SEATTLE (AP) — The auction for beleaguered coffee company Tully's will likely conclude Friday in federal bankruptcy court, with an ownership group led by actor Patrick Dempsey in position to take over the chain. But Starbucks isn't' out of the running.
Dempsey — dubbed "McDreamy" in the "Grey's Anatomy" hospital TV drama — claimed victory last week after an auction.
But a company that teamed up with Starbucks to bid for the Tully's chain filed an objection Wednesday. AgriNurture Inc. says it's still willing to proceed with its combined bid with Starbucks of about $10.6 million. The bid from Dempsey's company, Global Baristas LLC, was for $9.2 million.
Tully's has 47 shops in Washington and California with more than 500 employees. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.
At my house we eat cauliflower like popcorn. Using a simple recipe from Alice Waters, we slice it thin, toss in olive oil and salt, and roast. One head of cauliflower is never enough.
This week in Recipes for Health, Martha Rose Shulman takes us on a trip to Sicily, where cauliflower is a favorite food. She writes:
Every once in a while I revisit the cuisine of a particular part of the world (usually it is located somewhere in the Mediterranean). This week I landed in Sicily. I was nosing around my cookbooks for some cauliflower recipes and opened my friend and colleague Clifford A. Wright’s very first cookbook, “Cucina Pariso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily.” The cuisine of this island is unique, with many Arab influences – lots of sweet spices, sweet and savory combinations, saffron, almonds and other nuts. Sicilians even have a signature couscous dish, a fish couscous they call Cuscusù.
Cauliflower is a favorite vegetable there, though the variety used most often is the light green cauliflower that we can find in some farmers’ markets in the United States. I adapted a couple of Mr. Wright’s pasta recipes, changing them mainly by reducing the amount of olive oil and anchovies enough to reduce the sodium and caloric values significantly without sacrificing the flavor and character of the dishes.
I didn’t just look to Sicily for recipes for this nutrient-rich cruciferous vegetable, but I didn’t stray very far. One recipe comes from Italy’s mainland, and another, a baked cauliflower frittata, is from its close neighbor Tunisia, fewer than 100 miles away across the Strait of Sicily.
Here are five new ways to cook with cauliflower.
Sicilian Pasta With Cauliflower: Raisins or currants and saffron introduce a sweet element into the savory and salty mix.
Baked Ziti With Cauliflower: A delicious baked macaroni dish that has a lot more going for it nutritionally than mac and cheese.
Cauliflower and Tuna Salad: Tuna adds a new element to a classic Italian antipasto of cauliflower and capers dressed with vinegar and olive oil.
Tunisian Style Baked Cauliflower Frittata: A lighter and simpler version of an authentic Tunisian frittata.
Sicilian Cauliflower and Black Olive Gratin: A simple gratin that is traditionally made with green cauliflower, but is equally delicious with the easier-to-obtain white variety.
January 11, 2013, 9:50 a.m.
Wells Fargo said Friday it earned $4.9 billion, or 91 cents a share, on revenue of $21.9 billion, up from a year-earlier profit of $3.9 billion, or 73 cents a share, on revenue of $20.6 billion. Both profit and revenue beat Wall Street expectations.
The San Francisco bank said revenue grew over the year from its credit card, wealth management and other businesses. Fee income, which is charges for providing financial services, also grew.
But mortgage origination revenue fell from $139 billion in the third quarter to $125 billion in the latest period at Wells Fargo, which is by far the nation’s top home lender.
What’s more, record low interest rates continued to squeeze revenue -- unwelcome news for the entire financial industry in investors' eyes -- as Wells Fargo kicked off the latest round of bank earnings reports.
In midday trading, Wells Fargo shares were down 44 cents at $34.96, a decline of more than 1.2%, while an index of big-bank stocks was off about 1%. The bank index remains up sharply over the last two months, however.
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Capping a raucous eight-hour-plus meeting, the Irvine City Council early Wednesday voted to overhaul the oversight and spending on the beleaguered Orange County Great Park while authorizing an audit of the more than $220 million that so far has been spent on the ambitious project.
A newly elected City Council majority voted 3 to 2 to terminate contracts with two firms that had been paid a combined $1.1 million a year for consulting, lobbying, marketing and public relations. One of those firms — Forde & Mollrich public relations — has been paid $12.4 million since county voters approved the Great Park plan in 2002.
"We need to stop talking about building a Great Park and actually start building a Great Park," council member Jeff Lalloway said.
The council, by the same split vote, also changed the composition of the Great Park's board of directors, shedding four non-elected members and handing control to Irvine's five council members.
The actions mark a significant turning point in the decade-long effort to turn the former El Toro Marine base into a 1,447-acre municipal park with man-made canyons, rivers, forests and gardens that planners hoped would rival New York's Central Park.
