Thursday morning headlines

"Radical Action" at Tribune?: That's what the Tribune Co. board will be considering today, according to the WSJ. Among the possibilities mentioned is taking the company private through a leveraged buyout. Story examines some of the tax complications in selling off Tribune properties piecemeal (which is why an LAT sale seems less likely, at least for now). From the story:

While Tribune's board considered some strategic alternatives earlier this year, including a possible spinoff of the company's TV stations, a sense of urgency has grown among senior Tribune executives. Already under pressure from some investors over its stock price, the company has endured months of turmoil sparked by a public falling-out with the company's biggest shareholder, the Chandler family, which owns a 15% stake in Tribune. In recent days, the company also has faced a rebellion at one of its biggest operations, the Los Angeles Times, where the newspaper's editor and publisher are resisting pressure to make further cuts in staff.

H-P mess: If you think things look nasty at Tribune Co., consider the daily revelations on how Hewlett-Packard spied on its directors (not to mention journalists). Attention is focusing on what and when CEO Mark Hurd knew about the snooping. WSJ reviews e-mails in which several board members are mentioned by Hurd as investigation targets.

Grocery expansion: Some new details about the plans by British grocery chain Tesco to expand into the Western U.S.. LAT reports that 150 stores are planned for Socal, Vegas and Phoenix. A U.S. headquarters has been set up in El Segundo and the chain has bought property just south of Riverside for a distribution center.

C-17 audit: Turns out that the assumptions made by the Pentagon in recommending the phasing out of the C-17 program - and lots of jobs in Long Beach - were faulty, at least according to the General Accountability Office. There's talk of more studies on the plane, but Boeing can't wait around forever.

Meruelo goes public: Kind of an interesting time for a real estate firm to file for a stock offering (several publicly held companies want to go private). Still, downtown L.A.'s largest land owner is looking to raise as much as $500 million. The bulk of the stock sale would be used to pay off debt.

Speaking of real estate: Tishman Speyer bought a 42-acre parcel and office building that it renamed The Oaks at Westlake. Purchase price was $92.5 million. The Thousand Oaks complex was developed in 1982 by Prudential Insurance Co. and GTE bought it in the late 1980s, later selling it to Baxter Healthcare.

Writers rally: It's still another year before the Writers Guild contract expires, but the union's new leadership clearly wants to rally the troops early on. More than 500 showed up at Pan Pacific Park in a unity rally. They were joined by members of the Screen Actors Guild, Director's Guild of America and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Revenues from new technologies (iPods, cell phones, video-on-demand) will be a key source of contention in the contract talks.

Identity theft plague: L.A. County had more than 25,000 cases last year and the authorities say they're only able to investigate about 10 percent of those. A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office told the Pasadena Star-News that losses have to be at least $2,000 before there's an investigation. A lot of thieves know that, so they charge up to two grand on somebody's credit card(s) and never get caught. Identity theft costs businesses and consumers more than $50 billion a year nationwide.