Productivity

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

Curious about seaweed but not ready to jump into the waves? Here are a few ways to get your feet wet. Roasted seaweed. A low-fat, low-calorie snack food, sometimes with added flavoring, that some find yummy and others, not so much. Comes in packets that go easily into school or work lunch boxes. Seaweed bath: A seaweed-based formulation to be added to the water in your tub. Said to rejuvenate your skin and your spirits. Dried seaweed pieces: A garnish for salads or warm vegetables or, alternatively, a substitute for table salt.

As warehouses go, there are few like Skechers USA Inc.'s new 1.82-million-square-foot distribution center. This warehouse is so big that it takes half a minute to drive from one end to the other at 60 miles per hour. The setup is so advanced that human hands will hardly touch the cargo as it is unpacked, categorized, stacked and prepared for delivery. The building is so green that it uses prevailing winds for ventilation instead of air conditioning. For its new North American operations warehouse, the nation's No. 2 footwear company chose the Inland Empire's Moreno Valley.

A new biographical stage production about the late rapper Tupac Shakur is expected to premiere in January at the Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago. The show, written by Lyle Miller, is titled "Amaru (The History of Tupac Amaru Shakur)." A spokeswoman for the theater company said the show is still in the works and that casting hasn't been announced. She said the production will most likely be a play with sequences featuring Shakur's music.

WASHINGTON — The productivity of U.S. nonfarm businesses dropped in the second quarter at a 0.9 percent annual rate, the first decline after five quarters of strong growth, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The reversal suggests that employers looking to increase output may need to hire more workers, a boon for the sluggish job market. In the second quarter, hours worked increased at a 3.6 percent annualized rate, the fastest since the first quarter of 2006, the government estimated.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz unveiled his highly anticipated new company, a developer of software that aims to help people work more efficiently. Asana is a task manager that enables teams of people to manage their work flow by breaking projects into tasks. The Web-based software gives workers one central place where they can see what colleagues are doing and get updates on how a project is progressing, Moskovitz said. Moskovitz, at 27 the world's youngest billionaire according to Forbes, and Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein, a former colleague from Facebook, said they think of it as the modern way of working.

James Flanigan puts a clean, clear statement on record ("Information to Give Airlines Added Thrust," March 12). He says that greater productivity is what information handling with computers is all about. Pontificators say that labor saving is what computers are all about. In long association with computers, I have yet to see anyone lose a job to a computer. Countless people, though, have been made more productive--from the laid back to the overachiever. This puts grins on their faces (and certainly on the faces of the customers, management and the stockholders)

When her Irvine office began laying off workers in a lousy economy, Deborah Haas did what every employee fearful of being the next one booted is doing these days: She got busy. An executive assistant to the head of a furniture company, she became the receptionist, event planner, marketing assistant and office manager. When the catering budget got whacked, she threw on an apron and started whipping up chile lime crab cocktails and carne asada skewers for sales events. Workers like her are fueling a surge of productivity in the U.S. economy.

Sadly, most American managers would rather pay lip service to productivity than money for it. Indeed, most companies would rather downsize, restructure or reorganize than have the guts and brains to better align their incentive systems with their corporate strategies. The simple truth is that if organizations really cared about improving productivity, they would be willing to pay for it.

American workers made modest productivity gains in the third quarter, but the lackluster manufacturing sector posted its lowest output gain in three years and continued to slow the overall economy, the government said Wednesday. And for the first time this year, the quarter-to-quarter hourly wage gains made by workers outpaced the growth in consumer inflation, the Labor Department said.

Nearly a decade ago, an improbable dream came true for Deaf West Theatre and its founder, Ed Waterstreet. The small, L.A.-based company went to Broadway with its signed and spoken version of the musical "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. " Even as he savored their success, Waterstreet had another dream - creating an original musical inspired by Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac. " What better tale for his theater to tell than one that explores the universal desire to express oneself?

WASHINGTON - Moms, a few dads and some children gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to urge Congress to strengthen the federal government's powers to regulate harmful chemicals. The group of almost a hundred activists, which included registered nurses and cancer survivors, came from across the country to support the Safe Chemicals Act, which if passed by Congress would create a new process to monitor toxic chemicals used in consumer products. The chemicals, which are common in furniture and baby products, have been linked to neurological defects, cancer, developmental problems and impaired fertility.

WASHINGTON - The consumer financial watchdog is taking aim at reloadable prepaid cards, moving to regulate a fast-growing product that has become a popular alternative to checking accounts for lower-income Americans and a new source of fees for some banks. Consumer advocates have been pushing for regulation of the cards, which look like conventional credit cards or debit cards tied to bank accounts. But the prepaid cards are not required to offer the same consumer protections, such as clear disclosure of fees and caps on losses if stolen.

Half a century ago, Walt Disney leased a horse ranch in Placerita Canyon to shoot episodes of "The Adventures of Spin and Marty" from the classic ABC series "The Mickey Mouse Club. " Disney liked the property so much, with its rich variety of meadows, oak groves and mountains, that his production company began buying up land, eventually accumulating 890 acres. Over the decades, the storied Golden Oak Ranch, located in an unincorporated area of northeast Los Angeles County, has been used as backdrop for countless Disney TV shows and movies, including "Old Yeller" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. " Now Walt Disney Co. is moving closer to transforming part of the historic movie ranch into one of the largest high-tech production developments in Los Angeles in the last decade -- and the public will soon get its first say on the project.

A federal administrative judge ruled that pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful used deceptive advertising when it implied its products could treat or prevent serious diseases and other medical conditions. Judge D. Michael Chappell upheld much of a 2010 Federal Trade Commission complaint against the Los Angeles company owned by Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The judge said in his decision issued Monday that Pom used "insufficient" evidence to back its claims that Pom products "treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

Los Angeles Opera can stop worrying right now. The Los Angeles Philharmonic's new production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," which had its first of four performances Friday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, is certainly getting all the attention at the moment and for all the obvious and all the right reasons. The hall's architect, Frank Gehry, has designed stunning sets. The fashion world, long enamored of Disney, is involved, with powerfully theatrical costumes from Rodarte and hairstyles by Odile Gilbert.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that productivity of U.S. workers rose in the third quarter at the slowest pace in almost two years, signaling that companies might begin adding workers at a faster rate to meet demand. A separate report showed that weekly jobless claims fell. "From a job-growth point of view, the drop in productivity is good news," said Tim McGee, chief economist at U.S. Trust Corp. in New York.

American workers posted a modest productivity improvement in the second quarter of the year with significant gains by factory workers leading the way, the government said Wednesday. The Labor Department said productivity in the non-farm portion of the economy rebounded at a revised annual rate of 0.7% in the April-June period, up from the 0.2% gain reported in preliminary data last month and much better than the 1.3% decline in the first quarter.

  Los Angeles Opera can stop worrying right now. The Los Angeles Philharmonic's new production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," which had its first of four performances Friday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, is certainly getting all the attention at the moment and for all the obvious and all the right reasons. The hall's architect, Frank Gehry, has designed stunning sets. The fashion world, long enamored of Disney, is involved, with powerfully theatrical costumes from Rodarte and hairstyles by Odile Gilbert.

Since Morgan Spurlock is known for fully immersing himself in his movies - famously subsisting onMcDonald's menu items for "Super Size Me" and pounding the pavement for every last product placement dollar in "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" - it seemed only appropriate to ask the man behind"Mansome" about his go-to grooming products and tools, most of which happen to come from boutique shaving brand the Art of Shaving, which signed on to sponsor the...