Bonds

The alarm over potential bank runs in Greece and Spain this week has highlighted an often-overlooked fact: Europe's debt crisis is also, in many ways, a major banking crisis. In capitals such as Athens, Madrid and Rome, large portions of the sovereign debt racked up by spendthrift governments are owed to the countries' own banks, locking governments and the banks in an embrace so tight that disaster for one would almost certainly spell doom for the other. International bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal have helped to keep not just their governments but also their banks afloat, as well as financial institutions in other parts of Europe with large exposure to those nations' debts.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a long-awaited federal financing agreement that will help ensure a vital transportation corridor doesn't become a drain on the finances of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The vote — 13 to 0 in favor, with two council members absent — allows the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority to accept $83.7 million from the Federal Rail Administration to help fund operations of the Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile freight rail expressway linking the ports to transcontinental rail lines.

Start-up companies generally get their money from two sources: professional venture investors and, a few years down the road, stock market investors. What's the difference? Here's how one of the smartest high-tech entrepreneurs I know puts it: "Venture money is expensive money, but it's smart money. Stock market money is cheap money, but it's dumb money. " Facebook is about to cannonball itself into a vast pool of dumb money. The big social media company is expected to announce its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday.

Nearly a decade ago, an improbable dream came true for Deaf West Theatre and its founder, Ed Waterstreet. The small, L.A.-based company went to Broadway with its signed and spoken version of the musical "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. " Even as he savored their success, Waterstreet had another dream - creating an original musical inspired by Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac. " What better tale for his theater to tell than one that explores the universal desire to express oneself?

General Electric Capital Corp. is taking aim at yield-hungry small investors: The finance arm of GE has launched a plan to sell $20 billion of bonds specifically to individuals. The bonds are being sold as "InterNotes" through a 2-year-old program run by Incapital of Chicago and Banc of America Securities. The InterNotes program lets small investors buy investment-grade bonds in increments of $1,000. Investors can choose how often to have interest payments made to their accounts.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. on Tuesday sold $2.9 billion worth of rate-reduction bonds, the first batch of an expected $7.4 billion by California utilities. Yield-hungry investors snapped them up. The bonds sold by the subsidiary of PG&E Corp. are backed by a special charge on electricity bills, making them less risky than bonds backed by consumer debt such as credit card payments. The new securities also offer yields about 0.03 to 0.

The days of easy double-digit gains in stocks and other securities are coming to an end, says PIMCO's Bill Gross, the best-known bond manager in the world - but bonds are still “critical components of an investment portfolio.” Consider the classic 1963 Steve McQueen film “The Great Escape,” in which American POWs are trapped in a German prison camp during World War II. There, “the living conditions were OK … but certainly not what...

The Anaheim City Council Tuesday approved formation of a new tax district for the Summit, the third of three giant planned communities in the east Anaheim Hills. The action, approved unanimously after a public hearing, will mean higher property taxes for future homeowners when they move in. The extra $8 million that would be raised by the Summit's tax supplement will be used to pay back bonds over the next 25 years for road improvements, a water reservoir and a police substation.

www.investinginbonds.com If you're reluctant to invest in stocks these days -- and hey, you're not alone -- you may be considering bonds. But with a bewildering variety to choose from, it's easy for new investors to get confused. A good place to start is Investinginbonds.com, produced by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Assn. The site offers help for novices as well as tools for experienced bond investors. Newcomers should start with the "learn more" column on the right-hand side.

The Long Beach Museum of Art's future could be at stake, with a dispute intensifying over whether the 59-year-old museum must pay back $3.06 million the city government grudgingly anted up this week to satisfy bond holders. The museum board had failed to raise that amount to pay the debt from its 2000 renovation and expansion -- and now it says it doesn't have to. Consequently, it risks losing $569,000 in annual operating support from the fiscally beleaguered city -- and the prospect of being branded a deadbeat as it tries to raise about $2 million a year from other donors.

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama Alison Bechdel Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 290 pp., $22 First things first: If you haven't read "Fun Home," Alison Bechdel's 2006 family memoir in comic form, drop everything and get a copy right away. In its pages, Bechdel does the miraculous: tracing deftly and with nuance her complex, claustrophobic relationship with her father, an English teacher and closeted gay man who died in 1980 (in what was either accident or suicide), shortly after Bechdel came out as a lesbian.

