Zach Behrens

A few people have been asking what happened yesterday morning downtown near Central Library where a large memorial with flowers sits today. A pedestrian was hit by a DASH bus at 5th and Flower around 6:35 a.m. in the morning. Gwendolyn Coleman, 58, sustained injuries in the crash and later died at the hospital, according to Bruce Gilman of the Department of Transportation who contracts First Transit to operate their downtown fleet. The bus...

Happy 74th Birthday, Elvis! If you were alive today (oh wait, conspiracy theory #1445 says you are alive), you would have loved this cupcake with one of your favorite foods that we just tasted at Crumbs Bake Shop. Peanut butter based cupcakes usually don't taste very peanut butter-like. That was until Crumbs used a rich swirl of--oh my God--pan fried peanut butter in today's special treat. Mixed in with peanut butter and banana frosting...

Macy's today announced that they will be closing 11 underperforming stores, including one in the Los Angeles area. This means clearance sales next week! "These closings are part of our normal-course process to prune underperforming locations each year in order to maintain a healthy portfolio of stores," said Macy's Chief Executive Terry J. Lundgren in a statement. Ahem, there's nothing normal about this. The locally affected Macy's is downtown in the Ernst & Young...

Last night on KCRW's Which Way, LA, the controversy over the parking meter increases was discussed. But first, let's start off with what the city's City Council Transportation Committee Chair, Wendy Greuel, was sending out yesterday

A motion to limit some outdoor smoking that was submitted last fall has took a big step yesterday when a city council committee approved it, passing it on to the full City Council for consideration. If passed a new law this summer would prohibit smoking on restaurant patios or within 10 feet of any outdoor establishment that serves food or beverages with the exception of bars with outdoor areas and other over-18 venues, according...

"We all jumped him. He was struggling hardcore. I was holding down his arm. Somebody had a foot on his head. Everyone was holding down a different body part. He was going nuts. I was telling him to chill because he's not going anyplace." That's Chris Llewellyn of Asher Roth's band talking to the LA Times about the mid-morning incident where a man on board claimed he had a bomb as a a Delta...

According to a KCAL9 TV news report, the street is closed to cars from Fairfax Ave. on the east to San Vicente on the West as protesters take over the Miracle Mile area in front of the Israeli Consulate. Police have separated the two groups by 25 feet with rope and in case the demonstration is declared unlawful, the LAPD has set up a special viewing area for the press, they said in a...

He would be a government health official with a huge following. If sources to the Washington Post are correct, President-Elect Barack Obama has offered Dr. Sanjay Gupta (of CNN fame) the job of surgeon general after a two-hour meeting this morning Chicago. "Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment," the Post said. "Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy...

Up in San Francisco at MacWorld today (SFist coverage here), Apple Computers announced a slew of new fun Mac toys, but one of the big news hitting pertinent to the music industry is the pricing change. Executive Phil Schiller said iTunes songs would come in three pricing tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents.

Lawyers for victims of the deadly Chatsworth Metrolink train crash in September say that engineer Robert Sanchez regularly used his cell phone while on the job. An "employee complained to the company about the use of a cell phone by engineer Robert Sanchez, but the company ignored the complaint," the lawyers said. Veolia, the company contracted by Metrolink to supply engineers, apparently had "busted" Sanchez a few months before the accident during a routine...

"The Academy Awards is this wonderful, huge phenomenon, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know what that is," Executive Administrator Ric Robertson of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said. "In a way, that makes it difficult for us to let the world know all the other stuff the academy does." And that's why the Academy overhauled their website, which was released today. The websites about their upcoming Hollywood...

Tomorrow night, South LA community members and the LAPD will be holding a vigil "to create community awareness to a series of 12 murders over a 22 year period that police believe were committed by a serial killer, to remember the victims and to disseminate information regarding these cases and the suspect(s)." The murders--all in the South LA region and mostly women--by the media-named "Grim Sleeper" occurred between 1985 and 2007 and are tied...