The city hoped to finish and maintain the park for years to come with $1.4 billion in state redevelopment funds. But that money vanished last year as part of the cutbacks to deal with California's massive budget deficit.
"We've gone through $220 million, but where has it gone?" council member Christina Shea said of the project's initial funding from developers in exchange for the right to build around the site. "The fact of the matter is the money is almost gone. It can't be business as usual."
The council majority said the changes will bring accountability and efficiencies to a project that critics say has been larded with wasteful spending and no-bid contracts. For all that has been spent, only about 200 acres of the park has been developed and half of that is leased to farmers.
But council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who have steered the course of the project since its inception, voted against reconfiguring the Great Park's board of directors and canceling the contracts with the two firms.
Krom has called the move a "witch hunt" against her and Agran. Feuding between liberal and conservative factions on the council has long shaped Irvine politics.
"This is a power play," she said. "There's a new sheriff in town."
The council meeting stretched long into the night, with the final vote coming Wednesday at 1:34 a.m. Tensions were high in the packed chambers with cheering, clapping and heckling coming from the crowd.
At one point council member Lalloway lamented that he "couldn't hear himself think."
During public comments, newly elected Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer chastised the council for "fighting like schoolchildren." Earlier this week he said that if the Irvine's new council majority can't make progress on the Great Park, he would seek a ballot initiative to have the county take over.
And Spitzer angrily told Agran that his stewardship of the project had been a failure.
"You know what?" he said. "It's their vision now. You're in the minority."
mike.anton@latimes.com
rhea.mahbubani@latimes.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Is Justin Timberlake bringing his music career back?
The superstar has concentrated almost exclusively on his acting career over the last few years. But on Thursday, he posted a video on his website that showed him walking into a studio, putting on headphones and saying: "I'm ready."
Timberlake hasn't made an album since 2006's Grammy-winning "FutureSex/LoveSounds." In the video, Timberlake is also heard saying that he obsesses over his music and doesn't want to put music out that he doesn't love — and that you have to wait for music you love.
Timberlake — who recently married longtime girlfriend Jessica Biel — has been in several movies, including "The Social Network," ''Bad Teacher," ''Friends With Benefits" and most recently "Trouble With the Curve."
___
Online:
http://www.justintimberlake.com
The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it was requiring manufacturers of popular sleeping pills like Ambien and Zolpimist to cut their recommended dosage in half for women, after laboratory studies showed that they can leave people still sleepy in the morning and at risk for accidents.
The agency issued the requirement for drugs containing the active ingredient zolpidem, by far the most widely used sleep aid. Using lower doses means less of the drug will remain in the blood in the morning hours, and leave people who take it less exposed to the risk of impairment while driving to work.
Women eliminate zolpidem from their bodies more slowly than men and the agency told manufacturers that the recommended dosage for women should be lowered to 5 milligrams from 10 milligrams for immediate-release products like Ambien, Edluar and Zolpimist. Dosages for extended-release products should be lowered to 6.25 milligrams from 12.5, the agency said. The agency also recommended lowering dosages for men.
An estimated 10 to 15 percent of women will have a level of zolpidem in their blood that impairs driving eight hours after taking the pill, while only about 3 percent of men do, said Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director for clinical science in the F.D.A.'s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
Doctors will still be told that they can prescribe the higher dosage if the lower one does not work, Dr. Temple said.
“Most people thought that by the morning it is gone,” he said. “What we’re reminding people is that is sort of true, but that in some women who take a full 10 milligram dose, and in a lot of people who take the control release dose, it is not entirely true. Some people will be impaired in the morning.”
It’s not just the “Grey’s Anatomy” mid-season premiere Thursday night weighing on Patrick Dempsey’s mind – the would-be coffee company owner is facing several objections to his pending purchase of Seattle’s Tully’s chain.
Last week, the actor known as McDreamy triumphantly announced that his group Global Baristas’ $9.15-million bid for Tully’s was deemed the winner by the bankrupt company.
Several of the six other bidders, however, now say they won’t go away without a tussle.
AgriNuture Inc., a food producer and distributor based in the Philippines, wrote in a Seattle bankruptcy court this week that it was willing to proceed with its bid.
The company’s offer, when combined with Starbucks Corp.’s proposal to transition 25 Tully’s shops to its own brand, amounts to $10.56 million – or $1.35 million more than Dempsey’s.
AgriNuture, which runs six Tully’s franchises in the Philippines, noted in the filing that it “understands that Starbucks is prepared to proceed.”
Finance group Kachi Partners, which managed the stalking horse bid for Tully’s from Neon T Coffee Shops, filed a separate document contesting Dempsey’s purported victory.
The Jan. 3 auction for Tully’s “had substantial irregularities and the purchase price, to the benefit of all the Debtor’s constituents, could have been – and could still be – at least $1.4 million higher,” wrote Kachi Partners spokesman Shawn Hallinan in the filing.
