Outlets

In the battle for radio ratings, pop station KIIS and talk outlet KFI refused to budge as kings of their respective columns — each claimed exactly the same share of the Los Angeles-Orange County audience in July as they held the previous month, according to figures released Monday. Meanwhile, after a slow start, morning-radio veteran Rick Dees increased his following at urban oldies station KHHT-FM (92.3), where he took over a.m. drive on May 4. With more than 4 million people tuning in for at least five minutes a week, KIIS-FM (102.7)

At Citadel Outlets, the sounds of jackhammering and the whir of electric drills are as common these days as a can't-miss deal. The City of Commerce shopping center has been in expansion mode, building a wing last fall that brought 36 new stores and an additional 152,000 square feet to the mall. Construction workers are currently putting the finishing touches on half a dozen more stores, including Coach Factory Store and Not Your Daughter's Jeans, and getting ready to build another wing that is slated to open by the holiday season next year.

The main draw of outlet shopping is the promise of name brands at low prices, but customers need to be savvy when they hit these stores. Merchandise at outlet stores comes from a variety of sources and isn't always leftover product from the brands' full-price operations. Department store outlet concepts, such as Bloomingdale's Outlet and Nordstrom Rack, stock a mix of merchandise, including end-of-season and clearance products, returned items from full-line stores, excess inventory from vendors and outlet-only styles.

Norbert Olberz, founder of the Southern California-based Sport Chalet chain of outdoor recreational equipment stores, died of natural causes Friday at his home in La Cañada Flintridge, the company announced. He was 86. As chief executive for four decades, Olberz transformed Sport Chalet from a small local business into a large public company that operates 55 stores in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Born in the village of Niederhoevels, Germany, in 1925, Olberz arrived in the United States in 1955.

The dreamers of downtown are sensitive, even to the smallest shifts. Brigham Yen was among the first to feel the one at 7th and Hope streets, 16 steps beneath the surface of the sidewalk. When he documented it on his blog about a month ago, the news spread fast to others tracking downtown development. "Wow, this is almost too good to be true!" one reader commented. "This is very awesome news," agreed another. The object of their glee, still under construction: a small shop with a glass front and a young owner who planned to sell coffee, fresh-squeezed juices, salads and sandwiches.

An Emmy nod may be in store for a dark drama about an antihero rising to the top of an all-American industry during a tumultuous historical epoch. And, no, we're not talking about ethically compromised adman Don Draper, bedding his way through the '60s on "Mad Men. " When the Emmy nominations are announced Thursday morning, many TV pundits expect that HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" will land among the six nominees for drama, most likely putting the...

The media circus came to town, this time not in Los Angeles but in Orlando, Fla. In a case compared to the courtroom dramas of O.J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers, the trial of Casey Anthony -- if there were any doubts before -- became a full-fledged national legal spectacle Tuesday after outrage erupted over the jury's decision to acquit the young mother on charges she killed her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, with chloroform and duct tape....

A new report from the Federal Communications Commission warned that the "independent watchdog function that the founding fathers envisioned for journalism" is at risk in local communities across the country. In a 475-page report released this week titled "The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age," the government regulatory agency — which watches over television, radio and certain aspects of the Internet — said there was a "shortage of local, professional, accountability reporting" that could lead to "more government waste, more local corruption," "less effective schools" and other problems.

Facebook Inc.'s efforts to portray itself as a trustworthy guardian of the Internet's town square are being undermined — once again — by accusations that the social network launched a covert smear campaign against rival Google Inc. The world's largest online network acknowledged Thursday that it had paid a high-powered public relations firm to push news organizations to report that a new Google feature was putting users' personal data in...

Salah from central Benghazi was on the line, sounding indignant. Why was Benghazi so filthy? Was everyone so busy rushing to the front to fight that they couldn't clean up their own city? Inside a makeshift sound studio, radio host Khalid Ali wearily rubbed his eyes. Voice of Free Libya radio — 98.9 on your FM dial — had just opened its caller lines for another round of hectoring. "If they're not asking about garbage, they're complaining that people fire guns into the air all night long," Ali said, tapping his cellphone, which he holds next to a worn microphone when taking listeners' calls on the air. "Everybody has an opinion.