Closures

Artist Kohl King frequents many exhibit openings throughout Los Angeles, sipping on the free wine as she seeks inspiration. But it was a little-known gallery in Inglewood that caught her by surprise. Abstract works adorned the wall of the first floor of the Beacon Arts gallery. The exhibit, "Optimist's Parking Lot," spilled over onto the top level of the four-floor building. There, colorful structures that incorporated Christmas lights and train tracks seized the art aficionado's attention.

Today is a good day in the history of jurisprudence and Jerry-prudence because it may, after a long, disgusting, torturous year, be the day "The Jerry Sandusky Story" finally goes away. I'm sure if we live long enough there will be obligatory parole-hearing interviews conducted by the offspring of Geraldo Rivera for some Friday night TV news magazine. Anyone who has seen Charles Manson trotted out every five years knows what a ratings grabber that can be. PHOTOS: Who's who in Jerry Sandusky case But let's hope, for the sake of humanity and our sanity, this is the last we see of the pathetic Sandusky in that red jumpsuit.

CicLAvia -- the cultural event promoting car-less urban spaces -- is returning to downtown L.A. on Sunday. The objective of CicLAvia -- derived from ciclovia , the Spanish word for "bike way" -- is to "encourage safe, vibrant public spaces, sustainable transportation, and public health through a program of car-free street events," according to the website. Organizers said that nine miles of streets will be closed temporarily to motorized vehicles, with access allowed only to walkers, runners, skaters and cyclists.

Carmageddon Redux came to an end according to plan before Monday's commute got underway. But unlike last year's freeway closure, which wrapped up an unexpected 17 hours ahead of schedule, this time construction crews used most of their allotted time to make as many improvements to the 405 Freeway as possible, officials said. While motorists opted for alternate routes, alternate modes of transportation or just stayed home, transportation officials deployed extra crews along the Sepulveda Pass to fill potholes, trim trees and pave three Southbound lanes - weeks of work squeezed into a two-day time frame.

As the sun set and rush hour began to fade on the 405 Freeway on Friday evening, crews gradually shut down ramps and closed lanes of traffic to make room for a small army of construction workers tasked with knocking down the remaining half of the Mulholland Drive bridge this weekend. The start of Carmageddon II - a 10-mile closure on the nation's busiest freeway - appeared to be going without a hitch, officials reported early in the evening. The freeway closure was given the ignominious designation because a similar freeway shutdown a year ago had officials fearing traffic chaos.

Forget about panic. This weekend's big closure along the 405 Freeway in western Los Angeles is prompting little more than a ho-hum and a few worries from area businesses and workers. They say they can't forget being terrorized before the spectacular traffic jams expected last year. "I don't think there will be problems," said Davis Dulnuan, manager of a martial arts school in Sherman Oaks. "People will find a way to work around it. " After warning about hyper-gridlock that never happened a year ago, city officials are once again urging people to stay away and to shop locally.

Where the Sepulveda Pass spills into the San Fernando Valley, gridlock is a way of life. So much so that this weekend's closure of the 405 Freeway — one of the Valley's chief arteries to the Los Angeles Basin — is a non-event to residents whose lives are already structured to avoid the freeway's notoriously heavy traffic. (Still available are the Hollywood and Ventura freeways, plus surface routes like Beverly Glen Boulevard, Coldwater Canyon and Laurel Canyon Boulevard). With days to go before Friday's shutdown, for example, Hudson and Molly Shock aren't plotting how they will navigate around it. They say they only drive "over the hill" about once a month anyway.

Staples Inc. is speeding up store closures, shaking up management and boosting its online business as the office-supply chain implements a multiyear plan to cut costs. The Framingham, Mass., company is looking to save $250 million annually by the end of fiscal 2015. At that point, Staples said, it intends to have shaved its retail square footage 15%. For now, the chain is looking to accelerate the shutdown of 15 U.S. stores. By the end of its fiscal year, Staples said it expects to have 30 net store closures and 30 downsized or relocated stores in North America.

Last year in the run-up to Carmageddon, officials were downright apocalyptic about what the full closure of the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass would mean. "It will be an absolute nightmare," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa warned. "Avoid the area like the plague," Councilman Paul Koretz advised. But after all the dire warnings, the traffic mayhem never materialized. With another closure of a 10-mile section of the 405 planned for this weekend, officials are subtly retooling their message and hoping they can get similar results a second time around.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Tuesday setting a two-year moratorium on closing state parks in the wake of a scandal in which some parks officials hid surplus funds while facilities were threatened with being shuttered. The legislation by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills) was in response to the discovery in July that some parks officials had concealed about $54 million in unspent funds even as the governor was proposing to close 70 parks because of a budget shortfall.