Contracts

Versus, which carries sports programming as varied as the Tour de France, college football, IRL auto racing and the majority of regular-season national NHL games, went dark on DirecTV after not reaching a new contract deal Monday. At 9:01 p.m. PDT, the Versus channel on DirecTV went to a blue screen with the message, "Versus is no longer available on this channel. Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

Call it Goliath Versus Goliath. Cable giant Comcast Corp. is locked in an ugly battle with satellite broadcaster DirecTV over the sports channel Versus. Unable to strike a new deal with Comcast, DirecTV on Tuesday dropped carriage of Versus to its 14 million subscribers. Such disputes are usually resolved behind the scenes, but not in this case. After removing Versus from its lineup, DirecTV slapped a notice on the channel the network had occupied, announcing: "Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

Los Angeles golfers who have complained about deteriorating carts on the city's seven public courses may not see changes any time soon. After an intense lobbying effort, the City Council rejected the recommendation of the Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners to award a 10-year contract for cart rentals to a new concessionaire, Sherman Oaks-based Ready Golf Centers. It was the city's third attempt in six years to choose a concessionaire through a competitive bidding process.

Another day, another dollar gone? As the weeks pass and no agreement is reached with the San Francisco 49ers, receiver Michael Crabtree moves closer to missing the entire NFL season, reentering the draft in 2010 and trying his luck again. Texas Tech's Crabtree, the No. 10 pick of the 2009 NFL draft, is the only unsigned player from his draft class, and has turned down the 49ers' reported offer of $20 million over five years, with all but $4 million of it guaranteed. Neither he nor his agent have discussed the situation publicly, but it is believed Crabtree wants more money than the league's unofficial slotting system warrants because he thinks he should have been chosen earlier.

With more than 100 light-rail cars needed to expand lines around Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's chief executive has recommended -- for the third time -- that the agency's board seek new competitive bids to build the cars and refurbish others in the fleet. In a memo this week, Art Leahy advised board members to reject contract options with Italian rail firm AnsaldoBreda, which is manufacturing 50 cars for the MTA under its base contract and has options to build 100 more cars.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board awarded a contract Thursday to the Italian firm AnsaldoBreda for 100 additional light-rail cars, clearing the way for a new rail manufacturing plant that the company has promised to build with union labor in downtown Los Angeles. The decision was a victory for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who said the manufacturing plant would be a catalyst for his plan to attract clean technology companies to a four-mile industrial corridor along the Los Angeles River.

The race to win one of the largest military deals ever awarded kicked off Friday, when Defense Department officials unveiled the arcane criteria they will use to purchase a fleet of aerial refueling tankers from Northrop Grumman Corp. or Boeing Co. But what was once a sprint has become a marathon as the Pentagon attempts for a fourth time to replace its fleet of 415 Eisenhower-era tankers through contracts expected to total more than $100 billion. The Air Force said it would be "crystal clear" in its requirements for new tankers to avoid errors from previous selection processes.

Downey High School sent its homecoming queen packing, crown and all, after she was seen making sexually suggestive moves on the dance floor a few years back. Aliso Niguel High School Principal Charles Salter made good on a threat to cancel school dances in 2006 as officials there and elsewhere fretted over how to deal with freaking, grinding and other provocative dances. Their solution: Fight explicit teen dancing with an equal dose of explicitness. Downey and Aliso Niguel are among the first schools to draft "dance contracts," binding agreements that parents and students must sign before a teenager can step onto the dance floor.

The Dodgers have learned that Manny Ramirez will be theirs for another season -- at a price tag of $20 million. Ramirez's agent, Scott Boras, told General Manager Ned Colletti on Friday that Ramirez would not exercise the escape clause in his contract that would have let the former All-Star outfielder re-enter the free-agent market at age 37. Ramirez had until Tuesday to inform the cash-strapped Dodgers if he intended to void the second year...

The U.S. State Department said it would not renew Blackwater Worldwide's contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq when it expires in May. "The department notified Blackwater in writing on Thursday that it did not plan to renew the company's existing task orders for protective security detail in Iraq," said Joanne Moore, a State Department spokeswoman. She said the contract would lapse because of the Iraqi government's decision to deny Blackwater a license to operate. The Iraqis informed the State Department last week of the denial, which was made amid lingering outrage over a September 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.