Fees

Mutual fund investors should always take note of what investing fees they're being charged, particularly in this tough investing climate. Transactions: The costs associated with an individual investor's transactions and account are listed in a fee table, located near the front of a fund's prospectus, under the heading "Shareholder Fees." They include: * Sales loads: A fee charged to compensate the brokers.

Los Angeles City Council members have spent much of their time in recent weeks mulling the city's budget woes and the possibility of layoffs, but budget-tightening only goes so far when it comes to gala events such as the Grammy Awards. The council agreed Tuesday to waive $124,163 in city fees associated with the Grammy Awards, which will be held on Feb. 8 at the Staples Center.

A year ago, Michael Bowler took in 16-year-old twins he met while volunteering at a Los Angeles County probation hall. Bowler, a 51-year-old special education teacher who volunteered through the Catholic Church, thought he could help the county as well as Edward and Louis Hanson by giving them a home. Instead of thanking Bowler, the county billed him nearly $10,000. When the bill arrived in October, Bowler studied it, confused.

The international trade business is foundering faster than ever seen before, with some U.S. seaports watching cargo traffic fall by more than a third. It's gotten so bad that Los Angeles and Long Beach are slashing cargo rates to keep old customers and lure new business. Oakland's port has laid off 12% of its staff and canceled free tours for the public.

More than a month after declaring a moratorium on billing parents and guardians of youths held in detention, Los Angeles County's top probation official backpedaled Tuesday, saying his department is still collecting on thousands of bills even as it reassesses its billing practices. Probation Chief Robert Taylor announced the moratorium Feb.

Time Warner Cable Inc. customers beware: If you're what the company considers a heavy Internet user, you could soon be charged as much as $150 a month for online access. The sky-high charge is part of a new "consumption-based billing" system that Time Warner will test this summer to address what it says is the possibility of "brownouts" on the Net within three years because of soaring usage.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer on Tuesday asked the country's biggest public pension fund to conduct an internal investigation into investments it made through so-called placement agents, who raise funds for outside asset managers. The request to the California Public Employees' Retirement System board is the latest fallout from investigations by New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo and the Securities and Exchange Commission of alleged pension-fund improprieties in New York state.

For the second time in two years, the powerful telecommunications industry has blocked a consumer-oriented bill that would have barred companies from charging land-line customers for unlisted numbers. On Tuesday, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) put on hold for this year a bill that would have eliminated monthly unlisted-number fees.

Total Call International Inc. of Los Angeles will pay $300,000 in civil penalties to settle a lawsuit alleging that the cellphone company charged customers steep undisclosed fees. Under the terms of the settlement, the state, which filed the suit as part of an enforcement action, will monitor the company's fees for four years. The settlement came shortly after California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed the suit Friday in San Francisco Superior Court.

The country's largest government pension fund Friday gave preliminary approval to a first-ever policy requiring full and public disclosure of multimillion-dollar payments made to intermediaries in investment deals. Outside investment fund managers and other financial firms have long paid intermediaries -- also known as placement agents -- major sums to help firms obtain lucrative deals with the asset-rich pensions. But now these connections are under scrutiny.