Consultants

Found lurking on my bookshelf: my once lost cookbook "The Geometry of Pasta" by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy (Quirk Books, Philadelphia, 2010, $24.95). It was conceived by graphic designer Hildebrand, who kept "thinking about the Italians' preoccupation with choosing the right pasta shape to go with the right sauce. " To explore the concept further, he decided to do a book using simple geometric black-and-white drawings of the pasta shapes. And for the recipes, he approached Jacob Kenedy, co-founder of the Italian restaurant La Bocca di Lupo in London.

More than 60% of U.S. employers in a new survey anticipate some increase in their health benefit costs because of the federal Affordable Care Act. The survey of 1,203 employers by the Mercer consulting firm found that 20% of those businesses expect an increase of 5% or more as new rules for workplace coverage take effect in 2014. An additional 41% of employers anticipate that costs will rise less than 5%. Healthcare experts say any additional costs will be hard for many California employers to absorb.

On a ranch of willows and wild grass outside Sacramento, the cowboy cooed to his tawny mustang. Then he led Little Buck through basic commands - back up, step forward - and rewarded him with a biscuit. Dennis Parker is a part-Cherokee trainer in rural Zamora, Calif., who sports a silver ponytail beneath his cowboy hat. But his recent demonstration was aimed at training a different breed grappling with far bigger tasks: educators under mounting pressure to raise students' standardized test scores.

The wife of the former head of one of the nation's largest union locals has pleaded guilty to an income tax charge in connection with more than $540,000 she received in consulting payments from the Los Angeles-based labor organization. As part of a deal with the U.S. attorney's office here, Pilar Planells pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor count of failure to file a 2008 tax return for the money that Local 6434 of the Service Employees International Union paid to a firm she founded.

Eric T. Fresch, the former top Vernon official whose tenure became a lightning rod in last year's effort to disincorporate the small industrial city, was found dead at a state park in the Bay Area, officials said Friday. The body of Fresch, 58, was discovered by rangers Thursday evening at Angel Island State Park, which is located in San Francisco Bay not far from Fresch's home in Tiburon. Tiburon Battalion Chief Ed Lynch said Fresch had been cycling around the island with his wife before they got separated.

Payroll records appear to contradict how much money a Los Angeles police officer who brought down the so-called "bling ring" said he was paid to work as technical advisor on a movie about the case. Officer Brett Goodkin, who is currently under investigation by the LAPD for consulting on Sofia Coppola's docu-drama while assigned to the case, was paid between $5,000 and $6,000, authorities said. But payroll records turned over to defendants in the burglary case show he was paid $12,500 by the filmmaker and her production company.

Immigrant rights advocates barely had time to digest the Obama administration's announcement last week that it would stop deporting some young immigrants when the questions started flowing in: Am I the right age? Does an arrest disqualify me? Do my parents qualify? "We've been celebrating all weekend," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday. "We've now got to get ready. We've got to prepare the documents. " The mayor joined activists and student organizers at a news conference called to highlight the need for young immigrants to begin documenting their history in the United States.

A nationally recognized data expert brought in by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to restore confidence in the Fire Department's emergency response times is leaving after less than three months on the job. Jeffrey Godown, who was installed as interim director of statistical analysis in March amid a ballooning controversy over the accuracy of the department's performance data, is leaving Tuesday to take a job at UC San Francisco. He said he planned to continue working as a consultant with the department to improve its data analysis, which he said still suffered from fundamental problems.

A consultant who led the troubled effort to overhaul California's public psychiatric hospitals has played a lead role in federal reforms in at least five other states, where critics have raised similar concerns about cronyism and the quality of his work. Nirbhay Singh, a psychologist from Virginia, abruptly resigned from his California post last year after The Times asked state officials about rising violence in the hospitals and the state's hiring of Singh's family members. State mental health officials are now eliminating treatment approaches and elaborate paperwork that Singh imposed in a costly effort to satisfy a legal settlement between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice.

CHICAGO — Maxine Lauer calls the group of consumers 15 to 34 "Generation Now" because they want what they want and they want it now. Trouble is, "now" isn't happening for them, especially for those in the middle of that range, their 20s, who might reasonably be expected to be thinking about buying their first homes. Generally, though, that's not something they're doing, because most of them just can't, said Lauer, whose Sphere Trending retail industry consulting firm in Waterford, Mich., has studied their attitudes in depth.