Washed It! » economy

Disney agrees to sell Miramax Films to investor group led by Ron Tutor

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

After months of negotiations with various buyers that failed to bear fruit, Walt Disney Co. finally reached a deal to sell its Miramax Films unit in a deal that severs the independent movie pioneer’s 17-year association with the Burbank studio.

Disney late Thursday signed a definitive agreement to sell Miramax to Filmyard Holding, an investor group led by Los Angeles construction magnate Ron Tutor, for more than $660 million, putting the future of the company with a long string of award-winning films into the hands of a Hollywood outsider.

Tutor and his partners, including Los Angeles private equity firm Colony Capital, delivered a nonrefundable down payment of $40 million to Disney on Thursday, which will be held in escrow until they secure all the financing by a closing date of no later than Dec. 3. Tutor and Colony Capital will each put up about $100 million of the purchase price, while minority investor Jerome Swartz, a retired engineer and philanthropist, is expected to contribute an additional $25 million to $50 million in equity.

Toyota recalls 412,000 cars in U.S. over steering problems

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:14:00 +0000

TOKYO —

Toyota is recalling 412,000 passenger cars, mostly the Avalon model, in the U.S. for steering problems in which three accidents have been reported, the automaker said Thursday.

The 373,000 Avalons being recalled range from the 2000 model year through to 2004 and have improper casting of the steering lock bar — a component for the steering system — causing cracks to develop on the surface.

In some cases, the crack can cause the lock bar to break, potentially leading to a crash if the steering wheel locks, the world’s No. 1 automaker by car sales said. No injuries have been reported from the accidents that may be caused by the defect, it said.

Schwarzenegger vetoes overtime for farmworkers

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Reporting from Sacramento —

Saying he didn’t want to damage California’s agricultural economy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation bill that would have given farmworkers the same rights to overtime pay enjoyed by all other hourly workers in California.

Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to business and reverse longstanding labor practices, Schwarzenegger wrote in a veto message.

BP appears destined to get its first American CEO

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:07:00 +0000

The man widely expected to take the helm of oil giant BP as early as Tuesday would be the first American to become chief executive of the 101-year-old British company.

Robert W. Dudley has a lot going for him as he prepares to tackle the most daunting challenge of his long career. And he’ll need the experience he’s gained over the last 31 years in the oil business, industry experts said.

Dudley’s task is to rescue BP. To do that, he has to repair a lot of damage: the physical and economic wreckage from the oil spill, the backlash against his company, mounting legal woes and internal grumbling about a Yankee — a former executive of onetime rival Amoco, to boot — taking over the top spot.

What labor may like best about Brown: He’s not Whitman

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:33:00 +0000

Reporting from Sacramento —

The television ads seize on the millions of dollars organized labor is spending to help elect Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, warning that if he’s victorious, he would be “their governor.”

Labor leaders watching the spots, which are funded by billionaire GOP nominee Meg Whitman, should be so lucky.

Unions are indeed reaching deep into their pockets to help Brown, whose campaign needs the cash to compete with Whitman’s personal fortune. But how much return they will get on their investment under a Brown governorship is unclear.

Police and community work together to arrest a murder suspect in South L.A.

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Venus Mason wasn’t wearing her uniform at the Los Angeles Police Department’s press conference outside the Starbucks on Crenshaw Boulevard. With her bright blouse, matching necklace and auburn-tipped dreadlocks, she looked more like the folks watching from the sidewalk than like her fellow police officers behind the microphones.

That seemed fitting to me, given Det. Mason’s role in the drama that brought us together to mark the arrest of a local man on a murder warrant.

This was no high-profile case, like the Grim Sleeper. The crime took place in Georgia, so nobody here knew the victim. The capture didn’t rely on DNA or generate much outside attention.

Critic’s Notebook: The devil in Don Draper

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. … He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing … he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance. … And he’ll get all the great women.”

— Aaron Altman ( Albert Brooks) in “Broadcast News”

The fourth-season premiere of AMC’s “Mad Men” opens Sunday with a voice asking: “Who is Don Draper?”

Weakening recovery brings deja vu

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Reporting from Washington —

Even as Congress moves to extend jobless benefits for millions of workers, a growing body of evidence suggests the United States is heading toward an economic netherworld — avoiding a slide back into recession but growing so slowly that unemployment will remain high, home prices low and incomes essentially stagnant.

Many Americans may continue to feel much as they did during the worst recession in half a century: filled with insecurity, financial pressures and fading hopes for a quick return to better times.

“Extended unemployment benefits is helpful but hardly the booster rocket that’s needed to get out of the gravitational pull of this terrible economy,” said Robert Reich, a public policy professor at UC Berkeley.

U.S. lets BP keep well sealed for now

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Reporting from Los Angeles and Atlanta —

The federal government has given BP the go-ahead to keep its well sealed for another day after concluding that, at least for now, there are no serious problems with the capping operation that has stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Federal officials have been conducting a delicate balancing act, relieved that BP has shut down the monster leak with a new cap but also worried that the seal could force oil out of the well hole into the seabed and create the equivalent of a deep-sea oil volcano.

Monitoring has revealed several “anomalies,” including a small leak in the cap seal and bubbles — believed to be natural gas — rising from the base of the blowout preventer. But Thad Allen, the national incident commander, said none were of great concern.

BP: Cap that has, so far, halted gulf oil leak could remain until permanent fix is in place

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:59:00 +0000

Reporting from Atlanta —

A top BP official said Sunday that the full seal on top of the company’s well in the Gulf of Mexico could remain in place for a few weeks until the well is permanently plugged by a relief well deep underground — meaning there is a chance, if all goes well, that the last of the oil has flowed into the gulf.

The well was fully sealed Thursday using a massive, custom-built cap, which stopped the oil flow for the first time in 85 days. But government and other experts worried about the consequences of the seal: If the well’s underground pipes were cracked, they said, the seal could force more oil out of the cracks and up to the ocean’s surface, creating multiple new leaks.

In an attempt to see if the well was cracked, BP and federal officials began a 48-hour pressure test inside the well Thursday. On Saturday, Thad Allen, the national leak response leader, announced the test would be extended for another day so experts could continue to study the results.