Investor Tom T. O’Keefe, who wrote in yet another filing that he owns more than 5% of Tully’s common stock, said he supported “restarting of the competitive bids.”
A Seattle bankruptcy judge is scheduled to make a final call Friday on the Tully’s purchase.
“We remain confident that the Court will reach the right decision and find that Global Baristas, LLC submitted the highest and best bid,” Dempsey said in a statement. “The company chose between three final bids, and ours was millions more than each of the other two.”
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Los Angeles police officials said they plan to comb through scores of old unsolved murders to see whether a reputed 72-year-old serial killer carried out slayings in the city beyond the three women he is suspected of killing in the 1980s.
Samuel Little, who authorities allege also killed women in Florida and Mississippi, currently is being held at California's Wasco state prison. He was charged Monday and is expected to return to Los Angeles for arraignment this week on the counts of murder with special circumstances.
LAPD's cold case homicide detectives now plan to take a methodical look at evidence from scores of unsolved murder and death cases dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s to determine whether Little may have been involved.
Prosecutors have charged Little in connection to three L.A. killings that appear to be sexually motivated strangulations: Carol Alford, 41, found dead on July 13, 1987; Audrey Nelson, 35, whose body was discovered Aug. 14, 1989; and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, found Sept. 2, 1989. Their bodies were discovered in the Central Avenue-Alameda Street corridor, just south of downtown, although police have not released the exact locations where the victims were found.
LAPD detectives Mitzi Roberts and Rick Jackson, who investigated the cases, said there is DNA evidence linking Little, but declined to elaborate further because of the ongoing investigation. Roberts and Jackson spent months criss-crossing the country following Little’s path.
Two years ago, the LAPD arrested a man they said was the notorious “Grim Sleeper,” allegedly responsible for at least 10 slayings in South L.A. After his arrest, LAPD detectives examined hundreds of unsolved deaths involving women in the city with "high-risk lifestyles."
Detectives said they will focus on sexually motivated strangulations. But they also expect inquiries from law enforcement agencies around the country because Little has a criminal record in 24 states dating back to the 1950s.
Detectives said they believe he committed thefts during the day to make money to finance the bar-hopping that brought him into contact with his alleged victims.
“It was theft by day and murder by night,” Jackson said.
Little, who also used the name Samuel McDowell, served relatively little time in state prison or county jail, the detectives said. In the early 1980s, he was accused of two murders and two attempted murders in Gainesville, Fla., and Pascagoula, Miss.
Little was acquitted by a Florida jury in the strangulation death of Patricia Ann Mount, 26, whose body was discovered Sept. 12, 1982.
He was never brought to trial in the Mississippi cases, which include the strangulation death of Melinda LaPree, 24, on Sept. 14, 1982. That case has been reopened by the Pascagoula Police Department in light of new evidence, authorities said.
Little moved from the South to California in the mid-1980s, settling first in San Diego.
He served more than two years in state prison after being convicted of assault and false imprisonment of two San Diego women in separate cases, police said. Shortly after being paroled, he moved to Los Angeles.
Rumors suggesting Facebook (FB) is working on a smartphone have resurfaced a number of times over the past year. Each time, Facebook denied the various claims. Facebook may indeed still be working on its own phone but as a new report from market research firm NPD Group shows, it probably doesn’t need to.
[More from BGR: Is Samsung the new Apple?]
Facebook makes money by gathering information about its users and serving targeted ads based on that data. Allowing users to update Facebook with fresh data as often as possible is obviously beneficial to the company, and smartphones present a terrific opportunity to give users access to their Facebook accounts from anywhere. The more people using Facebook’s mobile apps, the better, and Facebook’s smartphone penetration is absolutely staggering right now.
[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $ 45 Straight Talk plan]
According to data published by NPD Group on Tuesday, Facebook’s iOS application was used by 86% of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners as of November 2012. On the Android platform, 70% of smartphone and tablet owners used Facebook’s mobile app in November.
No other third-party app even comes close to approaching Facebook’s mobile penetration. Google’s (GOOG) YouTube app is the next most popular third-party app on iOS with 40% penetration and Amazon’s (AMZN) mobile application is the second most popular third-party Android app with just 28% penetration.
So why would Facebook bother making its own phone?
One answer — perhaps the obvious one — is that an own-brand smartphone with custom software would give Facebook access to far more personal data than it can reach using third-party applications. Considering Facebook’s track record with matters relating to privacy, however, users may be reluctant to buy a Facebook phone.
In any case, a Facebook phone certainly doesn’t seem like a necessity for the time being. Instead, focusing on ways to effectively monetize the hundreds of millions of users who interact with Facebook from a smartphone or tablet each month might be a wiser use of resources.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
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