Replacements

Groupon Inc. is bringing on two new directors to replace Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Howard Schultz and venture capitalist Kevin Efrusy on the board. The two are Daniel Henry, chief financial officer of American Express Co., and Robert Bass, a retiring vice chairman at consulting firm Deloitte. They will serve on Groupon's audit committee. Henry was appointed April 26 to replace Schultz, who stepped down. Bass is retiring from Deloitte on June 2 and will stand for election at Groupon's annual meeting that month to replace Efrusy of Accel Partners.

The two apparent front-runners to replace Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas are veteran public officials with strong connections to the east San Fernando Valley Democratic machine that has sent candidates to City Hall since the mid-1990s. Both also are women, which means the race gives voters the best shot in the city of putting a woman on the overwhelmingly male council. Nury Martinez, a Los Angeles Unified School District board member, and Cindy Montañez, a former state assemblywoman and executive at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, are among six candidates competing in the special election Tuesday to replace Cardenas, who was elected to Congress.

The NFL is a week away from the start of the regular season, and already the league has blown a major call. It will open the season with replacement officials. League executive Ray Anderson has informed all 32 teams that stand-ins will be on the field starting Sept. 5 when the Dallas Cowboys open at the New York Giants, according to multiple reports. The regular officials have been locked out since June, and negotiations between the NFL and NFL Referees Assn. have stalled.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown is taking another stab at largely eliminating a state $700-million tax break for "enterprise zones" aimed at creating jobs in economically strapped localities. The governor failed in his efforts in 2011 to eliminate these politically popular quarter-century-old zones, located in the legislative districts of about three out of every four lawmakers. In his revised budget Tuesday, Brown proposed that 40 enterprise zones be replaced by a sales tax credit for companies that purchase manufacturing or biotech research and development equipment.

Writers from around Tribune Co. discuss how games might be affected if the NFL referee lockout extends into the regular season. Check back throughout the day for their responses and join the conversation with a comment of your own. Matt Vensel, Baltimore Sun As is the case in any profession, you can expect a drop-off when the best in the business are sitting on the sidelines. This applies to NFL referees as much as it does to its starting quarterbacks and skilled workers away from the gridiron - surgeons, master chefs and hair stylists too. But even though the replacement officials aren't likely to butcher the rules like that woman at the hair salon chain at the mall did to my hair last time around, there will be differences - some subtle and some not. The expansion of replay may prevent game-changing missed calls, but veteran NFL official Ed Hochuli says  that replacement officials threw between one and five penalty flags a game in 2001, the last time replacements were used.

There were several mundane but pressing questions facing Paul Westerberg as he sat in a hotel room in Phoenix earlier this week. What was he going to do about the headache that had been bothering him since he got up? And where was he going to get a clean shirt to wear, now that everything he had packed for the road was all grubby? And would either of the above be resolved before he had to go off with the three other members of the Replacements for a promotional visit to a local radio station?

All I heard during the strike was Todd Christensen saying we were watching amateurs. If what I saw last Sunday was the "professional" Raiders, then my early Christmas wish is for the return of the scabs. Maybe if Todd and his friends would watch reruns of the replacement games, it might remind them of what it's like to play with Raider intensity. DEL FREITAS Tulare

The Replacements have matured to the point where their live shows hardly ever collapse into drunken tantrums anymore, but that doesn't mean they have outgrown their capacity for chaos. There were times during their concert Saturday night at UC Irvine's Crawford Hall when the rock band from Minneapolis sounded like a loud, formless, lurching ball of confusion--drums thumping stiffly, guitars scraping and blaring at cross purposes and singer Paul Westerberg barking with all the melodiousness of an overexcited basset hound.

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos' "Dogtooth" is probably the flat-out weirdest film ever nominated for an Academy Award. In Lanthimos' follow-up film, "Alps," he seems to have pulled back from the political allegory of "Dogtooth" to push further into territory that is more emotional though no less abstracted. In it, a small squad of people hire themselves out as substitutes for the recently deceased so that loved ones may more slowly engage with their grief or attempt to recreate favorite moments.

With only three weeks left before the end of the semester, Grant High School history instructor Jeremy Lawrence--in his first day as a permanent teacher--had more to worry about than opening-day jitters Monday. He had chapters to review, exams to give and the names of more than 150 students to learn in less than a month's time.

