Business

Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.

The Obama White House, stepping in where other Democrats feared to tread, has launched a potentially risky fight with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- attempting to bypass the nation's most powerful business organization and develop independent ties to corporate America. In recent weeks, President Obama, his Energy secretary and one of his other most senior advisors have begun criticizing the chamber publicly, casting it as a profligate lobbying organization at odds with its members in opposing the administration on such issues as consumer protection and climate change.

Earvin "Magic" Johnson, who has spent his post-basketball career on retailing ventures in underserved urban areas, is targeting another market he figures is in need of help: lending to mid-size companies. The ex-Laker's firm, Magic Johnson Enterprises, is teaming with Los Angeles money manager TCW Group Inc. in a venture to make loans to mid-size businesses with capital raised from big investors, the firms said Monday.

General Motors: An article in Business on Friday about the possibility of bankruptcy for General Motors Corp. said the last U.S. automaker to go out of business was Kaiser Motors in 1955. At least two other U.S. companies stopped making autos after that year: Studebaker Corp. produced its last vehicle in 1966, and Checker Motor Corp. built its last taxi in 1982.

Jamie Masada: In Business on April 5, an article and photo caption about comedy club owner Jamie Masada misspelled his name Jaime.

Kodachrome: An article in Business on Tuesday about the discontinuation of Kodachrome film misspelled the last name of one of the creators, Leopold Mannes, as Maines.

The Bush administration is punishing nine foreign companies, six of them in China, for selling missile goods and chemical arms material to Iran. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the sanctions were based on "credible evidence," which he did not disclose. Two of the companies are Indian and the other is Austrian. Ereli said the United States will not provide export licenses to the companies for doing business in the United States and will ban U.S.

In 1970, when Fred S. Rodriguez founded a network for Southland Latinos working as personnel professionals, ethnics were more outspoken. So Rodriguez called his group the Personnel Management Assn. of Aztlan-- Aztlan , the ancient Indian name for the Southwestern states an expansionist America seized from Mexico in the mid-19th Century. Today, Latinos and other minorities in business favor a more button-down style and the group goes by its initials, PMAA.

Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business. "We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," chamber President Tom Donohue said.

When property owners complained that an ambitious plan to revamp a 123-block stretch of downtown Santa Ana could jeopardize their livelihoods, the plan's map was quietly redrawn. And when the new map emerged last year, the redevelopment zone no longer included businesses owned by the families of Mayor Miguel Pulido and Councilman Vincent Sarmiento.