BUSINESS
May 11, 2012 | By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
SAN FRANCISCO - Dustin Moskovitz, at 27 the world's youngest billionaire, gained fame and fortune after founding Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. He also gained the "Facebook 15. " He packed on the extra pounds while chowing down on free snacks and guzzling four sodas a day at the social networking giant. Today, Moskovitz is a svelte version of his former self. He runs Asana, a start-up named after the Sanskrit word for traditional yoga sitting positions. That's fitting since the company holds twice weekly group yoga classes at its San Francisco offices.
BUSINESS
May 5, 2012 | By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - The nation's long, hard ride to recovery went off track in the spring: Job growth slowed for the second straight month, raising fresh fears about the underlying strength of the economy. In a disappointing development for President Obama's reelection campaign, employers added a modest 115,000 jobs in April, barely enough to keep up with the natural growth of the workforce. The unemployment rate inched down to 8.1% - not because more people got jobs but because more discouraged workers dropped out of the labor market.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 2, 2012 | By Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge dismissed the criminal case against a Hollywood casting director accused of concealing his sex offender status with an alias Wednesday, saying the man had consistently provided his real name, driver's license and passport to the movie studios that employed him. "There is no dispute that every studio … was aware of his true and legal name," Judge Elden Fox said, throwing out the sole charge against Jason...
OPINION
April 30, 2012
Re "Vets struggle to go from war to work," April 26 Veterans are a minority group representing about 8% of our nation's population, selflessly serving on behalf of the other 92%. They pledged their lives to defend our Constitution, which protects the many freedoms we take for granted. Some delivered on that pledge, while many are disabled for life from their military injuries. AMVETS, a national veterans organization, proposed a federal law to include veterans as a protected class against employment discrimination that currently includes race, age, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.
BUSINESS
April 27, 2012 | By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — U.S. consumers and employers will receive about $1.3 billion in rebates from insurance companies this year, according to a new study quantifying a key early benefit of the healthcare law that President Obama signed in 2010. That will translate to a few dollars to more than $150 apiece for nearly 16 million consumers nationwide, the report by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found. Obama's healthcare law requires insurers to spend a minimum portion of customers' premiums on medical care.
NATIONAL
April 27, 2012 | By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times
Is President Obama trying to wedge his way to a second term? The economy will doubtless be the overriding issue in November's presidential contest, and Obama is hardly ignoring it. But a successful candidate appeals to all sorts of voters harboring all sorts of concerns, and the president and his backers appear to be using a pair of wedge issues to target two groups, Latinos and women, with messages grounded more in emotionalism than economics....