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​A YouTube video showing a Nissan GT-R sports car crashing helped bolster the state's case against a Diamond Bar brother and sister accused of filing a false insurance claims to cover repairs on the vehicle. (See the video after the jump).

Insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, who's running for the Republican nomination for governor of California, announced over the weekend that 21-year-old Jay Xi Chen and 29-year-old sister, Tracy Chen Chen, have been charged by the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office with six counts and one count respectively of filing false claims.

​Venice-based journalist and mega-blogger Mickey Kaus on Friday filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. We reported at the beginning of the month about his intention to run.

Via this post, Kaus listed some of the stances that would differentiate him from Boxer. One concerned immigration: " ... The incumbent endorses a misguided immigrant legalization scheme that would create a huge incentive for more illegal immigration--before we're sure our broken border has been fixed to withstand it," he writes.

thehump.biz.

The Hump.

​The Hump, the Santa Monica sushi restaurant charged with serving endangered whale meat, admitted to the crime and issued an apology on its website.

"The charge against the restaurant is true: The Hump served whale meat to customers looking to eat what in Japan is widely served as a delicacy," reads the statement. "In serving this meat, The Hump ignored its responsibilities to help save endangered whales from extinction and failed to support the world community in its uphill fight to protect all endangered species."

​The death of actor Corey Haim this week was tied to an illegal prescription drug ring, California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Friday afternoon.

Brown's office stated an "illegal and massive prescription-drug ring" was linked to the death of Corey Haim" after an "unauthorized" prescription was found under his name that was somehow obtained from a fraudulent blank-prescription-pad ring in San Diego. The ring, Brown's office alleges, is the source of as many as 5,000 illicit prescriptions.

angelynepink.com

​The Daily Beast on Friday posted its list of America's craziest cities. It ranked the nation's largest metropolises based on psychiatrists per capita, stress, eccentricity and drinking levels. Los Angeles came in at a measly 27. Number one? Cincinnati. San Francisco was second.

While it's hard to argue against such hard data as psychiatrists per capita, and we are pretty laid back, our eccentricity and drinking levels are second to none, and L.A. is, of course, the celebrity DUI capital of the planet. We deserve better. We were robbed! Here are some of the reasons L.A. deserves to be America's number one crazytown:

A teenager died from a gunshot wound to the back March 5. Juan Guerrero, 19, was shot around 6 p.m. in the 200 block of North Soto Street.

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Anyone with information about the shooting should contact LAPD Hollenbeck Division detectives at 323-224-0118.

georgemichael.com

​Occupancy at Los Angeles hotels was down almost 10 percent last year (PDF). Public, out-in-the-open sex, however, has been on the rise, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Coincidence? We don't think so! People are downsizing their sex budgets.

More than 90 people, mostly men, were arrested for having sex in public parks in L.A. in 2009. That's up from 75 in 2008, and cops are cracking down in Elysian Park, Griffith Park and Sycamore Grove Park in northeastern L.A.

​Despite Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's "guarantee" that the city of Los Angeles will not go bankrupt, there's a fair amount of evidence demonstrating it's quite possible, at least according to urban-history author and economic journalist Joel Kotkin (via LABizObserved).

Although City Hall's plan to lay off as many as 4,000 employees is a mess that will have a hard time moving forward, Kotkin doesn't blame L.A.'s current payroll for its clouded economic future (which includes a $212 million-and-counting deficit). Rather he says the city's economic time bomb is comprised of fat-cat pensions negotiated by powerful unions.

View more photos in the "Convicted Serial Killer Rodney Alcala's Creepy Personal Photograph Collection" slideshow.

Huntington Beach Police Department detectives are trying to identify women, girls, boys and toddlers who appear in hundreds of photos seized from a storage locker in Seattle, Washington, that was rented by convicted serial killer and Dating Game winner Rodney Alcala.

Huntington Beach Police Department

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Huntington Beach Police Department

​Some of the photos, which were taken before his arrest in 1979, show naked women and young girls engaging in sex acts. Others show women posing in some of the same positions his victim's were found dead in. Some show women or young girls who look like they are passed out. A couple are of teenage boys in provocative poses.

​The Exposition Construction Authority defended its Westside light rail line following a lawsuit by concerned neighbors that argues the authority failed to comply with state environmental-impact rules when certifying its plans.

A group called Neighbors for Smart Rail believes that the authority's environmental impact report for the recently approved Phase 2 of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica did not properly consider the effects having a street-level train and several traffic crossings would have on its neighbors.