Bidding

The 131-character dispatch arrived mournfully within two hours of sunrise May 4, at 7:58 a.m. to be exact. "When u give Give GIVE and they take Take TAKE at wat point do u draw a line in the sand?" Kobe Bryant wrote on his Twitter feed, adding the hashtags "hurt beyond measure," "gave me no warning," and finally, "love?" Bryant's career with the Lakers has often been pushed aside by internal family matters, the recent court battle over his memorabilia the latest in a string of cheerless events.

After months of controversy, the owner of St. John's Health Center said it plans to sell the landmark Santa Monica hospital to Catholic chain Providence Health & Services. The hospital has been at the center of an intense competition that featured bids from UCLA Health System, other Catholic hospital chains and Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. After weighing the offers, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System in Denver said Friday that it was entering exclusive negotiations with Providence, which owns St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and four other Southern California hospitals.

The California bullet train agency on Thursday defended its bidding criteria for selecting the winner for its first construction contract, saying that the process held down prices and was handled properly. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has come under fire from critics who assert changes to the bidding criteria could jeopardize the quality of the project. The authority tentatively chose a team led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to build a 29-mile segment of track through Fresno even though it had the lowest technical score.

SACRAMENTO - California's financial picture is much brighter than Gov. Jerry Brown suggested in his latest spending plan, according to the Legislature's top budget advisor, who said the state will have $3.2 billion more at its disposal than the governor estimated. Improvements on Wall Street and in the state's housing market will mean about $4.4 billion in extra cash through the next budget year, rather than the $1.2 billion the governor has projected, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said in a report Friday.

Memphis Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley and Los Angeles investor Tony Ressler have joined forces and re-entered the bidding for the Dodgers, a person familiar with the sale process said Monday. Ressler, a minority investor in the Milwaukee Brewers, is believed to be the only remaining bidder currently involved in MLB. The Heisley-Ressler bid would be the eighth submitted to Major League Baseball for consideration. MLB has agreed to approve up to 10 bidders, after which outgoing owner Frank McCourt will select the winner.

Direct Brands plans a $215-million opening bid for Borders Group Inc., the nation's second-largest bookseller, in a Bankruptcy Court auction. Once sold — probably later this month — the Ann Arbor, Mich., bookseller will morph into something different, said turnaround expert Jim McTevia of McTevia & Associates. "This should have been done long before Borders ended up in bankruptcy," he said. "An equity firm has to do this and dump all the assets they don't want. What is left is probably going to be a viable operating company, but not anywhere near what it is today.

Stanley Gold and Leo Hindery, the leaders of the two Dodgers bid groups rejected by Major League Baseball, will appeal to a court-appointed mediator, two people familiar with the process said Thursday. Joseph Farnan, the mediator overseeing the sale of the Dodgers for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, is scheduled to hear from Gold and Hindery on Monday, the people said. Farnan is expected to rule Tuesday. The 30 major league owners are expected to vote to approve or reject all remaining bidders next Thursday or Friday.

Tom Barrack has partnered with Leo Hindery on a bid for the Dodgers, bringing together a prominent Los Angeles billionaire with the founder of the New York Yankees' cable channel. The alliance was disclosed Sunday by a person familiar with the Dodgers sale process but not authorized to discuss it. Hindery and fellow New York financier Marc Utay lead one of at least eight groups that survived Friday's first cut among the bidders. That group had been one of the two prospective buyers known to remain in the bidding without a significant tie to Los Angeles.

The owner of the reigning NBA champions will not be the next owner of the Dodgers. Mark Cuban was eliminated from the Dodgers' ownership sweepstakes Friday, along with baseball executive and former agent Dennis Gilbert, according to two people familiar with the process but not authorized to discuss it. At least eight bidders advanced to the second round Friday, including a group led by Magic Johnson and veteran baseball executive Stan Kasten...

