Business

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

Jennifer Lopez: actress, singer, dancer, fashion designer, and now, mobile phone mogul. The entertainer announced Wednesday that she had teamed up with Verizon Wireless to launch a new mobile brand, including retail stores, aimed at the fast-growing Latino population. Viva Movil by Jennifer Lopez has already begun to sell smartphones, tablets and Verizon wireless plans on its own website. More than a dozen stores in cities with large Latino populations including Los Angeles and Miami are expected to be announced in the next few weeks, with the first to open June 15 in New York.

When I think of actress Lupe Ontiveros, who passed away from liver cancer at 69 Thursday night, what stays with me most is her strength. Her women tended to be strong and resilient, no-nonsense types, whether they were running a theater company as she did in "Chuck & Buck," dealing with a rebellious daughter in "Real Women Have Curves," or picking up after some well-heeled white family, as she did in"The Goonies. "There was a "I have seen it all" quality that danced in her eyes, more bemused by the frailties of the human race than bitter about them.

Seven weeks after its auditor resigned in an insider trading scandal, Herbalife Ltd. retained major accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as its new auditor. The Los Angeles nutritional products company said Tuesday that PricewaterhouseCoopers would begin "immediately" to re-audit its financial statements for 2010, 2011 and 2012. Former auditor KPMG withdrew its audits of those statements after it learned of the insider-trading allegations. Herbalife shares jumped on the news, gaining $1.33, or 2.7%, to $50.54.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke publicly for the first time Monday about the breakup of his 20-year marriage, saying he was responsible for the split even as he refused to talk about what caused it. In a somber meeting with reporters at City Hall, Villaraigosa declined to answer questions about whether the break with his wife, Corina, was triggered by another romantic relationship.

Call it retirement anxiety, or maybe recession obsession. For all of their married life, Patrick Webster, 63, and Susie Martin, 54, have been extremely frugal. Webster and Martin, who both work at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, have been stashing away their combined income at an enviable rate - more than 25% - for retirement. Together they have more than $1 million in investments and no debt. But rather than feeling reasonably secure about their financial future, they dread a return of hard times.

Michele and Russell Poland's credit was shot, but they managed to buy their suburban dream home anyway. After a business bankruptcy and a home foreclosure, they turned to a rare option in this era of tightfisted banking - a subprime loan. The Polands paid nearly $10,000 in upfront fees for the privilege of securing a mortgage at 10.9% interest. And they had to raid their retirement account for a 35% down payment. Most borrowers would balk at such stiff terms. But with prices rising, the Polands wanted to snag a four-bedroom home in Temecula near top-rated schools for their 5-year-old son. By later this year, they figure, they'll be able to refinance into a standard loan.

Anyone who has booked a last-minute flight knows you pay more when you wait. But you also pay more if you book too early. What's too early? What's too late? Pity the poor fare geek trying to hit that elusive sweet spot. Discount travel site Cheapair.com has crunched a year's worth of booking data and found some answers to these and other eternal travel questions, including: - Best time to book a domestic flight? Seven weeks in advance. - Best time to book an international flight?

In these troubled economic times, it's not hard to understand why people might want to protect their life savings by purchasing a hard asset like gold or silver. At least, that's the pitch of Monex, the big Newport Beach investment firm, which bills itself as "America's trusted name in precious metals investments" and assures clients that it's "committed to customer service. " So let's take a look at the experiences of some customers who say their trust in Monex was misplaced.

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. say they have satisfied their obligations to help troubled borrowers under last year's landmark mortgage settlement with state and federal officials. Another bank that signed the settlement, Wells Fargo & Co. said it is "90% of the way" to meeting its obligations, while Citigroup Inc. said it "remains committed to fulfilling the terms" while declining to characterize its progress. The self-reported information will not be credited officially until Joseph J. Smith Jr., the national monitor for the settlement, reviews the data.

  WASHINGTON - Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook was supposed to face a hostile Capitol Hill crowd but instead he wielded the company's popularity like a shield to deflect some of the most aggressive questioning over the company's controversial tax practices. A handful of heated exchanges erupted in the hearing Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as lawmakers pressed Cook and two other Apple executives to explain how the company used its Irish subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes.

SAN FRANCISCO - California retailers may be liable for large money awards if they falsely advertise that their products are on sale. A federal appeals court Tuesday revived a potential class-action lawsuit alleging that Kohl's Department Stores Inc. misstated in advertising that items had been marked down. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said California consumer laws permit such lawsuits if the customer would not have made the purchase but for the perceived bargain. "Price advertisements matter," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for a three-judge panel.

NEW YORK - Jamie Dimon survived a bruising fight to strip him of his chairmanship, but directors at JPMorgan Chase & Co. may still have to calm restive shareholders. Dimon, JPMorgan's savvy chairman and chief executive, easily beat a proposal to split the roles following a stunning trading loss a year ago. The nation's biggest bank reported Tuesday that 32% of shareholders endorsed the measure, according to a preliminary tally. That's a sharp drop from the 40% who supported stripping Dimon of his chairmanship last year.

Some prominent health insurers, including industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc., are not participating in California's new state-run health insurance market, possibly limiting the number of choices for millions of consumers. UnitedHealth, the nation's largest private insurer, Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. are sitting out the first year of Covered California, the state's insurance exchange and a key testing ground nationally for a massive coverage expansion under the federal healthcare law. Meanwhile, the biggest insurers in the state - Kaiser Permanente, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California - are all expected to participate in the state-run market for individual health coverage.

The battle for control of the living room just became more fierce. Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday unveiled the Xbox One, a next-generation video game console that aspires to be more than just a plaything. Not only will the Xbox One deliver an amped-up game experience, but it also will let users watch live TV, rent a movie and listen to music. Viewers can use their voice and gestures to control the TV too. Want to change the channel? Just tell the Xbox One to turn on ESPN for a baseball game, check out a movie on HBO or launch an on-demand service such as Netflix.

Security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a seven-digit numerical code that can unlock all kinds of secrets about you. It's your phone number. Using relatively simple techniques, this duo can use your cellphone number to figure out your name, where you live and work, where you travel and when you sleep. They could even listen to your voice messages and personal phone calls — if they wanted to. "It's really interesting to watch a phone number turn into a person's life," DePetrillo said.

It's all crossovers these days. From the polo grounds of Malibu to the campgrounds of Maine, nearly a fifth of all vehicles sold in the U.S. last year resided somewhere in this netherworld between a car and an SUV. So the stakes were high for Toyota's overdue redesign of the RAV4, a pioneer of the segment in the mid-1990s that had grown stale in comparison with competitors. Often resembling small sport utility vehicles, crossovers are truck-like vehicles built on front-drive car platforms.

After years of futile attempts by lawmakers to regulate the medical marijuana industry in Los Angeles, a ballot measure to sharply limit the number of pot dispensaries in the city was leading in early returns Tuesday. Proposition D would reduce the number of pot shops to about 130 from around 700 by allowing only those that opened before the adoption of a failed 2007 city moratorium on new dispensaries. A rival initiative, Measure F, which would have allowed an unlimited number of dispensaries to operate, was trailing.

Mobile payments company Payvia Inc. has acquired Mogreet, a Venice mobile marketing start-up. The companies declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal. The Mogreet team will join Los Angeles company Payvia, and Mogreet founder and Chief Executive James Citron will become Payvia's chief marketing officer. The combined company will have about 150 employees, most of them in L.A. Payvia offers direct carrier-billed mobile payments, meaning customers who use Payvia to buy an item from their mobile devices see the charge directly on their phone bills, eliminating the need to type in a credit card number for a purchase.