Andy Sternberg

The 22-year-old driver who struck and killed a cyclist while allegedly driving under the influence this week has 11 traffic tickets on her record according to court records. Danae Marie Miller was driving a white Jetta when she is believed to have hit 41-year-old Amine Britel in Newport Beach Monday night, authorities said. Britel, who was riding a bicycle on San Joaquin Hills Road, could not be resuscitated by paramedics.

L.A.'s homegrown conference, expo, and party for web startups, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists takes tonight and Thursday at the Skirball Cultural Center. Twiistup 8 will feature demos from ten hot startups on the verge of breaking out, panels and sessions geared toward L.A.'s unique media & technology landscape and the Twiistup afterparty.

The MPAA filed a suit on behalf of five major Hollywood studios against Hotfile, a subscription-based online streaming media service. The suit alleges that the Panama-based company engages in "unabashed theft" of copyrighted material and of further fostering it by incentivizing and rewarding its users to upload and link to the most popular files. "Everyday Hotfile is responsible for the theft of thousands of MPAA member companies' movies and TV shows - including movies...

Attendees will be privy to a an organic & sustainable wine, spirit and local food tasting and organic food truck cuisine. There will be a silent auction including works of art by Shepard Fairey and others as well as travel, spa, fashion and other lifestyle items from environmentally sustainable businesses.

Photo by Budd, posted to LAist Featured Photos flickr group by Andy Kennelly The largest B2B Solar Power get together lights up the Convention Center this week and it's not just for engineering geeks, policy wonks, and solar contraptioneers. From 5:30-8:30 tonight, the entire event and exhibit hall opens to the general public for free and it should be worth taking advantage of whether you're curious about the latest solar-powered gadgets or just want...

The summer of 2010 was bound to be remembered for cool temperatures across Los Angeles and a stubborn El Niño-enhanced marine layer blanketing the west side. And then it became Fall. The mercury hit an unprecedented 113 degrees shortly after noon and we may see hotter temps yet as the September sun bakes the downtown streets into the afternoon.

Via NPR This morning in Austin, Texas, where the annual SXSW conference is being held, Pepsi announced the winner of its Refresh SXSW Challenge, in which three people competed for a $50,000 prize to launch a web-based campaign for good. Mark Horvath, who was once homeless himself on the streets of Los Angeles, won the grant for his blog InvisiblePeople.TV. He even won against SparkHelp, a location-based mobile application that looks to connect people...

Trent Reznor has fallen ill, forcing Nine Inch Nails' Wave Goodbye tour to be put on hold. Reznor said he had a cold during last night's concert at the Palladium, which included an appearance by Gary Numan joining NIN on Numan's "Cars." Soon after the show ended the band released the following message on its website:

A section of the Pacific Coast Highway was closed this morning after part of a tree fell on a bus around 8 a.m. in the area of Chautaqua Boulevard. The tree fell onto some power lines and a Metro Route 534 bus, knocking out electrical service to about 1,200 customers, according to Kim Hughes of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. No injuries were reported. Eastbound PCH remained closed between Las Tunas beach and Temescal Canyon Road while crews worked to clear the scene.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines is going apeshit over photos of Sacha Baron Cohen with Lake Balboa high school football players published as part of a GQ magazine cover story. Cohen's salacious poses with the stars of Birmingham High's football team appear in the middle of this GQ fashion spread.

A USC Annenberg School reporting project was one of eight community journalism initiatives to be awarded $25,000 in grant money from the Knight Foundation's New Voices program, the Institute for Interactive Journalism announced today. Intersections: The South Los Angeles Reporting Project, spearheaded by The Annenberg School at the University of Southern California, features multimedia reporting on south Los Angeles community news and issues. "One of the main things Intersections has been able to do...

No that wasn't the neighbors getting it on again... A couple microquakes -- small earthquakes measuring 2.0 and 2.5 on the Richter scale -- rumbled through Silver Lake (at 7:47) and Echo Park (at 10:07) tonight. Didya feel it? Such microquakes are common along fault lines but we're reminded again that earthquakes will rock across the LAist vicinity (remember the Marina boomer earlier this year)?...