News

Aecom has halted construction on Faraday Future’s Las Vegas electric car factory after the Chinese-backed firm reportedly missed several payments for the project.

California had 51 companies on this year’s list, down from 53 last year. But 51 was enough to climb into a tie with Texas for the No. 2 position. New York led the list with 55.

Global engineering and architecture firm Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is moving a portion of its headquarters from Pasadena to Dallas, the Dallas Business Journal reports. The move is being made for lower taxes and a more business friendly environment as well as lower rates and will make the company more competitive in the real estate industry.

A report from online real estate company Trulia out Tuesday confirms what many prospective young Los Angeles homebuyers have figured out: housing here is out of reach. Only 27 percent of local households can afford a median-priced starter house, which Trulia said cost $329,000, Curbed L.A. reports. The report finds fewer homes available to buyers at all income levels in L.A. County and that home inventory has all but vanished in Orange County, San Francisco and San Diego.

A controversial program to give local refineries and major manufacturers more flexibility in reducing air pollution has been ruled illegal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, officials disclosed late Wednesday. The federal agency said the program fails to meet national clean air standards.

While L.A.’s jobless rate dipped to 5.8 percent in January, employers in the county shed almost 88,000 jobs from their payrolls, marking an especially dismal start to the year, according to state figures released Friday.

In the lower 48 states, the highest average price of regular gasoline is in Los Angeles, at $2.71, while Tulsa, Oklahoma has the lowest, at $1.72, according to an industry analyst quoted by the Associated Press. The price-tracking website GasBuddy.com says the average has dropped to $1.99 per gallon, the first time it’s been below $2 since March of 2009.

The Milwaukee staffing giant’s quarterly survey of employers in Los Angeles and Orange counties found that 15 percent plan to increase staff, 6 percent plan layoffs and 78 percent plan to keep staffing levels constant.

The expanded incentives lured four TV shows— including FX’s “American Horror Story” and HBO’s “Veep” — from other states to California and will provide funding to seven new TV projects this year.

The Newhall Ranch development near Santa Clarita – which was approved 12 years ago and would house nearly 60,000 people – was dealt a stunning setback Monday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Los California Supreme Court rejected its 5,800 page environmental impact report because it did not address greenhouse gas emissions and how a little fish, the unarmored threespine stickleback, would be protected.

Long Beach’s Medway Plastics Corp. is expanding its manufacturing and relocating its research and development operations to the Lone Star State, according to Texas economic development agencies and Medway.

As ExxonMobil works to increase production at its explosion-damaged Torrance refinery and ease stubbornly high local gas prices, some residents of the South Bay city told their City Council this week that they want the refinery to address safety issues, the Daily Breeze reports. Meanwhile, air-quality regulators have once again postponed a hearing over whether the refinery should be allowed to ramp up fuel productions using outdated pollution controls in place of updated equipment damaged in the refinery explosion in February.

An article in the upcoming issue of the Business Journal says that Californians have paid nearly $3 billion extra for gasoline since an explosion in February nearly shut down the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance, causing prices to jump at the pump. But the plant’s plan to reopen may finally be approved by regulators next week, the Los Angeles Times reports, which could help lower gas prices in a matter of weeks. Exxon Mobil has wanted to temporarily use old air-pollution control equipment so it can increase production but regulators have balked at that proposal for months. In the meantime, the additional cost of gas has taken an average of $75 from every man, woman and child in the state.

Local employers say they plan to slow down their hiring and will likely lay off more people in the fourth quarter than earlier in the year. And they are also more cautious about hiring plans than their counterparts nationwide, according to a survey to be released Tuesday by Manpower Inc.

Restaurant operator DineEquity Inc. said Thursday that it would move the headquarters of its Applebee’s International Inc. chain from suburban Kansas City, Mo., to its Glendale corporate home. . . about 80 to 90 people will stay put, consisting of workers in its backend support, help desk, guest relations and accounting departments.