Santa Barbara County

CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent company of fast-food chain Carl's Jr., is in "very early" talks about moving its headquarters from Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County to Texas, company spokeswoman Beth Mansfield said. CKE President Andy Puzder has been on a media blitz this week through the Lone Star State, where he has been promoting the chain in connection with the Super Bowl on Sunday. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Puzder said he would meet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry to discuss a move.

As public school students in Los Angeles adjust to a shorter academic year, Catholic school pupils face a different sort of transition. Beginning this fall, most elementary schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will add 20 days to their schedules, making their school year one of the longest in the United States. In announcing the expansion to a 200-day calendar, Cardinal Roger Mahony insisted Thursday that the archdiocese was not trying to gain a competitive advantage over the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has cut its school year to 175 days this year.

Intense news coverage in Ventura County of the shooting death of gay teenager Lawrence "Larry" King prompted a judge Monday to order that the jurors be drawn from neighboring Santa Barbara County. Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell agreed with the defense's contention that Ventura County residents have been so saturated with press coverage of the sensational classroom slaying that 16-year-old defendant Brandon McInerney's right to a fair trial was threatened. But while jurors will be selected from southern Santa Barbara County, the trial will stay in Ventura County Superior Court, Campbell said at a Monday hearing.

Government-backed loans to small businesses were way up in the Los Angeles area over much of the last year, according to the Small Business Administration. During the nine-month period that ended June 30, lenders made 1,725 loans to small businesses in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, about 50% more than in the same period a year earlier. The dollar volume of those loans nearly doubled compared with the year-earlier period, to $850.8 million. The top SBA lender in the region during that period was Wells Fargo Bank, followed by Center Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Superior Financial Group and CDC Small Business Finance Corp.

At the Tarzana restaurant where he worked as a waiter, Bernardo Alvarez was well-liked and reliable. When he didn't show up last month after not missing a single day in 10 years, his boss at the Greystoke Grill grew concerned and filed a missing-persons report. Authorities on Wednesday identified Alvarez as the man whose body was found burning next to the 101 Freeway in Santa Barbara County about 4 a.m. on July 15. At a news conference, officials from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles Police Department appealed to the public for clues into Alvarez's grisly death.

A business owned by California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado and his family owes the federal government more than $100,000 in taxes, according to a lien filed against the property by the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year. It is the ninth time since 1992 that federal, state or local tax collectors have resorted to liens against the Santa Maria Republican's family farm in an effort to compel payments totaling more than $240,000, public records show. Federal officials filed the lien April 13, two weeks before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger swore in Maldonado as the state's second highest-ranking public official.

So many things are hard these days in California. Here's an easy one: The state doesn't need and can't afford a Neverland State Park. Oh, sure, if the investment company that holds the title to Michael Jackson's Santa Barbara County ranch wanted to donate it to the state for preservation as open space, like the Hearsts donated the family castle in San Simeon, we'd be amenable to the idea. But no one's talking about that sort of land deal.

Smiling docents, green-clad rangers, music piped in everywhere — for Michael Jackson fans, Neverland State Park would no doubt be a thriller. But state park officials say it's an idea whose time may never come. Assemblyman Mike Davis, a Los Angeles Democrat, said Tuesday that he's going to push for a study of the possibility when the Legislature meets again in August. Jackson "was one of the world's preeminent entertainers and California is fortunate to have such a site in its jurisdiction," said Davis, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media.

Furio Scarpelli Oscar-nominated screenwriter Furio Scarpelli, 90, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who co-wrote some of the best Italian comedies of the post-war period and who ventured into the spaghetti-western genre with the "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," died Wednesday at his home in Rome, his family said. He had long suffered from heart problems. During a decades-long, prolific partnership with Age, a screenwriter whose given name was Agenore Incrocci, Scarpelli co-wrote some of Italy's finest movies after World War II, including the iconic comedy "Big Deal on Madonna Street."