-emptied storefronts or hollowed-out homes. But inside, patrons can get almost anything they want, in a one-stop shop: drugs, gambling, heisted cigarettes, after-hours booze and "B-girls" -- slang for "bar" girls, or prostitutes, who charge about $60 for sex.
L.A. Weekly |
Christine Pelisek |
11-09-2009 |
Crime & Justice
Dead Sexy: 'Girls and Corpses,' a Magazinenew
Girls and Corpses began online before also going to print, parodying Maxim, Cosmopolitan and other sexed-up lifestyle magazines. Instead of a pretty girl posing suggestively with a bottle of shampoo, you'll see her nuzzling a remarkably authentic fake corpse. It's transfixing. You don't know what to look at first, or whether to laugh or cry or vomit.
L.A. Weekly |
Gendy Alimurung |
10-30-2009 |
Media
All Sides In L.A.'s Pot Wars Agree: City Hall is Incompetentnew
The disparate groups in the pot debate agree on one thing: Los Angeles City Hall has been almost comically inept at complying with simple state deadlines for municipalities to create rules for medicinal marijuana.
L.A. Weekly |
Patrick Range McDonald and Jill Stewart |
10-23-2009 |
Drugs
