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December 29, 2006
The last trading day of 2006 ended on a down note, with the Dow falling 38 points. But overall this...
This might have started a few days back, but today is the first time I've seen a Daily News story...
Several candidates come to mind, but my favorite is how the runup in gas prices would severely impact the economy...
It's sure looking that way, considering that opponents of extending the city's Living Wage law to LAX-area hotels have supposedly...
December 28, 2006
An announcement by the New York Stock Exchange is expected shortly. Nasdaq has already announced plans to be closed as...
You might recall plans first announced last year by the L.A.-based home builder to develop thousands of homes on a...
December 27, 2006
It was a challenge to get a ticket on Christmas Day, when sell-out crowds prompted some theaters to add late...
The arrangements, to be announced sometime today, will likely involve a small private ceremony in Palm Desert, where the public...
December 26, 2006
There's been a fair amount of blog chatter among foodies about the last days of L'Orangerie, the grand dame of...
They're up more than 20 cents a gallon since Nov. 6, just as the holiday sales season was getting started....
In the absence of any big news this week, it doesn't take much to get traders and investors thinking about...
We're here all week, but as you can guess the news machine is mostly in sleep-mode until next Tuesday. So...
"Disappointing" is the word being bandied about this morning. Visa USA said sales rose 6.5 percent in November and December,...
Socal's affluent residents - we're talking annual income of more than $200,000 - give away twice as much of their...
December 24, 2006
You knew it had to happen. After being pummeled pretty consistently these past 10 days for her scurrilous ways, the...
December 22, 2006
The editor of West magazine told his staff today that he has given notice to become a senior fellow at...
Remember when L.A. officials tried to convince Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to eadquarter its new U.S. airline here? The...
But things are hardly normal. Two runways were opened at around 10 a.m. and they're hoping to clear two more...
L.A. County's jobless rate fell to 4.2 percent in November, which is the lowest level in at least 30 years....
In the media world, five years is ancient history. Consider the case of Rupert Murdoch, who in October 2001 lost...
Travel mess: The big problem, of course, involves getting in and out of Denver, where the airport isn't even scheduled...
The long-discussed plan for News Corp. to hand over its controlling stake in the El Segundo-based satellite service to Liberty...
December 21, 2006
That's been the heavy-duty speculation going into the 2007 acquisition season. Merrill Lynch's David Anders added more fuel to the...
Well, at least in advance of an expected appeal. Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs overturned the law that would give...
Laura Mecoy, who has been in the L.A. office for 14 years, says she's considering whether to relocate her family...
The old palooka (and I do mean old) scored a more-than-respectable $6.2 million on opening day - a mid-week opener...
Chandlers and Tribune: Representatives of the newspaper family were in Chicago this week to hear a sales presentation on the...
December 20, 2006
Demographers are taking note of the dwindling numbers coming into California from other states. Between 2005 and 2006, net immigration...
When the L.A.-based real estate company was being run by Richard Ziman, the focus was strictly on Southern California (Ziman...
You have to feel for Irvine-based Taco Bell, which is struggling to get back fast-food customers as a result of...
BW offers its end-of-the-year roster, which includes some obvious clunkers (the O.J. Simpson book and TV interview, Hewlett-Packard's boneheaded efforts...
For anyone who missed the former GE chairman the other night on Stephen Colbert's Comedy Central show, let's just say...
Ticketmaster buys stake: The West Hollywood-based ticket service has picked up a 25 percent stake in iLike.com, where users exchange...
December 19, 2006
Coming to any conclusions about next year's housing market has become a thankless exercise because many of the numbers are...
Many of them are noticeably later this year - presumably because online retailers are doing a better job at turning...
The Port of Los Angeles saw a 16.3 percent increase in the number of containers handled last month compared with...
If you're struggling to find a hotel room under $200 a night during the holidays, there's always downtown. The Sheraton...
This has been talked about off and on ever since it emerged from bankruptcy three years ago. FOH Holdings, the...
The assumption has been that holiday shoppers wait to the last minute in the expectation that retailers will mark down...
'Jewish cabal': That's the phrase Judith Regan apparently used in her conversation with the HarperCollins attorney - the conversation that...
December 18, 2006
Port of Los Angeles officials have made plans for the nation's first container-inspection facility on 14 acres of Terminal Island....
He's the owner of L.A.-based American Apprel and always seems to be in the middle of controversy, mostly for the...
That's the Dutch parent of THR, Adweek, Billboard and Nielsen. All told, 4,000 jobs, or around 10 percent of the...
