• In today's LAFD updates, a structure fire at Fuller and a passenger car is trapped underneath an 18-wheeler.
• Will fewer fast-food restaurants mean healthier citizens? The City Council will be asked to consider a moratorium on new chain restaurants in South Los Angeles.
• Oscar-winning actress (and first wife to Ronald Reagan) Jane Wyman died today at the age of 93 at her home in Rancho Mirage.
• Students at forty LAUSD schools will be competing for a chance to hang out with J.K. Rowling at the Kodak Theater next month. A student from each of the schools will be chosen to attend based on his or her essay-writing skills.
• Thousands of people in Veracruz, Mexico, had to be evacuated early this morning because of six attacks on gas and oil pipelines. Officials believe the attacks were deliberate acts of sabotage. No direct injuries have been reported so far.
• A big win for L.A.'s intellectual and medical communities: Eli Broad has promised a $20-million gift to UCLA for stem-cell research. He has already donated $25 mill to USC to build a facility devoted to the same.
• There are domestic murders, which are bad, and there's random unprovoked murders, which concern us, such as the one near the Wiltern on Saturday night.
• Things not to do: hire a tree trimmer to cut down your neighbor's tree while she's on vacation and then refuse to pay the contractor.
• Moving into dense urban areas of the city surrounded by public transit is a good thing. Not using it is a bad thing. And maybe moving in the first place was a bad idea for the environment according to "urban heat island" studies.

Zach Behrens also contributed to this report.

Photo at Fiesta La Ballona in Culver City by doisneau via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr