Thursday morning headlines

Cruise fallout: Not that there's much competition out there in the third week of August, but the Tom Cruise saga gets another round of stories. Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent Viacom and the guy at the center of the firestorm, sounded quite pleased with himself - and Viacom's stock price - in several interviews. "I don't see that any damage was done by what I said," he told the LAT (also noting that he had gotten congratulatory calls from David Geffen, Brian Grazer and Leonard Goldberg). On the other side were some strange bedfellows - Cruise's predictable allies and unnamed Paramount executives who were steamed over Redstone undercutting their authority (something he has a long history of doing to subordinates). In the Wall Street Journal, which continues to be ahead in the story, there's a P1 look at how hedge funds - Cruise's apparent new funding source - have grown uneasy about Hollywood as an investment. The most ironic comment comes from Bert Fields (yeah, the same fellow being investigated in the Pellicano case). He said that Redstone has "either lost it completely or he's getting horrendous advice from someone." Now that's a guy who knows how to compartmentalize. LAT NYT WSJ

Movies on AOL: The Time-Warner division will offer digital movie downloads through its video portal. Features from 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. will be offered for $9.99 to $19.99 per movie. The downloaded movies can then be viewed off-line or on other personal computers and compatible portable devices. This could be a big deal for AOL as it looks for revenue sources other than subscriptions.

Mortgage risk: More stringent lending policies have reduced the chances that a homeowner will fail to make timely mortgage payments. Based on an index, the Web site HomeSmartReports.com puts mortgage risk in California on the low end. Curiously, Ohio is the riskiest state.

For sale or rent: While condo conversion and its effects are still the talk of Southern California, there's another trend starting up in New York: condo developers converting their units to rentals. Apparently, condos have not been moving in New York.

Southern hospitality: First there was Krispy Kreme and now it looks lke Chick-fil-A wants to expand in Southern California. There's already a store in Long Beach - the only unit in L.A. County - and plans for another dozen in California by the end of next year. By the way, for those non-Southerners, it's pronounced "chick fillet" and not "chick fillah."

Hotel strike in S.F.?: San Francisco union hotel workers will likely authorize a second strike within two years against 13 hotels. The union United Here is still looking to reach an agreement by Labor Day. A couple of years back, the union declared a two-week strike against four hotels - followed by a lockout at 14 hotels that went on for seven weeks. This one is worth watching, considering that the hotel contract in Los Angeles is due to expire in November.

Car show moves up: The Los Angeles Auto Show, which has lacked some luster because it comes just a few days before the big Detroit auto show in January, will be switching dates to early December. That will increase the number of vehicle debuts and probably create more buzz. With the loss of the E3 videogame convention, this is one of the biggest events left at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Wrist slap: A Treasury Department report finds that Wells Fargo & Co. should have been publicly reprimanded for its limited safeguards in detecting illicit banking activities by terrorists, drug smugglers and other criminals. Wells was let off with an informal enforcement action that was not publicly aired.