The Inquisitr » Los Angeles

LA gets closer to getting its new NFL stadium

Joshua Lobdell — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:04:08 +0000

So maybe it isn’t exactly Los Angeles proper, but the City of Industry is getting closer and closer to building its own NFL style stadium. This city sits around 15 miles east of Los Angeles, and cleared one of the few remaining hurdles to go ahead with the construction of its NFL venue. The City of Industry City Council approved a deal this week to settle a lawsuit with a neighboring city about the construction of the new venue.

The City of Industry will pay the city of Walnut 9 million dollars, an annual payment of 350k, and other concessions to get hat city to drop its suit that claimed the City of Industry did not research the full environmental impact of the proposed project.

This city is betting that once the project is fully approved, and construction begins it will be able to lure an existing NFL team to it. The most likely teams to relocate there seem to be the San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, or the Minnesota Vikings. While the St. Louis Rams are for sale, it seems likely that a local St. Louis owner will buy that team and keep them in St. Louis.

The Raiders and Chargers are two California teams that are in need of new facilities, and we all know AL Davis is all too happy to move his team up and down the California coast. Since California is essentially a bankrupt state, there will be no deals to use public money to build either team new diggs, they may look at the LA project as a great way to get a new stadium.

Recession not all bad, just ask Cheronda Guyton

Kim LaCapria — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:55:39 +0000

While the mortgage crisis has devastated people across the country, pushing some of the middle class into foreclosure and forcing the closure of many banks, a Wells Fargo exec had a pretty rockin’ summer because of it.

Cheronda Guyton is a top level executive at Wells Fargo overseeing foreclosures- an event that is probably one of the most heart-wrenching days in the lives of many people. But she didn’t let that get her down. When a Lawrence and Linda Elis- whose mortgage was through Wells Fargo- lost much of their fortune due to Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme, Guyton didn’t let their vacant home sit vacant for long.

Throughout the summer, Guyton is accused of spending weekends there and throwing lavish parties in the gated beachfront community. What’s more, it’s said that in the months in which Guyton used the bank owned home as her personal playground, Wells Fargo outright refused to show the home to people who might actually pay for it. As you likely know, vacant homes affect the value of surrounding houses. Neighbors were understandably displeased with the situation. An expert in business ethics commented to the LA Times on the scandal:

“For a business to allow this to happen in today’s ethically charged climate is quite suicidal,” he said. And because Madoff’s fraud was the root cause of the situation, he added, “it’s like rubbing salt into the wounds of a national tragedy.”

The LA Times report that they surprised a woman at the home on Labor Day Weekend, but could not confirm it was Cheronda Guyton as she refused to answer the door. However, they also report that Guyton was audacious enough to request a homeowner’s pass to enter the gated community over the past few months and the information on the pass matches the registration of Guyton’s 2007 Volvo SUV.

There is a page set up to showcase the house at 106malibucolony.com, with many more pictures of the $12m beachfront home.

[Source: LA Times]

Fire truck falls into sinkhole [Video]

Steven Hodson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:38:44 +0000

Firemen are use to strange and unusual things to happen while their on the job but I somehow doubt that they ever expected to find themselves and their truck falling into a sinkhole.

This was the case though today in Valley Village, Los Angeles, as the truck and crew were on their way to a reported water main break when they found themselves in a flooded area that was hiding the sinkhole. The truck ended up in the hole with the backend protruding at a 45-degree angle.

It took crews with a crane the better part of five hours to extract the truck from the hole. Luckily none of the firemen were injured in the incident.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video.

Want a celebrity baby? There’s sperm for that.

Steven Hodson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Typically sperm banks have used the selling power of brains over beauty. High IQ’s through smart people looking to spread their genome for so much a pop. That is what typically brings people in need, or desire, to the high priced sperm banks that promise discretion and excellent SAT scores.

But our world is changing and celebrities of all kinds are the new models of what people want for their children, and the more famous the better. Hence the arrival of celebrity look-a-like sperm banks like the one that has seen a Los Angeles based sperm bank, California Cryobank, spin-off a celebrity-inspired Donor Look-A-Like service.

The service has proven to be so popular, with 300 percent more traffic to their main site than usual, that the company is opening a branch in New York. Of course the donors aren’t the celebrities themselves but rather men who look like some celebrity which means there is a lot of subjective decision making going on.

The company’s process of attributing a celebrity to a donor could never be termed scientific. Male and female employees of varying ages make up the assigning committee. They meet, put each donor’s picture up on a projector, and then argue about whom he looks like. Scott Brown, California Cryobank’s communications manager, says it’s more complex than it seems. “There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s not just sitting in a room deciding who looks like Ben Affleck,” he says. “What sounded really easy got complicated when we realized that people see people in completely different ways. So we’re very concerned about misleading clients. One rule we made was that a donor never gets just one celeb. And one of our representatives can always get on the phone and explain.”

Source: Daily Intel – Dreaming of Celebrity Genes: Donor Look-A-Like Sperm Bank Comes to NYC

The really sad thing about this is that I an see it being a booming business.

It’s gotta hurt to lose $32 Billion

Steven Hodson — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:11:33 +0000

According to the Los Angeles Business Journal the top 50 wealthiest Angelenos lost a combined $32 billion last year, making it the worst year on record. In fact the number of billionaires calling Los Angeles home has been reduced to a measly 29, its lowest in five years.

Just about everyone on the list lost millions last year, but forty-one had losses in excess of $100 million and eight hit the $1 billion mark in losses.

