Morning headlines

Gas prices: This week's trouble with the BP oil field in Alaska hasn't had much impact at the local pumps. For the fourth straight week, gasoline prices in L.A. fell, though not by much. The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.234, which is nine-tenths of a cent lower than last week, six cents lower than last month and 57 cents higher than last year.

Terror team coverage: Predictably, there are 5,000 stories in the dailies. Last night, LAX officials announced that operations were returning to normal, with the exception of any flights going to Europe. A survey of airlines Thursday showed passengers were checking baggage -- rather than carrying it on airplanes - at a rate 30 to 50 percent above normal. That means fewer items to screen and ironically near normal wait times to get through security.

Merger rumors: Business Week reports in its Wall Street column about rumors that United and Continental might make good candidates for a merger. The idea would be combining United's Asia routes with Continental's international service to Europe. No comment from either carrier.

Duty free effect: A number of stories on how the ban on liquids is going to hurt airport duty-free shops at LAX. All purchases have to be hand-carried onto flights by duty-free shop employees, which sounds pretty ridiculous and is bound to be adjusted in the coming days. All the airport concessions reported a drop in sales, with passengers not knowing what they could buy or not buy before getting on planes.

Just gets worse: Talk about lousy regional planning: A $314 million project to widen the I-5 from three to five lanes in Orange County will be causing a huge bottleneck at the Los Angeles County line, where similar work is 10 years off. "It looks as if they want to move the Orange Crush north, where it will be known as the L.A. Crush," said Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez, D-Norwalk.

Alleged scam: A 29-year-old Manhattan Beach man is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors of more than $22 million in retirement funds through a real estate scam. Jon W. James promised he would generate returns as high as 24 percent. If it sounds too good to be true...

Weak ratings: Maybe X Games followers just don't watch TV. Whatever the reason, ratings for last week's extravaganza in L.A. were, well, not great. The coverage on ABC Saturday got a 2.3 rating but only a 1.8 on Sunday.

ESPN on ABC: Lots of lamenting about the dismantling of the "ABC Sports" brand in favor of "ESPN on ABC." Here's how the New York Times' Richard Sandomir opened his piece: "ABC Sports, which once defined sports television and was the home of Roone Arledge, Jim McKay, 'Wide World of Sports,' Howard Cosell, 10 Olympics and Mexican cliff diving, died yesterday after one final big gulp by ESPN. The sports division that was nurtured to prominence through Arledge’s production vision and deal-making savvy had been in fading health and recently lost the rights to 'Monday Night Football.' ABC Sports was only 45." Both ABC and ESPN are owned by Walt Disney Co.