Sounds like it's just in the talking stage, but the owner of NY's famous frank-and-juice emporiums has been expanding outside...
Tribune vs. Chandler: With little action from the outside, it's looking like Tribune management and the Chandler family will make...
December 17, 2006
LAT reports that Judith Regan's sudden firing late Friday afternoon came right after a phone conversation with a HarperCollins attorney...
December 16, 2006
It's the 54-story hotel and condo tower that's the centerpiece of the L.A. Live complex, right next to Staples Center....
December 15, 2006
HarperCollins announced the dismissal of the wild-and-crazy editor, who created quite a stir with her plans for a book and...
The new owner of the Four Points Sheraton Hotel has rehired 12 workers who were let go earlier in the...
This one, from Entrepreneur.com, involves Valerie Bent, who two years ago was working for an L.A.-area investor relations firm she...
Say what you will about Dean Singleton, but the guy is persistent. He's finally getting his hands on the Daily...
As in public companies now having to report executive perks over $10,000 (from $50,000). The new SEC rule is already...
Did you know that Americans drank 10 times as much bottled water in 2004 as they did in 1980, that...
Gas prices go up: The party's over, it appears. Refinery production problems have pushed up wholesale prices and that's having...
December 14, 2006
Interested in showing up your neighbor with the hottest, coolest, hippest, trendiest, have-to-have-at-any-cost add-on for your house? Real estate author...
Talking about stating the obvious. The Southern California Association of Governments came out with its annual State of the Region...
It's not the Monday after Thanksgiving, as the news stories would have you believe. It was actually this past Monday,...
Was it just a few months back that Disney was considered in a no-win position as the distributor of Gibson's...
At the closing bell, the Dow was up 96 points (it retreated a bit from earlier in the session). It...
Chandler update: WSJ reports that the Chandler family, which is making noises about making a bid for part of Tribune...
December 13, 2006
Now that lettuce has been identified as the probable source - or delivery "vehicle" - in the outbreak of E....
That's at least the view of 24/7 Wall St.'s Douglas McIntyre, who lists the Thousand Oaks-based Amgen as among the...
While we're on the subject of rich and poor, perhaps it's worth noting that in this season of Wall Street...
Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the gap between rich and poor is a serious national concern, according to a new...
The NYT's David Cay Johnson likes to delve into some very complicated economic and financial stories. His latest effort concerns...
It's very small, but 1st Century Bank has gotten a fair amount of attention because it was started up by...
Housing settles down: The median price of an L.A. County home was $510,000 in November, according to DataQuick Information Systems,...
December 12, 2006
Techcrunch claims it's gotten a hold of documents showing the progression of negotiations between Yahoo and the social networking site...
The NFL Network is offering Time Warner Cable one free week of its programming, but the offer doesn't appear to...
New ways to cheat: But you have to be a corporate executive who is already manipulating his stock option grants....
December 11, 2006
L.A. and other large Socal cities saw a drop in both central-city and suburban poverty rates over the period between...
Searching the Internet for "construction laborer" and "Mexican workers" could turn up an outfit called Labormex Foreign Labor Solutions, which...
Shopping update: Retailers might get a break this year because Hanukkah starts on Dec. 15, which means an extra shopping...
December 10, 2006
His ultra-violent "Apocalypto" found enough takers over the weekend to top the box office charts. The R-rated story set in...
Could a place like Chandler, Ariz. offer its residents the same kind of retail offerings without benefit of chain stores?...
It's inevitable that the popular video site would be getting some competition, so now we have Fox, Viacom, CBS and...
December 02, 2006
I'll be traveling next week, so posting will be light and sporadic (no morning headlines). Normal posting returns next weekend....
Part of Kirk Kerkorian's mystique is that he simply doesn't do interviews. But that doesn't mean his friends and business...
December 01, 2006
You just knew that Disney animators would be getting the short end of the stick when the Mouse House purchased...
The criminal case against the Compton-based supermarket chain is not over. At least the questions aren’t. While Ralphs the company...
This time, it's Keith Turner, president of ad sales. Turner, who had been with the network for nearly 20 years,...
Does Beverly Hills really need a kosher steakhouse that also specializes in sushi? We'll find out next week when New...
Shares are down 6.1 percent this morning, at $26.01, after the Calabasas-based restaurant chain reported lower third-quarter profit and a...
It was the biggest month of the year for the financial markets - stocks, corporate bonds, private equity, mergers and...
So much for that investment: Turns out that billionaire Kirk Kerkorian is pulling out of GM entirely. The WSJ reports...
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