California Inc.: At long last, paychecks may be going up

Dec. 28, 2015 1 AM PT

Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business Section.

I’m Business columnist David Lazarus, and here’s a rundown of upcoming stories this week and the highlights of last week.

Let the post-Christmas sales begin. Retailers will be pulling out the stops this week to squeeze a last surge of purchases from deal-seeking shoppers. We found out last week that consumer spending rose 0.3% in November.

Looking Ahead

Fresh & Bankrupt: Fresh & Easy, the grocery chain that filed for bankruptcy in October, faces a Tuesday deadline for filing its schedule of assets and liabilities and a statement of financial affairs in federal court in Delaware. The documents had been due earlier, but bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon agreed to extend the filing period after Fresh & Easy lawyers asked for more time due to “the substantial size, scope and complexity of this Chapter 11 case.”

NFL teams: Wednesday is the deadline for three cities — St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland — to make their final offers to the National Football League to keep their teams from moving to Southern California. The St. Louis Rams are proposing moving to a stadium in Inglewood, while the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders are backing a competing plan in Carson. The NFL wants local officials in St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland to submit new stadium plans in order to keep their teams.

River pact: A high-profile deal to remove four hydroelectric dams and improve conditions on one of the West Coast’s prime salmon rivers will collapse if a deadline for congressional approval passes Thursday without action. The Klamath River pact, signed in 2010 by the governors of California and Oregon, was once hailed as the path to peace on a river that has long been marked by strife among tribal, agricultural and fishery interests. But without Congress’ OK, the competing interests will have to start negotiations anew.

Tax planning: Thursday is the last day to try and ease your 2015 income tax burden. Charitable deductions need to be made by the end of the year to count on your return. Depending on your situation, you may wish to make sure some income arrives in 2015 — or is postponed until the new year. To squeeze out a slightly larger mortgage-interest deduction, consider making your January mortgage payment before the end of the year.

Cramming refunds: Verizon and Sprint cellphone customers who were improperly billed for premium text messages have until the end of the day Thursday to apply for money from a settlement fund. The two telecom giants agreed in May to pay out at least $120 million in refunds after being caught “cramming” — billing customers for third-party text-messaging services that they hadn’t asked for. Verizon customers can submit claims at www.CFPBSettlementVerizon.com, Sprint customers at www.SprintRefundPSMS.com.

The Agenda

Monday’s Business section looks at something American workers haven’t seen in years: fatter paychecks. Even as the recovery from the Great Recession brought huge profits for corporations, most workers’ salaries have barely kept up with inflation. But as the nation edges closer to full employment and with layoffs near historical lows, there are growing indications that ordinary workers are finally starting to reap some of the gains.

Story Lines

Here are some of the other stories that ran in the L.A. Times Business section in recent days that we’re continuing to follow:

Scope probe: A U.S. lawmaker is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Olympus Corp. in response to a Times article that detailed how the company kept selling its scopes despite knowledge of a 2012 superbug outbreak in the Netherlands. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said regulators should investigate the scope maker for possible fraud and violations of U.S. securities laws in connection with a Dutch investigator’s 2012 report. The Food and Drug Administration has identified 10 outbreaks of drug-resistant infections, seven linked to Olympus scopes.

Perfect landing: When Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket nailed its historic landing at Florida’s Cape Canaveral and the enormous dust cloud settled, it was more than an engineering feat hailed around the world. The Falcon 9’s landing made deep space travel seem attainable again — not just to aerospace engineers and astronauts, but to the masses. Analysts called it a giant step toward a day when rockets routinely enter and return from space, not unlike how airliners fly across the globe now. That would transform not just the space industry, but perhaps even where and how humans live in the more distant future.

Trendy hotel: L.A.’s newest boutique hotel — a luxurious 190-room property with not one but two rooftop pools — is expected to rise from the Sunset Strip this spring now that the developers have received $260 million in financing. The project from New York developer Witkoff Group will be the first West Coast outpost for the Edition hotel brand, a collaboration between hospitality giant Marriott International and former nightclub impresario Ian Schrager. The financing will cover most of the estimated $300-million construction budget for the project at Sunset Boulevard and Doheny Drive, which will include as many as 20 pricey condos.

Taxi tech: Flywheel, the company on a mission to help taxis better compete with on-demand transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft, may be a step closer to reaching its goal after the California Division of Measurement Standards approved its smartphone taxi meter for statewide use. The TaxiOS mobile app runs on the driver’s Android smartphone, replaces traditional taxi meters and acts as a payment system, a navigation system and a dispatch system. Passengers can continue hailing cabs off the street and pay using traditional methods, but will have the option of hailing and paying for a cab through the Flywheel app, like they would an Uber or Lyft.

What We’re Reading

And some recent stories from other publications that caught our eye:

Tiara tussle: Bloomberg plays with dolls. That is, they’ve done a nifty job looking at how Hasbro has battled Mattel for dominance over the $500-million market for princess dolls. Bonus points for a darned impressive video.

Gender markup: The Washington Post makes the case for always buying guy things instead of gal things when there’s a gender distinction made. Why? “Items marketed to girls and women cost an average 7% more than similar products aimed at boys and men.”

Moneymed: Our cousins at the San Diego Union-Tribune offer a nice take on how economist Paul DePodesta, whose statistical methods for analyzing baseball players inspired “Moneyball,” is now scrutinizing medical data. He says baseball and healthcare aren’t so different.

Prairie tech: So where is “America’s most undervalued tech hub”? According to Fortune, that would be Fargo, N.D., where they’re cooking up more than wood chippers.

Knotty problem: You’re a knitter and your yarn is hopelessly tangled — who you gonna call? According to the Wall Street Journal, you need a professional “detangler.” They typically take on projects for nothing more than the cost of shipping.