An upside-down American flag is considered a signal of distress. And that's the feeling Robert Rosebrock had when he looked up and noticed the red, white and blue street-lamp banners outside the Department of Veterans Affairs' West Los Angeles Medical Center were in disarray - tattered, tangled around the poles or flapping upside-down in the breeze. "It was disgraceful," said Rosebrock, a 71-year-old U.S. Army veteran who arranged for the flags' installation 11 months ago using $12,000 donated by Metabolic Studio, a charitable arm of the Annenberg Foundation.

L.A.'s 9th City Council District is among the poorest in the city, taking in a stretch of South Los Angeles where the median household income is less than $30,000 per year. Yet despite persistent economic woes, the district has become a hot spot for expensive campaign contributions in this year's election, with special interests from across the state spending big in the race to replace termed-out Councilwoman Jan Perry. Labor unions, businesses, billboard companies, healthcare interests and others have spent $900,000 on unlimited "independent expenditures" for state Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles)

Chris Tellez sat in class, his stomach grinding. The 15-year-old felt fine in his first class two weeks ago at Animo Locke Charter High School 2 in Watts, but by second period he could wait no longer. "I had to use the restroom," he said. "But the toilets are there in the open. There are no stalls or anything. " He went to the office and asked if he could go home. His mother was called and gave the go-ahead. As he hurried to his home, which is behind the school, two older boys beat him up and stole his cellphone.

Since Mike Trout returned to center field, he has resembled the dominant offensive force he was last year. However, when center fielder Peter Bourjos returns from the disabled list, the Angels plan to return Trout to left field. Trout began play Monday batting .354 in 12 games since Bourjos' injury, with four home runs, 13 runs batted in, and nine runs. In his first 25 games this season, Trout batted .252, with 12 RBIs and 14 runs. "Whether Mike plays center or left, it's not connected with his offensive performance," Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has reassigned three of his deputies, including the head of the department's internal affairs division, in a shake-up the chief said is meant to usher in "fresh perspectives. " The most notable of the moves will see Deputy Chief Mark Perez, who has run internal affairs for several years and oversaw a dramatic shift in how the department handles discipline, be replaced by another deputy chief, Debra McCarthy. McCarthy, 52, currently commands the department's West Bureau, which includes police stations in Venice, West L.A. and Hollywood.

Goodbye, David Kahn. Hello, Flip Saunders. Again. The Minnesota Timberwolves announced Thursday that owner Glen Taylor will not pick up the option for next season on Kahn's contract as president of basketball operations. Three people with knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press that Taylor has agreed on a deal to hire Saunders as Kahn's replacement. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Saunders will be a part-owner of the team. Saunders coached the Timberwolves from 1995 to 2005, and his reputation in the Twin Cities only grew when the team cratered after his exit.

Move over just a bit, Ronald Reagan. You need to make room for Barry Goldwater. For decades, the statues in the U.S. Capitol remained, well, stationary. But recently, more states are looking to substitute better-known figures for obscure ones. Some also want the National Statuary Hall Collection, a popular tourist attraction, to include more minorities and women. Since the 19th century, each state has been permitted to provide two statues of notable citizens to the collection, dispersed throughout the Capitol and its new visitor center.

NFL officials aim to go largely unnoticed, but now they're feeling unappreciated. Locked out in a labor fight, officials are facing the prospect of being supplanted - at least temporarily - by vastly less experienced replacements, some of whom have been plucked from the high school or junior college ranks. What's more, nine of the most respected former officials who later became officiating trainers have been instructed by the league to turn in their computers and no longer have access to the NFL's computer system.

CAIRO - President Mohamed Morsi casts himself as a leader navigating a landscape bristling with conspiracies by corrupt businessmen and shadowy figures plotting from inside a vast bureaucracy his Islamist inner circle has been unable to tame. While protesters march, workers strike, students rally and the economy is in a scary tailspin, the president's more serious nemesis may lie behind the scenes in what is known as the "deep state. " The courts, police, army and intelligence agencies were shaped over decades by the secular rule of deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Things vanish and are replaced at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park all the time, so a lost Barry Bonds commemorative plaque shouldn't be a big deal, a team spokeswoman said Wednesday. “It's a stadium with 41,000 people, things disappear from the ballpark and we replace them,” said Giants spokeswoman Staci Slaughter. “It's a wooden, painted sign.” The team said it will replace the sign. PHOTOS: Barry Bonds through the years Slaughter and Giants officials are in the midst of a busy week.