The owner of BurgerFi, a farm-to-tray burger joint opening up in the former Laguna Beach spot that belonged to a KFC franchise, is looking to thank the mysterious good samaritan who found the $10,000 he accidentally left behind on a park bench. more ›

If you're a Bank of America customer and you swipe that handy debit card for purchases, get ready to have a $5 monthly fee charged to your account starting in early 2012. The bank announced the impending imposition today, and intends to use the added revenue to help pad themselves against losses they'll incur on new caps placed on fees merchants pay for debit transactions. more ›

Beneath their shiny, stylized exteriors and delicious curbside bites, food trucks are businesses and "encounter somewhat unique challenges to get up and running and remain successful," according to a handy infographic by Intuit. more ›

To the relief of absolutely no one, The U.S. Metro Wealth Index today revealed that a quarter-million Angelenos are bloody rich, an increase of nearly 9 percent over 2009. more ›

If you've spent much of your career in Los Angeles as a "shock jock" known for advising men on how to bag women, is that reason enough to turn down a generous donation towards a growing reward fund to help bag some criminals? Tom Leykis is beginning to wonder if that is what's going on with the $50,000 he offered the City of Los Angeles to put towards the pool of money offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspects who beat Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium. more ›

Retail therapy: It's the answer for almost any problem. Girlfriend broke up with you? Didn't get that promotion? Buy yourself something pretty. People like to shop, especially for high-status items, when they're feeling down. But parting with cash is also a painful process, so what gives? In a new paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers Niro Sivanathan of the London Business School and Nathan Pettit of Cornell University describe how they think people resolve this conflict. more ›

Forbes presented its annual roster of Richie Rich Americans this week naming OC mogul Donald Bren (real estate) and his $12.2 billion the winner for Southern California. more ›

A Glendale woman was kidnapped by two women yesterday afternoon who "forced her to withdraw her bank savings and then burglarized her Pacific Avenue home," reports the Glendale News-Press. more ›

Forbes has released a series of maps using Internal Revenue Service data that chart the migration patterns from county to county as part of a series of articles called "Where America's Money is Moving." The maps were created using 2008 information, though not every move in the country is represented, since the IRS "only reports inter-county moves for more than 10 people." more ›

How much of what you earn do you wind up eating? more ›

Senator Jenny Oropeza is pushing harder than ever to promote her new Senate Bill 933 that would ban debit cards fees as the vote is expected to take place next week. Some businesses are adding “unfair checkout fees” to all purchases made with debit cards, she claims. more ›

For several years now, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness of California have asserted that Los Angeles International Airport is a public place, similar to a park, where they should be able to solicit donations. But today the California Supreme Court has upheld a ban put in place in L.A. which prohibits members of the religious organization from asking travelers for money, according to the Daily News. The court believes that banning solicitors on the premises of LAX is "a reasonable way to protect harried passengers rushing to make travel connections." The Hare Krishnas, however, may still preach at LAX, and ask travelers to send money later. more ›

In her first audit since taking office as City Controller, Wendy Greuel this morning released findings about waste within the Los Angeles Convention Center. There's nothing catastrophic revealed in the audit, but it points out too many examples of lax oversight that cost taxpayers money. more ›

Despite what many people think, the police are not always against medical marijuana dispensaries. A legal institution is a legal institution and when said institution happens to have lots of drugs and money inside their business, it's a prime target for robbery. Not many details are out now, but LAPD tomorrow will be asking the press and public's help "to inform the public about medical marijuana dispensary robberies and suspects who are to be considered armed and dangerous," an advisory says. "Police are also asking for the public’s help to identify and locate the suspects." Apparently, some incidents have happened in the West Valley. more ›

Forget "Cash for Clunkers"--a 56-year-old man skipped the middlemen and gave his cash to commuters yesterday afternoon when he "tossed money from his car on Interstate 210 in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendora shortly before noon Sunday," according to Yahoo! News. more ›

It probably wasn't very hard for former City Controller Laura Chick to leave her Los Angeles post early to join Schwarzenegger as his Inspector General overseeing how stimulus money was being spent in California. In Los Angeles, she was a bulldog over anything wasteful. more ›