This change in financial standings has resulted in quite the shuffling of the wealth deck with last year’s #1, Kirk Kerkorian, losing half his fortune but I wouldn’t cry too many tears for him as he still has more than $5 billion left to play with. The shuffle did however open up the number one spot to a new comer unknown outside of California. Turns out that former surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong has taken over first place on the list. It didn’t hurt that he sold his generic-drug making company, APP Pharmaceuticals, for $3 billion.

The current list of the Top 10 in the LA Business Journal’s list runs down like this

Rank Name 2009 2008 %Chge (in millions)
1 Patrick Soon-Shiong $6,000 $3,700 +62%
2 Eli Broad $5,400 $6,900 -22%
3 Kirk Kerkorian $5,300 $10,600 -50%
4 David Murdock $3,700 $4,500 -18%
5 Ron Burkle $3,650 $3,500 +4%
6 David Geffen $3,600 $4,800 -25%
7 Steven Spielberg $2,900 $3,300 -12%
8 Haim Saban $2,800 $4,200 -33%
9 A. Jerrold Perenchio $2,400 $3,250 -26%
10 Tom Gores $2,250 $2,500 –10%

hat tip to The Wealth Report

Venice Beach Earthquake Rattles Los Angeles

Duncan Riley — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 08:21:33 +0000

A minor earthquake centered at Venice Beach rattled parts of Los Angeles Friday night but caused no damage.

The 3.4 magnitude quake hit at 7:42 p.m. local time with people from Inglewood to the Pacific Palisades feeling a slight rattle

The earthquake follows a 3.1-magnitude shake in the San Fernando Valley Thursday.

Authorities said that the quakes are a good reminder that Southern Californians should be prepared for major seismic activity.

Amazing Los Angeles Timelapse Film

Duncan Riley — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:14:56 +0000

I’ll admit I’m a sucker for timelapse clips, but this Los Angeles timelapse film is the best I’ve seen for a while.

Extraordinarily well taken using a Canon 20D, and the music is spot on. It’s a little long, but well worth it. There also seems to be some footage of San Francisco as well in one part..oh well, it adds to the value.

Enjoy:

(via Attuworld)

LA gets its own Tech News and Gossip site Lalawag

Duncan Riley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:35:54 +0000

Sean Percival, formerly with Mahalo and known to many as a strong Second Life advocate (he also wrote a book on the subject) has launched Lalawag, a tech gossip and news blog for Southern California.

Percival says that there’s a burgeoning startup tech scene here in Los Angeles, but no one really documenting it, at least not in a significant way.

The site will cover tech news and gossip, but despite the name it’s not a SoCal Valleywag, although it will have elements of Valleywag with former Valleywag intern and one of my favorite TechCrunch commenters (well, at least when I wasn’t the target) Alaska Miller joining the team as well.

Along with local news, the site will document news outside the region, and offers syndicated links to news in New York and Silicon Alley.

We wish Sean and the team luck, and I’ve added the RSS feed to GReader.

Justin Long’s New Romance: Trading Down?

Meieli Sawyer — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:25:04 +0000

After hanging out with fans and giving them some love, lanky Justin Long has moved on. According to recent buzz, he met his current flame Kirsten Dunst at Sunset Junction in L.A. when the sun went down last weekend. Rush & Molloy reported that one of the waitresses saw them “all over each other” and “making out hard-core while waiting in line for margaritas.”

Maybe Justin Long was only sexy when he had Drew Barrymore by his side, ’cause I’m not really feeling it anymore. Maybe it has something to do with this very gross photo of him with Kirsten Dunst, and the thought of them PDA-ing all over the place. I keep picturing Kirsten dressed like this, which is so not helping.

Dirty kisses indeed.

Images: WireImage

Ellen and Portia: Married!

Meieli Sawyer — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:28:05 +0000

Congrats to Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi, who were married Saturday afternoon after announcing their engagement just three months ago! Their rep confirmed to PEOPLE that “[They] were married tonight in an intimate ceremony at their home in Los Angeles” in an exclusive report.

It sounds like the whole thing was pretty romantic, too: De Rossi’s mom flew in from Australia for the ceremony and the two even swapped handwritten vows. Oh, and did I mention that they were even outfitted in the same designer? Both girls wore Zac Posen, with Portia in a light pink gown and Ellen in an all-white suit.

Everybody loves a happy couple.

Image: WireImage

Britney’s Back in Action and Paps are Primed

Meieli Sawyer — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:54:01 +0000

There’s a lot going on in Britney’s world, and for the most part, it’s actually all good. If you had been thinking that the day would never come, you weren’t alone: every “journalist” and his mother will be choking the Los Angeles streets to catch a glimpse of. . . something when she arrives at her custody hearing tomorrow. The scent of comeback could be getting stronger, but not as strong as that of normalcy.

Despite the dangers of newfound confidence, this could be Britney’s break in a tough year. Think about it: she just jetted back from hanging with the fam, her sister seems genuinely excited about having a baby, Brit’s slated to appear in another episode of How I Met Your Mother, and people seem to really like her again. I mean, besides the crazed fans who loved her anyway.

I’d still recommend that you hang on to your cowboy hats, ’cause if we know Britney, things could take a quick turn into sh**tsville, and fast. One thing I am sure of: there’ll be plenty of footage of the paparazzi fighting each other off to get a glimpse of Britney.

Image right: People (Francis Specker/Landov)

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