Former L.A. City Hall aide faces $37,500 fine for failing to report lobbying
A former City Hall aide faces more than $37,000 in fines for himself and his consulting company after failing to report that he was lobbying Los Angeles officials, following an inquiry by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. Gary Benjamin, a former planning deputy to City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, formed his own consulting company after…
Santa Monica and Airbnb settle case after appeals court rules for city
Airbnb reached a settlement with Santa Monica on Tuesday to collect money from renters for affordable housing in the city and ensure compliance with strict short-term rental rules. Click Here: liverpool mens jersey A federal appeals court in March unanimously rejected Airbnb’s challenge of Santa Monica’s 2015 home-sharing ordinance, which prohibits short-term rentals if the…
Merriam-Webster declares 'they' its 2019 word of the year
NEW YORK — A common but increasingly mighty and very busy little word, “they,” has an accolade all its own. The language mavens at Merriam-Webster have declared the personal pronoun their word of the year based on a 313% increase in look-ups on the company’s search site, Merriam-Webster.com, this year when compared with 2018. “I have…
Review: Hanns Eisler opera at Stanford reopens the book on a blacklisted Hollywood composer
PALO ALTO — At the moment when tech mammoths Amazon, Apple and Netflix are reinventing Hollywood, the U.S. premiere at Stanford University of “Hell’s Fury, the Hollywood Songbook” Saturday night might seem a bit rich. Hanns Eisler’s songs, written during Hollywood’s supposed golden age, most with texts by Bertolt Brecht, do an excellent job of encapsulating…
Oscar predictions: Can 'The Irishman' take an unusual route to the precious?
I never thought I’d be putting Robert De Niro and Gollum in the same sentence, but that’s where we find ourselves at a moment when “The Irishman” could become the first movie since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” to win the Oscars for best picture and visual effects. Here’s a…
'Ad Astra's action-packed lunar chase puts you right in Brad Pitt's seat
Click:china wire harness connector manufacturers There’s an action sequence in director James Gray’s sci-fi thriller “Ad Astra” that’s packed with thrills but also rife with nuance. Brad Pitt is Roy McBride, an astronaut who finds himself saving mankind from a threat deep in outer space. U.S. intelligence has asked him to send a message from…
Metrolink train riders get free Lyft rides to and from Ontario airport
Good news for travelers who take Metrolink: Now you can get a free Lyft ride from four stations to Ontario international Airport (ONT). The idea is to make travel easier and more accessible to the airport a few miles east of the Inland Empire city’s downtown. Lyft passengers receive up to $35 to cover rides…
PG&E stock soars nearly 16% on settlement with wildfire victims
Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. stock surged to a two-month high Monday after reaching a $13.5-billion settlement with the victims of wildfires ignited by its power lines — a major step toward resolving the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history. The agreement, announced late Friday, will cover claims stemming from some of the worst blazes…
SoftBank sells its stake in Wag back to the dog-walking start-up
SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund is selling back its nearly 50% stake in Wag Labs Inc. as the Los Angeles dog-walking start-up cuts staff. Wag will regain control of SoftBank’s two board seats as part of the agreement, according to a memo Wag sent to staff Monday. The company didn’t disclose terms of the deal…
Stocks slip as U.S.-China tariff deadline looms
Stocks on Wall Street closed modestly lower Monday as losses in technology, healthcare and financial companies outweighed gains elsewhere in the market. The selling snapped a three-day winning streak for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and wiped out the benchmark index’s 0.2% gain from last week. Trading was mostly muted as investors looked ahead…