Partnership

Voters in North Carolina on Tuesday approved Amendment One, a fiercely debated and highly restrictive amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman. The amendment not only outlaws same-sex marriage - already illegal in the state - but bans civil unions and domestic partnerships for gay or straight couples. Family law experts say it will threaten domestic partnership health benefits for local government workers and strip unmarried couples, both gay and straight, of their rights to make financial or emergency medical decisions for an incapacitated partner.

One of the biggest sports and entertainment moguls in Southern California took a back seat to the other Guggenheim money men Wednesday as the incoming Dodgers owners attempted to set the tone for a new era. Former movie studio boss Peter Guber, who has built an empire of popular minor league baseball teams, left the news conference speeches to his partners and later deflected questions about how he might like to see the parking lots around Dodger...

Deep budget cuts to the Los Angeles park system in recent years have resulted in shortened park hours, fewer youth programs and closed pools. Now, as city lawmakers take up Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed budget for the coming year, a new coalition is lobbying for restoration of park funding. The consortium of conservationists, community leaders and unions, led by developer Steve Soboroff, earned a small victory Monday when two City Council members joined a news conference and signed a pledge to protect parks.

SAN FRANCISCO — As it closes in on 1 billion users, Facebook Inc. has formed partnerships with five security software outfits to crack down on pfishing schemes. Facebook said Wednesday that Microsoft Corp., McAfee Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Sophos Ltd. and Symantec Corp. will join the fight to keep its users from sharing links to sites that install malware. Facebook also has its own tools in its arsenal and a vast database of malicious URLs. Facebook users, who number more than 900 million, post a ton of links, some from blacklisted sites.

Spotify is hoping that Coke will teach the world to click its play button. The Swedish digital music service on Wednesday announced a broad-ranging marketing deal withCoca-Cola Co.that could help turbocharge the number of people who are exposed to, and ultimately sign up for, Spotify. Although the partnership does not involve any money changing hands, both parties describe it as invaluable to their efforts to market their products. For Spotify, the burgeoning music-streaming service that launched in the United States in July, getting access to Coca-Cola's formidable global marketing engine will come in handy as it expands its international footprint.

HONG KONG — In a move that underscores the importance of the fast-growing Chinese movie market to Hollywood, Walt Disney Co. has struck a partnership with a Beijing firm on its big-budget American superhero film "Iron Man 3. " This is the second business endeavor Disney has undertaken in the last week in the world's most populous country. On April 10, the Burbank entertainment giant announced a partnership with the animation division of China's largest Internet company, Tencent Holdings Ltd., offering its expertise in storytelling and market research to help foster local talent.

The nation's independent bookstores got another bit of bad news Thursday: Google Inc.is closing the books on them. The Mountain View, Calif., search company said it is ending a program that enabled hundreds of independent booksellers to sell many of Google's millions of electronic books through their websites -- and to make a profit doing it. The program was in part an attempt by Google to build a network of e-book retailers that...

Digital Domain, the award-winning effects company behind such movies as "Tron: Legacy" and the "Transformers" films, recently touted its new animation and digital arts institute as a "pioneering public-private partnership" with Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts. The project has created an uproar among visual effects artists in Hollywood, who fear it will encourage students to work for free at Digital Domain's planned visual effects studio in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Digital Domain Institute, which offers a three-year diploma in digital arts along with a bachelor of fine arts from Florida State University, enables students to gain real world experience by working for college credit on some of Hollywood's top films.

They are the kind of moments that, when we brush against them accidentally, make us want to look away: An eager young student, confronting a condescending mentor. An estranged husband, stopping by to see his wife and -- after pleasantries -- browbeating her over what she's telling their friends. Two ex-lovers, now married to other people, reconnecting uncomfortably and circling like tigers. The characters move from small talk to awkward terseness to full-on combat in a disturbingly life-like way. Donald Margulies, the playwright who created these characters and their conflicts, doesn't really take sides.

A trio of run-down, century-old hotels in downtown Los Angeles was sold to developers who hope to clean them up and make them attractive to young artistic types. A partnership called Bristol 423 bought the Baltimore, King Edward and Leland hotels at a bankruptcy auction for $9.8 million, real estate broker Matt Case of Madison Partners said. The hotels around 5th and Los Angeles streets were built between 1904 and 1910, when Southern Pacific Railroad's nearby station on Alameda Street was a key point of entry to the city, downtown historian Greg Fischer said.