Insurgent A Novel Veronica Roth Katherine Tegen Books, 544 pp.: $17.99, for readers age 14 and up There's no questioning the impact of "The Hunger Games. " Its success has given birth to an explosion of dystopian young adult literature that invariably unfolds in some environmentally compromised, governmentally bizarre future version of the United States. The more successful books in the genre rearrange society in ways that are unfamiliar and inventively oppressive, creating a perfect petri dish for young heroines to rise up against their circumstances in ways that not only reveal their inner strengths but lead to romance.

SACRAMENTO - Might as well scratch one measure from the likely crowded November ballot: a pork-filled $11.1-billion water bond that is dying of its own weight. The Legislature produced this monster in late 2009 after years of wrangling by competing interests, culminated by an all-nighter in the Capitol. Like the proverbial bar pickup, the bond wasn't nearly as good-looking in daylight. It had been slated for the 2010 ballot, but the Legislature and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wisely delayed seeking voter approval until this year.

As part of their normal routine, the Angels held a hitters' meeting Monday before opening a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins. Hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said he didn't do much talking. Instead, Albert Pujols spoke of enduring team losing streaks and cold hitting spells and still winning a World Series. Someone else spoke about how the team should continue an approach that a day earlier produced more sharply hit balls, but not any runs. "The positive things that are being said … this clubhouse is not separating, it's bonding more than ever," Hatcher said.

Laurie Tragen-Boykoff rocks on her feet, holding on to a large sign, her hands trembling. The international arrivals ramp at LAX is empty, but that only fuels her anticipation. She's waited 25 years for this. On the sign is a blown-up black-and-white photograph of a somber-faced boy. His name is Nicky Mutoka. Below, in large black letters, the Agoura Hills social worker has written: "NICKY!!! I'M LAURIE. " She lifts the sign, her face disappearing behind it. But she is smiling. In 1987, she began what she saw as a most unlikely pen pal correspondence.

The New York and Delaware attorneys general urged a judge to approve their participation in litigation over Bank of America Corp.'s $8.5-billion settlement with mortgage-bond investors. New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman and Delaware Atty. Gen. Beau Biden have criticized Bank of America's proposed settlement and asked Justice Barbara Kapnick of New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Tuesday to approve their requests to intervene in the case. "This is a massive waiver of liability for Bank of America and Countrywide," Steven Wu, a lawyer with the New York attorney general's office, told Kapnick.

The International Monetary Fund will sell bonds to raise funds to lend to struggling nations, the head of the organization said Saturday, in a victory for developing countries. Emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India pushed for the move as an alternative to providing longer-term loans to the IMF. Those countries want a greater voice in the institution before providing additional resources.

One day later, and markets already are having second thoughts about Europe's plan to end its government-debt crisis. In a particularly troubling sign, yields jumped Friday on Italian and Spanish government bonds. Those are the Eurozone countries that the rescue plan is meant to save from Greece's fate. A key element of the plan is the expansion of Europe's $600-billion rescue fund for member states and banks. The focus is on boosting the firepower of the fund -- known as the European Financial Stability Facility -- to $1.4 trillion by leveraging it. The fund is expected to eventually issue guarantees on bonds issued by deeply indebted countries, particularly Italy.

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot an unarmed teenager, was released from jail about midnight Sunday, two days after a Florida judge set his bond at $150,000. Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, said in court Friday that Zimmerman would probably continue to live in hiding while he awaited his trial date, as he had done for weeks leading up to his April 11 arrest on second-degree murder charges in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. An initial decision by police and prosecutors in Sanford, Fla., to decline to arrest Zimmerman after his fatal Feb. 26 encounter with Martin, an African American, set off protests and debate nationwide over perceived racial disparities in the justice system.

A Florida judge Friday set a $150,000 bond for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot an unarmed black teenager and touched off a firestorm of controversy about race and the American justice system. Zimmerman, 28, appeared in court in a dark suit and gray tie, and, in a surprising move, took the stand. There, in a voice verging on meek, he apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old he admits he shot -- but only, he says, in self-defense. "I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son," he said to the parents, who attended the hearing in the central Florida city of Sanford, where the shooting took place.