Truck

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

LA JOLLA - From Florenz Ziegfeld's synchronized showgirls toAndrew Lloyd Webber's roller-skating actors to aSpider-Man who flies, musical theater has often encouraged dance and movement extravaganzas. So imagine the anxiety of the team putting together the new musical, "Hands on a Hardbody," which has its premiere Saturday at the La Jolla Playhouse. The story's 10 characters are tied - figuratively - to a Nissan pickup truck. How do you take that reality and turn it into a show-stopping number?

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

With a caffeine headache and 60 bucks in my britches, I head out to the pony rides on a Friday night - to glittery, improbable Hollywood Park, now officially Betfair Hollywood Park. The Inglewood track's spring-summer semester has just started, and on Friday evenings it has what amounts to a horse-racing revival: a little wagering, a few food trucks, followed by a live concert reasonably priced. It's easy to see why these Friday night festivities are such a hit with young people like us. "I love ponies," the little guy says.

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

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.

General Motors Co. plans to bury the Chevrolet Avalanche. The automaker said the 2013 model year will be the last for the truck, which features unique styling that incorporates a mid-size truck bed and interior seating for five. It was meant to be a light-duty pickup truck that could tow, haul and still transport a family. "More than 580,000 Avalanches have been sold since its introduction in 2001, and Avalanche has won major awards and recognitions throughout its run," said Mark Clawson, Avalanche marketing manager.

Four college students were killed Saturday when their car collided with an oncoming vehicle on a two-lane Napa Valley highway, the California Highway Patrol said. The victims, who were pronounced dead at the scene, were identified as Boaz Pak, 20, Luke Nishikawa, 22, Simon Son, 19, and Chong Shin, 20. All attended Pacific Union College, a four-year liberal arts school in Angwin, a small town in the hills above Napa Valley. The four were in a Honda Civic that was struck by a Toyota pickup truck.

LA JOLLA - From Florenz Ziegfeld's synchronized showgirls toAndrew Lloyd Webber's roller-skating actors to aSpider-Man who flies, musical theater has often encouraged dance and movement extravaganzas. So imagine the anxiety of the team putting together the new musical, "Hands on a Hardbody," which has its premiere Saturday at the La Jolla Playhouse. The story's 10 characters are tied - figuratively - to a Nissan pickup truck. How do you take that reality and turn it into a show-stopping number?

LOCATION: Check tacomaria.com and twitter.com/tacomaria for the latest locations and weekly schedule. PRICES: Tacos, $2.50 to $3; burritos, $6 to $7; specials and desserts, $4 to $7. DETAILS: Credit cards accepted.

Ah, the glamour of being an Olympic medalist. It is an overcast Wednesday morning in Newhall. The parking lot at the Oak Tree Gun Club is already filling up and the greatest competitive female gunslinger in the history of the good ol' USA is being put through the paces by a photographer. Our modern-day Annie Oakley stands on a square of dirt, next to a field of gravel and facing a scraggly hill. A sign warns of rattlesnakes in the area, and Kim Rhode laughs and says, "Almost sat on one here.

The American Trucking Assn. said that it expects the industry to haul more freight than it did last year, but it added that the pace of growth would probably be slower than it was in 2010 and 2011. The association is the nation's biggest trade organization for the trucking industry, with affiliates in each of the 50 states. In 2010 and 2011, freight tonnage grew by 5.8%, but this year the Trucking Assn. is expecting growth of slightly less than 3%. Bob Costello, chief economist for the ATA said that the trucking industry's performance during the first quarter "was reflective of an economy that is growing, but growing moderately.

Beetles and Rogues are for chicks, 911s and F-series trucks are for dudes. That's the finding of TrueCar.com's study of new-vehicle buying preferences by gender. "Female car buyers really gravitated toward smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and crossovers," said Kristen Andersson, a TrueCar analyst. "It was the complete opposite for male buyers, who preferred either a fast and sporty vehicle with distinctive curb appeal or a big vehicle, like a large truck or SUV. " The Volvo S40 had the highest percentage of women buyers, 57.9%.

Madison Richardson had no clue that Los Angeles was burning. On April 29, 1992, the head and neck surgeon was touring the Griffith Park Equestrian Center with polo-playing friends from India. A colleague paged him. Could Richardson rush to Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood to help care for a young truck driver who was near death after a beating? Oh, and, by the way, had Richardson been watching TV? No? Then find one and turn it on. What Richardson saw reminded him instantly of the chaos he witnessed during the Watts riots in 1965 and the Washington, D.C., riots in 1968.

General Motors Co. plans to bury the Chevrolet Avalanche. The automaker said the 2013 model year will be the last for the truck, which features unique styling that incorporates a mid-size truck bed and interior seating for five. It was meant to be a light-duty pickup truck that could tow, haul and still transport a family. "More than 580,000 Avalanches have been sold since its introduction in 2001, and Avalanche has won major awards and recognitions throughout its run," said Mark Clawson, Avalanche marketing manager.

WASHINGTON — More than 21/2 years after the fatal crash of a Lexus in suburban San Diego led to the recall of millions of Toyota vehicles, federal regulators are taking their most significant step to prevent future vehicles from accelerating out of control. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration formally proposed a requirement Thursday that automakers include a brake-throttle override system in all their passenger cars and light trucks to help drivers regain control when a vehicle accelerates suddenly.

It's a sign of the times: Anisette's Alain Giraud will be handing out free samples from a food truck on the Third Street Promenade. "I've never worked inside a truck so I don't want to get too ambitious," he says of the French delicacies he will prepare. That's not a permanent change of venue, of course. Giraud is one of five well-known Southern California chefs who will be participating in a promotion in advance of dineLA's first fall Restaurant Week, which will begin Oct. 4. But while Giraud may not be ambitious, that's certainly not the case with dineLA, which hit on the canny idea of tapping into the food truck fad that has taken the city's popular imagination by storm.

SACRAMENTO — Faced with backlash from food lovers and cooks, Assemblyman William Monning (D-Carmel) said Wednesday he is dropping a proposal to ban food trucks from school areas. Monning, chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, said his measure lacked enough votes to win approval this year. "Our calculus was: It was still not ready for prime time," Monning said, adding that he would look for other ways to address his concerns about obesity among schoolchildren. His measure, AB 1678, continued to draw strong opposition from the food-vending industry even after he agreed recently to change it to reduce the distance that food trucks would have to maintain from schools.