Road Closures

Street closures? It seems Hollywood "Just Can't Get Enough" of them. Authorities plan to shut Hollywood Boulevard near its storied intersection with Vine Street on Thursday for a free concert by the electro-pop band Depeche Mode. Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show.

It was a heck of a drive for a plate of pasta. Visiting friends in Colorado for the holidays, Mike Watts and his father decided on a whim to take a spin to the mountains for lunch. They made it to a Ruby Tuesday's about 60 miles west of Denver. Then the winds kicked up. Twenty-four hours later, they were still stranded.

1. Peru In the Andean cloud forest, the myth-shrouded Chachapoya civilization offer some of Peru's most evocative historic sites. And few tourists. The Chachapoya, traders, artisans and warriors, thrived in northeastern Peru from about 800 to 1540. They left behind majestic ruins, haunting funeral sites and unanswered questions.

All lanes of the 91 Freeway -- the major east-west artery between Orange and Riverside counties -- will be shut down in Corona for nearly 12 hours beginning tonight, a closure that Caltrans officials warn could cause hours of delays for drivers who fail to use alternative routes. The closure of the highway at Green River Road is scheduled to begin at 11 tonight and end at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

Rush-hour traffic screeched to a virtual standstill Thursday in Laguna Beach after officials closed South Coast Highway because of a sewage spill that fouled two coves. "Traffic is gridlocked," said Sgt. Jason Kravetz, a spokesman for the Laguna Beach Police Department. "We've got everyone down there working on it." The leak occurred about 3:30 p.m.

All three Southern California highways shut down because of snow and ice were reopened Thursday as the region's wet weather gave way to a slight warming trend. The 14 Freeway, Interstate 5 and Interstate 15 were all reopened in both directions, said Officer Alex Gonzalez of the California Highway Patrol. Weather conditions will remain dry, cool and blustery as the big arctic storm that brought heavy rain and snow moves east, forecasters said.

Winding lazily into the Sierra Nevada, California 140's two asphalt lanes for generations served as the busiest road to Yosemite, with more than 1 million visitors each year rolling up the route to the magnificent granite valley. But of late, the natural world has gotten in the way. A dozen miles from the park, the old road has disappeared, its once-bustling blacktop buried under a rubble pile broad as two football fields.

If you're driving to Las Vegas this weekend, plan on taking your patience: As part of a major repaving project in Devore, contractors plan to close the northbound Interstate 215 connector to Interstate 15 from 9 tonight until 4 a.m. Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation. "This is going to be a tough weekend," said Terri Kasinga, warning of traffic delays of up to three hours while vehicles are diverted around the quarter-mile freeway closure.

A large building crane crashed across the northbound lanes of the 405 Freeway in Sherman Oaks on Friday, closing one of the region's busiest roadways for more than three hours and causing traffic to clog along radiating arteries for miles around. The crane operator was pinned in his cab and seriously injured in the collapse, and two motorists were hurt when their vehicles crashed into each other and then into the arm of the crane. The crane collapsed about 1 p.m.