Branch

Real Office Centers, which provides executive suite-style offices for the young and tech-savvy, will set up shop in a Santa Monica office building last occupied by Google. Landlord Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. said Real Office Centers leased all of the 44,260-square-foot building at 604 Arizona Ave. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Hudson sought $3.27 per square foot per month for space in the building, real estate data provider CoStar said. “This property generated significant interest from prospective tenants due to the limited supply of creative office space throughout West Los Angeles,” said Victor Coleman, chief executive of Hudson.

Militants intensified their attacks against U.S.-backed Yemeni military forces on Sunday, killing at least 35 government soldiers in a lawless southern region that has become a battleground of suicide bombers, heavy weapons, assassinations and kidnappings. The clashes in Abyan province — more than 15 militants were also reported killed — were part of an escalation in violence by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliates. The surge in bloodshed comes after newly elected President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi vowed to crush extremists who have exploited the nation's political and tribal chaos.

Facing the same dire fate as thousands of homeowners in the recession-flattened Inland Empire, a synagogue in Corona is battling a local bank to stave off foreclosure. Congregation Beth Shalom built a $1.4-million house of worship at the top of the real estate market in 2008, only to see income from donations plummet as regional unemployment soared. "No question, we took a hit on the amount of money coming in. We built at the worst possible time, like a lot of people around here," said congregation President Bruce Williams.

Bank of America Corp. told the Federal Reserve in June that it could cut branches to preserve capital in an emergency, said a person briefed on the discussions. That option was among potential responses to a hypothetical crisis in which the Charlotte, N.C., company needed to suddenly raise capital, said the person, who declined to be identified because the plans were private. The company could also issue a separate class of shares tied to its Merrill Lynch division, said the person.

A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials in a high-profile case of cyber-theft. The unauthorized release of account information for 860,000 subscribers to Stratfor, a Texas-based company that provides analysis of national and international affairs, makes it possible to identify some subscribers and, in theory, impersonate them in cyberspace, analysts warned.

When Herbert Nipson joined Ebony magazine's editorial staff in 1949, the publication, founded just four years earlier in Chicago, had a target readership of urban African Americans, and its stories reflected that sensibility. But as the civil rights movement surged to the forefront of American consciousness, Nipson helped push the magazine to a broader audience, covering issues important to rural African Americans and branching out into sports, entertainment and the arts. By the time he retired in 1987, after 15 years as executive editor, the magazine enjoyed national recognition and mainstream appeal for both its issue-oriented reporting and its cultural coverage.

Television's highest-earning actress and a San Francisco art museum chief are two of the key figures in the bid to establish a new museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., devoted to the history and culture of American Latinos. But Eva Longoria, who will rally public support for a bill in Congress to create the museum, and Jonathan Yorba, chairman of the museum-lobbying group that picked her, also played key roles in the creation of a problem-plagued Los Angeles museum and cultural center focused on the contributions of Mexican Americans in Southern California.

The owner of the West Virginia coal mine where a fiery explosion killed 29 miners last year has agreed to pay a record $209 million in compensation and fines, officials said Tuesday, but the financial settlement does not stop other investigations into the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine. The settlement stops federal prosecutors from pursuing any criminal charges against Alpha Natural Resources, the company that acquired the mine's owner, Massey Energy Co., in June. But inquiries into individual criminal liability are ongoing, and the agreement does not bar prosecutors from pursuing criminal charges against individuals, according to U.S. Atty.

City National Bank is southbound — again. The Los Angeles private and business bank, with long-standing ties to Hollywood and 20% of its profit from the entertainment industry, has opened an office in Atlanta. Atlanta has become a hub for Christian music and for other entertainers, with actor-entrepreneur Tyler Perry and rappers Sean Combs and Ludacris among those calling it home. Georgia also has tax incentives that have drawn movie and TV crews south, said Martha Henderson, City National's executive vice president for entertainment.

For decades, the only theft the cable industry worried about was people trying to get MTV and HBO without paying for them. Now some of the biggest cable companies - including Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. - are looking to do more than just safeguard their signals from piracy. They want to use their broadband service to protect your big-screen television, the couch in front of it and even the family jewels with their own home-security systems. They're not just feeling altruistic.