Free Republic

For more than 70 years, a 34-foot illuminated cross looming over the Cahuenga Pass has been one of the landmarks by which motorists mark their passage between downtown and the San Fernando Valley. In fact, the cross was conceived not as a purely religious monument, but as a memorial to one of Hollywood’s pioneers, Christine Wetherell Stevenson, the heiress to the Pittsburgh Paint fortune who helped arrange construction of the Hollywood Bowl. She was also an aspiring playwright who wrote “The Pilgrimage Play,” a pageant about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1920, Stevenson chose 29 acres across...

The incident began about 11:45 p.m. Monday when a man standing on a narrow ledge on an overpass forced authorities to shut down both sides of the 101 near Hollywood Boulevard. The man held on to the fence for hours, facing officers who tried to get him to surrender as firefighters set up a ladder from the freeway below. He surrendered around 9:40 a.m. after authorities started cutting a hole in the fence, Los Angeles police Capt. Scot Williams told KTLA. All lanes of the 101 were reopened soon after. The man, who's about 25 years old, will be arrested...

LOS ANGELES - Rescue crews responding to a wreck on a Los Angeles freeway found a driver fatally shot in the head early Sunday, while another driver was shot and wounded in a separate attack about 30 miles away, authorities said. The shootings were the latest in a string of attacks on Southern California freeways that have alarmed motorists and authorities. Investigators did not know what led to the fatal shooting on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley on Sunday. The wreck snarled traffic for several hours near Van Nuys. "There's absolutely no witnesses at this time, no...