About 30 minutes after Charlie Samuel allegedly killed 17-year-old Lily Burk Friday, leaving her body in her car parked off a Skid Row street, he was detained by police a few blocks away for a Drinking in Public violation. As he was being searched by officers, narcotics paraphernalia was found and he was arrested and booked for Possession of Narcotics Paraphernalia. more ›

Here's an interesting scam we heard via Jeff Berk of Watch2.org in Studio City. Last week, a resident of his neighborhood watch was on her way home from the grocery store and became the victim of an alleged car damage claim scam. From an e-mail to neighbors: [She] was returning home from Ralph's on Coldwater & Ventura when she was waved over to the side of the road at Dickens and Van Noord by 2 men in a car who claimed she had hit their car at Ralph's. more ›

Annette Yeomans, a 51-year-old woman from the San Diego area, turned herself in at the jail in Vista yesterday. The former bookkeeper got herself booked, on charges related to the grand theft and embezzlement of $9.9 million from her former workplace, according to abc7.com. more ›

First Angela Suleman said her daughter Nadya was "obsessed" with having kids and that she wouldn't be around to help her when her octuplets came home, then they seemed to have kissed and made up. But now TMZ is reporting that Mrs. Suleman hasn't been paying the mortgage during the months of her only daughter's most recent pregnancy. In fact, the gossip site explains: "According to documents filed earlier this month, OctoGrandma (who owns the house) hasn't made any payments on her home since May, 2008 -- she's behind $23,224.98." more ›

It was bound to happen: Whittier's "Octo Mom" Nadya Suleman has her own website. more ›

University of California students waiting for their Cal Grants to come through will find their next payments are coming from another source--the UC schools. The UC announced today they "will provide funding to cover the value of UC students' Cal Grant awards for the spring term," using "resources from its short-term financial reserves," according to a UC news release. They're advancing the funds "with the expectation that the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) will disburse Cal Grant funds to campuses once the state adopts a final budget." Sadly, that budget remains in limbo; this month many programs and residents will be receiving IOU's instead of checks. The UC system also issued temporary funding to their students last fall when the budget caused delays in Cal Grant payments. more ›

The Los Angeles Police Department are searching for a bank robber they've dubbed the "Salt & Pepper Bandit" (because of his hair). Authorities believe he is behind at least 12 bank robberies from a variety of local banking institutions that have taken place between January 5-22, and one today at just after noon at the Bank of America located at 11501 Santa Monica Boulevard. more ›

RIght NOW on CNN (11a PST), you can check out a condensed version of the hit documentary I.O.U.S.A., about the growing national debt crisis that we all face. In these tough economic times, one way to stay on top is to stay informed, and I.O.U.S.A. is a great way to do just that. more ›

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Cue six degrees of Kevin Bacon game now... Three more victims of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme were announced, including the Hollywood couple that is Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Madoff is accused of running a reportedly $50 billion Ponzi scheme in which investment money from new clients was taken to pay off earlier investors. Hollywood is no stranger to playing victim to Madoff--Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, business manager Gerald Breslauer and Eric Roth (screenwriter of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) are among those swindled. more ›

Los Angeles' beleaguered Museum of Contemporary Art has been resuscitated by the generous purse-strings of a well-known benefactor. According to the LA Times, MOCA's board "has voted to accept a $30-million bailout offer from billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, a founder and life trustee of the museum and the city's largest arts patron." This means that MOCA will not opt for a merger with LACMA and will instead to continue to operate independently. Broad has said that despite his philanthropic connection to LACMA, he feels there will be no damage to his relationship with them in light of his move to rescue MOCA. more ›

'Tis the season for Top Ten lists, but this one--the 14th annual Kosmont-Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey released by the Rose Institute of State & Local Government at Claremont McKenna College--gives our fair city more of dubious honor. Once again, Los Angeles ranks among the "10 most expensive places in the country to do business," reports the Daily News. more ›

Is this a sign of the times? In most likely unrelated cases, two banks have been robbed by two elderly people estimated to be in their 60s or 70s. more ›