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Stocks inch higher: After last week's big gains, the market is cooling off. Dow is up 20 points.
E3 returning to L.A.: Organizers of the big video game show are signing a three-year deal to keep the event at the L.A. Convention Center through 2015. From the LAT:
E3 has been among L.A.'s most lucrative conventions. At the event this June, for example, 47,500 attendees generated an estimated $40 million in direct spending on such things as hotels, taxi and car services, parties, restaurant meals and hundreds of temporary booth employees. But negotiations to renew the contract with the city snagged when the ESA expressed concerns that proposed stadium construction could disrupt the show.
Playa Vista lease deal: The ad agency 72ndandSunny will rent 58,000 square feet that had been part of Hughes Aircraft headquarters. The firm's new landlord, Ratkovich Co., is spending as much as $90 million to buy, restore and improve the old Hughes property. (LAT)
New York triples post-production tax credit: The giveaway covers film editing, visual effects, color correction, sound mixing and other post-production work. The state has doled out more than $1 billion in credits since 2004. (THR)
"Dark Knight" still tops: The final chapter of the Batman trilogy brought in $64 million in its second weekend, a 60 percent drop from last week. In second place was the animated family film "Ice Age: Continental Drift," at $13.3 million. (AP)
LAFD starts hiring: The department expects to add 150 firefighters in 2013-2014 and another 150 the following year. From the Daily News:
The City Council gave the LAFD approval to begin the hiring process, and OK'd funding for a battalion chief and captain to oversee the program. The department expects to hire the first 150 firefighters in 2013-14. "It gets to a point where our staffing shortfalls become more costly," said Battalion Chief Steve Hissong, who will be the recruitment section commander this fall. "It becomes more costly to hire overtime than it does to hire new recruits."
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.