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Newsletter: California Inc.: Organic food with change to spare

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Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the Los Angeles 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.

Keep an eye on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. They’ll be meeting this weekend to discuss oil prices, and the over-under is that they’ll either cut back or freeze production. There’s a glut of oil on the market right now, which has depressed the cost of crude. That’s good for consumers filling up at the gas pump but not so much for the petroleum industry.

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LOOKING AHEAD

Water meeting: Kern County uses millions of gallons of treated wastewater from oil production to irrigate about 45,000 acres of crops. But some in the community fear that the water-saving technique may be carrying traces of dangerous chemicals into food. An expert panel on food safety of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board will hold a meeting on the issue Monday at the board’s office in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova. The 1 p.m. meeting is expected to last three hours and will be webcast here.

Cinemacon: Thousands of theater owners and studio executives will gather at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for the sixth annual Cinemacon convention, which runs Tuesday through Friday. Studios such as Disney, Fox and Universal will present their hoped-for blockbusters at the industry event. Keynote speakers will be Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, chief executive of Mexican theater chain Cinépolis, and Tom Molter, executive vice president at Warner Bros. Pictures.

Cable merger: Should Charter Communications be allowed to acquire Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks? A California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge is expected to file his recommendation on the matter Tuesday. Charter, based in Stamford, Conn., needs the approval of state and federal regulators before it can consolidate with the two other cable companies and become the largest pay-TV provider in Southern California. Approval from the Federal Communications Commission could come as early as next week.

Facebook conference: Virtual reality, video streaming and 360-degree video will be high on the agenda when Facebook holds its F8 developers conference in San Francisco on Tuesday and Wednesday. The event aims to help programmers design software to work with Facebook and its acquisitions, including Instagram, Oculus VR and WhatsApp. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has used the event in the past to announce new features. The conference will be streamed live online.

Rock and roar: Two loud events — one with music, one with cars — will bring thousands of people and millions of dollars in spending to Southern California this weekend. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival kicks off Friday and runs through Sunday, plus the following weekend, with a lineup that includes Guns N’ Roses, LCD Soundsystem, Sia, Ellie Goulding and Gary Clark Jr. To the west, the Grand Prix of Long Beach will be held Friday through Sunday in that city’s downtown.

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THE AGENDA

Monday’s Business section buzzes about the electric-car market. Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, with a starting price of $35,000, has attracted all the hoopla. Yet electric-car sales remain a drop in the bucket for the U.S. auto industry. Pure electric cars — not counting hybrids that use a battery and a conventional internal-combustion engine — represented just 0.4% of the record 17.4 million cars sold in the United States last year.

STORY LINES

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

Magical moment: Universal Studios Hollywood, long considered second tier compared with its more popular rival, is challenging Disneyland’s position as king of the theme park mountain, thanks to $1.6 billion in upgrades, including the opening last week of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The wizarding world’s centerpiece, the Forbidden Journey ride, is already being hailed as possibly the coolest theme-park attraction in North America. It blends traditional dark-ride effects with the high-speed thrill-like aspects that come from steering guests around screens with fast-moving images.

Redstone deal: Lawyers have crafted the outlines of a settlement in the high-stakes legal drama over whether media mogul Sumner Redstone is mentally competent to handle his affairs. The proposed settlement, if approved by a judge, would close the chapter on a tawdry lawsuit that has been a distraction for media company Viacom. The agreement is expected to be brought before a Los Angeles County judge this week. Redstone, 92, controls CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc., which owns Paramount Pictures, and the MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon cable channels.

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PacSun bankruptcy: Beachy teen retailer Pacific Sunwear of California has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the latest in a string of California activewear companies that have struggled to adjust to changing fashion trends. The company said it planned to reorganize through a debt-for-equity restructuring agreement with Golden Gate Capital, a San Francisco private equity firm, and emerge as a privately owned company. The Anaheim-based retailer said it plans to operate its businesses as usual during the restructuring process and that the filing should have “no immediate impact” on customers or employees.

Faster growth: California’s economy will grow faster this year than the national economy, and unemployment will drop to 5% in the first quarter of 2017, according to a new report by the UCLA Anderson Forecast. The jobless rate in California was 5.5% in February. The report also predicts personal income in California will increase more slowly than it has in recent years, when the state’s economy was bouncing back from the high unemployment of the recession. In 2016, personal income in California is expected to hit 3.6%, compared with 4.5% in 2015. Wages and salaries in the state, not adjusting for inflation, will grow about 5.7% this year, according to the projections.

Not-So-Whole Paycheck: Whole Foods is opening its first lower-priced store, 365 by Whole Foods Market, in Silver Lake on May 25. The 365 concept, described as “quality meets value,” is designed to cater to younger shoppers. The Austin, Texas, company said last year that the new chain will be geared toward 18- to 34-year-olds who want all-natural foods at more affordable prices. The 365 name comes from Whole Foods’ value brand, which is already found in the company’s stores. In Silver Lake, the grocery store will have a restaurant by the chef behind New York vegan eatery By Chloe. It will also have a coffee bar and a self-serve tea kiosk.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Some recent stories from other publications that caught our eye:

Panama Papers: The so-called Panama Papers exposed the widespread efforts of the rich and powerful to hide money in overseas accounts. To the Guardian, this story “represents the coming-of-age of leaktivism.” It shows that “leaking truthful information is an effective form of social protest.”

Plenty of company: The California Sunday Magazine takes a look at Crowds on Demand, a company “that provides fake paparazzi, pretend campaign supporters and counterfeit protesters.” It’s based in Beverly Hills, has two full-time employees and reportedly is bringing in more than $1 million in annual revenue.

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Top CEO: Who’s the world’s top business leader? According to Fortune, that would be Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. “He still preaches customer focus and long-term thinking. Yet of necessity, as Amazon has become massive … he has become the sort of leader who empowers others.”

Tax dodge: The sharing economy is all about, well, sharing — except when it comes to taxes. As Bloomberg reports, because Airbnb “manages its finances via units in Ireland and tax havens like Jersey in the Channel Islands,” only a small part of its revenue will reach U.S. tax coffers.

Money for nothing: There are a number of perks to being a celebrity. Maybe the best, says GQ, is getting paid just for showing up. Top stars can score north of $200,000 for a 60-minute appearance at a nightclub or event. Even bargain-basement reality-TV stars can make thousands.

SPARE CHANGE

One last tip of the cowboy hat to country legend Merle Haggard, who died last week at 79. Maybe he wasn’t as prominent as Buck Owens, but he also placed an indelible stamp on the Bakersfield sound.

Haggard was well known for his 1969 hit “Okie from Muskogee.” I’m a good deal more partial to “Workin’ Man Blues.”

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For the latest money news, go to www.latimes.com/business. Until next time, I’ll see you in the Business section.

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