United States Attorney's Office

Bryan Shaw (r.) allegedly slips Scott London (l.) $5,000, across from Franklin True Value Hardware in Woodland Hills.

In exchange for confidential information worth of millions of dollars to him, well-to-do Encino diamond jeweler Bryan Shaw admits, he gave his tipster at KPMG a $12,000 Rolex Daytona Cosmograph watch.

Shaw, of Shaw Diamond Co. located in a high-rise on Ventura Boulevard, pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges for making illegal stock trades based on alleged advice from Scott London. London, also a wealthy guy, was fired by KPMG -- one of the world's Big Four auditing firms -- on April 5, the day he got arrested by the feds.

The behavior of these two men who had everything -- and now, it seems, have nothing -- goes beyond just money business.

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Tim Leiweke

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa weighs in, at the bottom.

The for sale sign outside the door of Anschutz Entertainment Group, owner of Staples Center, LA Live and London's 02 arena, has been taken down, the company announced.

Not only that but Tim Leiweke, the company's L.A.-based president and CEO and the architect of plans to build a $1.5 billion stadium next to LA Live, is out "by mutual agreement," the company stated this morning.

The sale had called the stadium plans into question:

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Updated below with Tribune clarifying it's not really an auction, reactions from top Los Angeles Times journalists and potential buyer Austin Beutner. Additional reporting by Hillel Aron. Headline has changed.

jmw

Will it bring $400 million?

CNBC is reporting that Tribune Co. has hired investment bankers to sell off its newspaper unit, which includes The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. The rumor has been that handsome jet-setter Bruce Karsh, the new chairman of the Tribune board of directors (by dint of the fact that Karsh's Oaktree Capital was owed a huge chunk by Tribune), would be a leading voice in selling off the newspapers, while keeping 23 lucrative TV stations and a big chunk of The Food Network.

In a situation similar to the sale of The Dodgers, Evercore and J.P. Morgan will auction the newspapers, according to CNBC. Tribune brass declined to comment -- but there can be no doubt that the 500 Los Angeles Times newsroom and editorial employees will watch this drama closer than the season closer of NCIS:

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Verizon / YouTube

Ever buy a holiday gift, change your mind, take it back and get hit with a whopper of a b.s. "restocking fee?"

When you return something immediately and it's unopened and unused, shouldn't it be illegal to charge money to walk it over to a shelf? It isn't, as Southern California resident Eric Rose found out recently.

Rose ...

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Forever 21 / Facebook

If you're feeling warm and cozy about that sweater you're giving your girlfriend for the holidays, beware the following information:

Federal and state authorities say that workers were underpaid at L.A. clothing manufacturers that engaged in "sweatshop practices" as they made goods for some of the biggest names in fashion retailing, including Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, HSN, Wet Seal, Aldo, Burlington Coat Factory, Charlotte Russe, Dillard's Ross, TJ Maxx and Marshall's.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division announced this today:

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Trust us, we know what we're doing.

By Hillel Aron
Nineteen big-time L.A. machers, including Steve Soboroff (rich Westside guy), Mickey Kantor (longtime Democratic consultant), Gary Toebben (Chamber of Commerce guy) and David Fleming (rich Valley guy), led by George Kieffer (Manatt, Phelps power broker), sent an open letter to City Council President Herb Wesson, urging the City Council to adopt Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's weenie plan to trim pensions for new city hires.

Kieffer warns that over-rich city pensions have put L.A. on an "unsustainable" course (without mentioning bankruptcy). The 19 big-shots then endorse Villaraigosa's milquetoast plan to save only $30 million to $70 million. When everybody knows City Hall must save billions because L.A. is broke and broken.

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Colin Young-Wolff

Coachella girls, sponsored by AEG.

Updated at the bottom: AEG confirms that it's looking to sell.

L.A.-based Anschutz Entertainment Group, the downtown powerhouse behind Staples Center, L.A. Live, the proposed Farmers Field football stadium and the world's second-largest concert promoter, Live Nation, might be for sale.

Several outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Reuters, say AEG's parent, Anschutz Corporation, is considering the sell-off.

What's it worth?

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Gray Construction

Earlier this month, Wal-Mart opened its very first California neighborhood market in Huntington Beach.

One labor organization's doomsday scenario for a Wal-Mart invasion of L.A. County is starting to look less and less outlandish.

Late last week, Wal-Mart officials announced plans for two new "neighborhood markets" in the L.A. area: One is set to open in a deserted party-supply store in Downey, and the other in a former furniture store in Bell Gardens.

Neighborhood markets are already plotted for Chinatown, Panorama City and Altadena. So if all goes according to Wal-Mart's plan...

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@westwoodisdying via Twitter

Long live Westwood?

Ever since the beginning May, a morbid Twitter account called @westwoodisdying has been forming an unofficial file of all "the closed and closing storefronts in Westwood Village," and just documenting the neighborhood's cultural decline in general. (For example: the buffing-over of a Shepard Fairey piece on a parking garage.)

We can't tell if the account is a real-estate agent's marketing scheme, or some grad student's terrible Urban Studies and Planning thesis, or a reverse-psychology Target promotion, or WTF, but it does get us to wondering:

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Alexis Tsotsis

E3 '09 'booth girls.'

Geeks rejoice.

It might not be Comic-Con, but it's the "largest annual conference that the city hosts," according to L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

And the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo is staying in town for another three years (through summer 2015), despite some chatter that conventions would not be happy coexisting with NFL stadium construction if Farmer's Field at the Convention Center West Hall is approved.

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Tradition makes the best PR.

Four days before "the largest anti-Walmart demonstration in history" at the chain's Chinatown construction site (union leaders say they expect a turnout of 10,000), Wal-Mart is holding something of a celebratory counter-protest at the same location.

