Friday morning headlines

Another gas drop: The average price of self-serve regular in Los Angeles-Long Beach is down to $4.491 a gallon, 6.3 cents less than last week. Pump prices have fallen for four straight weeks in the Auto Club survey. Meanwhile, oil edged higher this morning, but not by much. There continues to be talk about oil prices having peaked. From the LAT:

"The psychology is changing," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, a Winchester, Mass.-based consulting firm. "What we're seeing right now is people starting to think that the weak economy is going to start overriding concerns about supply." Consumption of gasoline and many other oil byproducts has subsided, putting inventories at unusually high levels for the middle of the U.S. driving season. That is now overriding worries about the worldwide tightness in oil supplies, new problems with Nigerian crude production and a host of geopolitical wild cards, Lynch and others said.

Mattel shares jump: Better-than-expected earnings and yesterday's favorable verdict in the Bratz trial are pushing up the stock price of the El Segundo-based toy company by almost 13 percent. Second-quarter net income did fall by 48 percent, but Batman toys tied to the much-hyped "The Dark Knight" could be a big deal this summer. From Bloomberg:

"Mattel is fortunate that they had a few movie-related properties this quarter," Chris White, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said today in a telephone interview. "Based on the hype the film is experiencing, `The Dark Knight' toys could be a surprise for Mattel this summer."

New Countrywide numbers: Almost half of the 158,000 mortgages that the company had planned to sell as securities were in some stage of delinquency or foreclosure as of April 30, according to the amended complaint filed by state AG Jerry Brown. The state’s suit accuses Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America, of using "misleading marketing practices" to steer borrowers into "risky and costly loans." From the LAT:

In one example cited in the suit, Countrywide offered a mortgage in February 2005 to an 85-year-old disabled veteran, even though the applicant had a low credit score and too much debt to qualify for the loan. The loan was in default within six months. Loan officers received higher commissions for putting borrowers in the riskiest loans, such as adjustable-rate mortgages with very low initial "teaser" rates that would balloon over time, the suit alleges.

About the port slowdown: Union dockworkers admit that they're taking coordinated smoke breaks - such breaks are normally staggered - but they claim that work has remained steady. "I think everybody on both sides is being careful to not go too far and send the wrong message," said a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The union and the shipping companies are still working on a new contract. (Press-Telegram)

Health insurers fined: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield agreed to pay a total of $13 million in fines and to offer new health coverage to more than 2,200 Californians who were dropped after becoming ill. Neither company admitted any wrongdoing. Jerry Flanagan, healthcare policy director for Consumer Watchdog, says that regulators failed to complete their investigations of the companies’ rescission practices - and that "the state's largest insurers are paying pennies on the dollar for a get-out-of-jail-free card." (LAT)

SAG leader blasts offer: The executive director of the Screen Actors Guild says that the new-media issues worked out by the writers and directors in their contracts aren’t good enough for the actors. Doug Allen's message to SAG members suggests that the guild is no closer to cutting a deal with the networks and studios. If anything, he's sounding more defiant. The media companies say they've provided "a good and fair offer." From Variety:

Allen acknowledged that the AMPTP's current offer to SAG is nearly the same for new media as the deals that the DGA, WGA and AFTRA accepted. "Some of you may be wondering why we don't just agree to the template established by the other unions," he said. "The template doesn't protect actors, and while we may be the last union to come to the table, we still have the obligation to address the issues that are most important to you. We have had the extra time to effectively assess the impact of rapid technological and marketplace changes, and after careful analysis, we don't believe the template works for SAG members."

Hollywood's busiest quarter: On-location shoots in the Los Angeles area jumped 26 percent in the second quarter, a reflection of ramped-up production after the writers strike and stockpiling over concerns – now largely dissipated – of an actors strike. Feature film production was up 9 percent - the most active quarterly performance since the second quarter of 2001 - while TV production jumped 57 percent. (AP)

OC office construction: There isn't any, or at least not much of it. Activity plunged 90.8 percent in the second quarter, according to Voit Commercial Brokerage. A Voit researcher says it’s both a sign of the lousy economy and the end of a construction binge. All the added space pushed the second quarter office vacancy rate to 14.46 percent. (Lansner on Real Estate)

Christensen trial gets started: That would be Terry Christensen, lawyer to the stars who is accused of paying Anthony Pellicano, the private eye to the stars, $100,000 to listen in on the private conversations of Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, ex-wife of investor Kirk Kerkorian. Christensen and Pellicano each face two felony counts in connection with the wiretap. Christensen's attorneys denied their client had any knowledge that Pellicano was conducting wiretaps. Pellicano is representing himself, as he did when he was convicted in May of 76 felony counts. (LAT)

Sam Nazarian in Vegas: The 32-year-old real-estate entrepreneur who injected new buzz into the Hollywood club scene gets a flashy cover story in the WSJ's Weekend Journal. He’s trying to turn the beaten-up Sahara into a mecca for hipsters who are shy of big bucks.

It will serve a market that he says has been priced out of Vegas: the young party crowd that's dropped a fortune at his Los Angeles clubs and restaurants. "There is an alienation of the high-energy, youthful crowd," says Mr. Nazarian as he strides through the Sahara's lobby, where he has already spent about $2 million in furnishings and décor. Mr. Nazarian might be just another Vegas mark but for this: Where he goes, celebrities and moneyed youth tend to follow. His current slate of Hollywood-area hot spots -- Area, Hyde, Foxtail, S Bar, Katsuya -- draws such names as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

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The usual Vegas style of renovation is implosion: the Sands leveled for the Venetian; the Dunes razed for the Bellagio. There is no other way, the reasoning goes, to compete with the Strip's new luxury casinos and hotels. But Mr. Nazarian has built his reputation on converting rundown pockets of real estate into trendy, A-list magnets. His company, SBE Entertainment Group LLC, and private-investment partner Stockbridge Capital, bought the 18-acre Sahara property last year for about $300 million. Mr. Nazarian won't say how much he will spend on rehabilitation; plans include a new hotel tower and a makeover of the hotel's 1,700 rooms. "There's not one part of this property we're not touching," he says. The work is expected to be completed by 2011.