The Pacific 10 Conference has spent more than a year preparing for the moment when it can put its television rights up to bid on the open market for the first time since its expansion. With Fox's exclusive negotiating window expiring Thursday, the conference can shop the rights to some 2,700 events a year and a possible partnership in a Pac-12 network to a bevy of interested media and technology companies. The conference will have 12 teams with the additions of Utah and Colorado, covers one-fifth of the country and is the last major-college property on the market for at least a few years.

WASHINGTON - Facing questions about the Justice Department's secret seizure of reporters' phone records, the White House says that it will renew its push for legislation that would offer federal protections to journalists and their sources. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the White House had asked Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reintroduce the so-called media shield bill, which would in some cases prevent reporters from being compelled to name confidential sources.

A high-stakes bidding war has erupted for St. John's Health Center, a storied Santa Monica hospital, with a local billionaire teaming up with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles on an unsolicited offer. The latest bid, expected to be formally announced Wednesday, comes from former drug-company executive and healthcare entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said in a statement the bid has the support of the archdiocese. This offer is competing against at least two other bidders'.

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

CHICAGO - Mike Trout spared the Angels the indignity of being on the wrong end of a perfect game or no-hitter Sunday night, grounding a single to center field with one out in the top of the seventh inning after Chicago White Sox starter Chris Sale retired the first 19 batters. That was it as far as offensive highlights for the Angels, who were one-hit by Sale in a 3-0 loss in U.S. Cellular Field that ended their win streak at three and dropped them to 14-23 and 10 games behind Texas in the American League West.

True Religion Apparel Inc., the Southern California purveyor of pricey designer denim, may have gotten too small for its britches. More than half a year after putting itself up for sale amid growth struggles and fluctuating stock, the high-end-jeans seller said its board unanimously accepted an $835-million takeover offer from investment firm TowerBrook Capital Partners. The $32-a-share deal for the Vernon label represents an 8.7% premium on Thursday's $29.44-a-share closing price and a 52% increase from the stock price Oct. 9, the day before True Religion said it would explore strategic alternatives.

Abel Maldonado, in his first public move since announcing that he was considering a run for governor, on Wednesday attacked Gov. Jerry Brown's prison policy, arguing that Brown has made Californians unsafe by allowing certain criminals serve their sentences in county jails instead of state prison. Maldonado, the state's former lieutenant governor, will announce Wednesday morning that he is spearheading an effort to put an initiative on the 2014 ballot that would roll back a 2011 bill - AB 109, known as “public-safety realignment” -- which was designed to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.

The leader of a Santa Monica-funded legal clinic providing free advice to low-income people has attacked a city bidding process that picked another agency to conduct a tenant-advocacy program in Santa Monica. The complaint, lodged by Merced Martin, executive director of Westside Legal Services, is part of his organization's dispute with the Santa Monica city attorney's office over the operation of the legal program for low-income residents. City Atty. Robert M.

A possible bidding war emerged Wednesday for Standard Broadcasting, the Toronto-based parent of Chatsworth-based Valley Cable TV, as a second Canadian broadcaster disclosed tentative plans to make a tender offer for Standard Broadcasting's stock. Selkirk Communications of Toronto said it wants to offer $24 (Canadian) a share for all of Standard Broadcasting's 5.9 million common shares. At the current exchange rate, the offer would be worth $104 million in U.S. dollars.

The California bullet train agency on Thursday defended its bidding criteria for selecting the winner for its first construction contract, saying that the process held down prices and was handled properly. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has come under fire from critics who assert changes to the bidding criteria could jeopardize the quality of the project. The authority tentatively chose a team led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to build a 29-mile segment of track through Fresno even though it had the lowest technical score.

The PTA at Point Dume Elementary in Malibu is a fundraising machine. Parents collected about $2,100 per student in the 2009-10 school year, money that helped pay for music and art programs, as well as a dedicated marine science lab. But now the Santa Monica-Malibu school board wants to funnel much of that money away and, in the name of educational equality, give it to other district campuses. The move has sparked an effort in Malibu to secede from the district, igniting a battle between one wealthy community and its less wealthy neighbor that echoes across the state.