Relocation Of Business

In the latest blow to local production, the game show "Deal or No Deal" is moving to Connecticut. The syndicated game show, hosted by comedian Howie Mandel, has been based out of the Culver Studios in Culver City for the last 3 1/2 years. But the show, which is produced by Endemol USA and distributed by NBC Universal, will shift production this summer to a studio in Waterford, Conn., to take advantage of that state's film and TV production tax breaks.

JetBlue Airways, citing frustration with the lack of facility improvements at Long Beach Airport, said Wednesday that it may cease operations at the airport where it began its West Coast expansion and is now the busiest carrier. No specific plan to leave Long Beach has been proposed, but a JetBlue spokeswoman said the airline could consider, among other options, scaling back flights or shifting them to other airports in the region, including Los Angeles International Airport.

The NFL is willing to consider a return to its Los Angeles roots. Evidently, so are the San Diego Chargers. While the league is kicking around the notion of playing the 50th Super Bowl in L.A. -- where the first one took place -- the onetime L.A. Chargers appear to be inching closer to a possible return to their birthplace. As is always the case with the on-again, off-again saga of the NFL's flirtation with the nation's second-largest market, nothing is written in stone.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America will relocate its Encino office down the street to a larger space in Sherman Oaks Galleria, the association said Thursday. The MPAA, a trade group representing six major Hollywood studios, is sub-leasing the 100,000-square-foot space from Warner Bros. Entertainment for the next 8 1/2 years.

The nation's largest car market, Southern California, is losing two major automobile operations. Chrysler said Friday that it would close its Pacifica Advanced Product Design Center in Carlsbad to reduce costs. Separately, Volvo of North America, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Co., said it would abandon its Irvine headquarters in favor of Rockleigh, N.J., by the end of the year. "We have evaluated the situation in the U.S.

Driven crazy by U.S. immigration policy, Microsoft Corp. executives decided to drive some of their employees north. Unable to land enough visas for a third of the foreign-born engineers and computer scientists it wanted to hire -- many of them newly minted graduates of U.S. universities -- the Redmond, Wash., company opened a software development center just over the Canadian border last year. About 150 people now work in Vancouver. "Our immigration system makes it very difficult for U.S.

Emerson College, seeking to upgrade its film and television training center, is relocating the program to Hollywood from Burbank. The Boston-based school, known for its communications and acting curriculum, will build a facility on the former Tribune Studios lot in Hollywood to teach and house the 95 Emerson students who pass through its Los Angles Center program each semester.

When the wind blows across the arid river basin, dust swirls and scatters over the sun-heated earth of this small farming town, sneaking into buildings on pant legs and the tops of shoes. Once the dust settles, someone invariably walks into Dan Gates' hardware store on E Street looking for a push broom and a box of a cleaning compound called Kleen Sweep. Gates used to sell about a box a week. Lately he has been selling boxes by the pallet.

On Sunday, 2,100 doctors, nurses, technicians and managers at UCLA Medical Center will participate in a task of epic proportions: moving to the gleaming new hospital across the street. Although the distance is short, the details are daunting. The shift to the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center will require military-style precision.

Jilted fans of runaway sports franchises -- long lost lovers of the Baltimore Colts, the original Cleveland Browns, the Los Angeles Rams and even the L.A. Raiders -- now, more than ever, I know your pain. The reason it feels as if I just swallowed a handful of hot embers? It's my hometown team, the SuperSonics of Seattle. I grew up watching them, me and my dad, up in the cheap seats, game after game.