The "construction kick-off" at 1 p.m. today is like a groundbreaking, says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Rachel Wall -- except "you can't exactly call it a groundbreaking, because it's a vacant building."

And that's really the heart of the Chinatown Walmart pitch:

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"No Wal Mart in Burbank" via Facebook

Resistance is futile.

Updated at the bottom: Wal-Mart calls this "study" nothing more than a "recycled 2011 press release from New York." More at the bottom.

Every time plans for a new L.A.-area Walmart leak to the public -- recent targets include Burbank, Chinatown and Altadena -- we see a familiar wave of outrage and picket signs and union pressers.

But Wal-Mart knows what it can and can't do. A company this savvy isn't going to waste time trying to open its doors where city ordinances don't permit. So Wal-Mart has instead found local loopholes...

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Wolf in sheep's clothing?

Rumors were flying, but as of this morning, Wal-Mart affirms to Altadena Patch: the company will be moving into an empty building at Lincoln and Figueroa. Construction will begin immediately, and "Wal-Mart is aiming for a January of 2013 opening," reports Patch.

And so, little by little, we see the Los Angeles Business Journal's unsourced September prophecy come true: Wal-Mart is planning to sneak at least 15 new stores into SoCal via permit loophole.

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Deceptively space-age.

Despite being one of the nation's busiest airports, LAX is having a really hard time adjusting to the 21st century. Most glaringly, as we're sure you've noticed, L.A.'s international hub lacks the next most important element after air and water: free Wifi. Up to now, T-Mobile has been charging a whopping $9.99 to connect. (Perhaps contributing to LAX's status as most hated airport for business travelers.)

But all that was scheduled to change as soon as early September 2012...

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At your service.

No, that is not the tour bus for Echo Park's ironic new K-pop girl band.

Somehow, it's even more perfect than that. The pink van driving around L.A. with the groovy font and the mustache -- as of this morning! -- is actually a delivery vehicle for HipSwap, the Santa Monica-based online marketplace that features such glamorous second-hand items as Real Housewife Kyle Richards' old Jimmy Choos and some random rich girl's $900 alligator boots.

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Google Maps

Make way for geeks.

Updated at the bottom: Google may work out some sort of sublet deal with Gold's, allowing it to stay in its historic location. And the jocks beat the nerds again!

Originally posted May 14 at 5:30 p.m.

Last week, the former owner of Gold's Gym in Venice leaked to Muscle Week that Google would be taking over the iconic old bodybuilder haven -- just one step in turning that whole area into a Mountain View-style Google compound.

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IFBB.com

Meatheads, make way for brogrammers.

For months, rumors have been rippling through the Venice real-estate crowd that Google might be buying up the iconic Gold's Gym on Hampton Drive, and possibly the Digital Domain building next door.

And for months, we haven't been able to confirm. But Jason Stern, a local blogger who focuses on Venice Beach's body-building culture -- which is dying out, he says, as the funky coastal village transforms into SoCal's own Silicon Beach -- says he finally got someone to go on the record with the rumor. The source's name is Ed Connors...

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American Apparel

Bonus: 360-degree tan.

For all the PR energy that goes into pushing the solar revolution, Los Angeles homeowners remain skeptical about installing their own set of panels. (Our city of 4 million only has about 4,000 solar-powered homes.)

Maybe all those Big Green promo teams should have taken a tip or two from controversial American Apparel CEO Dov Charney. This guy knows better than the high-school volleyball coach at the corner carwash that sudsy young girls in bikinis can sell just about anything.

Case in point:

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Reuters

Xi knows how to party.

China and Los Angeles are BFFing out of control right now.

After L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took a $30,000-a-day tour of Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai in December, one of China's top officials is returning the favor:

Vice President Xi Jinping, fully expected to become the rising nation's next president, is devoting two full days of next week's U.S. tour to Los Angeles. Here's his itinerary, based on information from media reports:

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Here's the known, and rumored, list 15 of exceedingly rich Wall Street one percenters, fabulously wealthy moguls and hardcore baseball lovers who may -- or may not -- have made secret, non-binding $1 billion bids to buy the Dodgers before the January 23, 2012 deadline expired.

Tom Barrack, billionaire castle owner and Hollywood insider.

1. Tom Barrack, colorful Santa Barbara jet-setter who struck it rich as an Arabic-speaking adviser to Saudi princes. A billionaire who hobnobs with Hollywood and runs $36 billion Colony Capital private-equity firm, he owns Neverland and polo fields. Number 375 on Forbes 400 list of the rich.
2. Ron Burkle, L.A. supermarket magnate and aging party boy, owns the Pittsburgh Penguins, runs huge Yucaipa Companies. The thin-skinned Burkle is deep into Democratic Party politics and the studio investing scene. He's 107 on Forbes 400.
3. Alan Casden, Beverly Hills accountant-turned-apartment king who built 90,000 units. A billionaire math whiz, Casden lost to Frank McCourt in buying the Dodgers in 2003. Casden wanted to demolish Dodger Stadium -- to build apartments. Number 359 on Forbes 400.
4. Fred Claire, Dodger GM fired by Fox in 1998 for slamming its trade of Mike Piazza. Paired with Andy Dolich, former prez of the Oakland Athletics, and Ben Hwang, former Dodgers batboy who became an exec at Carlsbad biotech firm Life Technologies Corp.
5. Steven Cohen, worth $8 billion, an aggressive and controversial Wall Street trader and hedge fund exec at SAC Capital Advisors in Connecticut. Paired with baseball agent Arn Tellem. Cohen is 35 on Forbes 400.
Please see next page for ten more possible bidders.

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