• After a judge reduces the Lindsay Lohan and the case of that freaking necklace charge from felony to misdemeanor, D.A. drops the case, hands over to L.A. city attorney’s office. [LATimes]
• The Dodgers might not have enough money to pay their players this month and will likely be broke by July. [WSJ]
• Whether or not you’ve gotten enough Dubya in your life, Will Ferrell does a really great Bush address to the nation live from Sizzler. [PE]
• My life is complete now that Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has a “series development deal” with MTV for his own show set to air in 2012. [Variety]
• That bin Laden thing really did wonders for President Obama’s approval ratings of his handling of terrorism, the Afghanistan War, and overall performance. [HuffPo]

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via guestofaguest.com: Celebs and VIPs descended on our nation’s capital this weekend for the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, followed by a slew of glam post-dinner celebrations. Go inside and see who made it on the guest list to the hottest ticket of the night at the Vanity Fair After Party. MORE>>

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The lady of the hour is a former Goldman MD and current RBS exec.

The move is the latest management shakeup at Bank of America. When the nation’s biggest bank announced disappointing first quarter earnings earlier this month, it also disclosed that chief financial officer Charles Noski would leave his post after only a year to tend to “a serious illness of a close family member.”…RBS informed its staff on Thursday that Ms. Hill had resigned her post as head of strategy and corporate finance. She also was a member of the bank’s management committee.

Ms. Hill is set to join Bank of America’s global banking and markets division in July, about the same time Mr. Thompson is slotted to take over as chief financial officer. She will report to Neil A Cotty, the bank’s chief accounting officer.

[Dealbook]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Heralding a “new era” at the nation’s largest bank, Mr. Moynihan kicked off the bank’s first investor day conference since 2007 promising the bank has no intention of making any more acquisitions and will instead look to cut costs and focus on its customers. “I can’t stress enough to you how much of a peace dividend we’ll get without mergers,” Mr. Moynihan said, adding the bank doesn’t need anything. “That peace dividend is effectively a permanent dividend.” [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Electronista today points us (thanks!) to an interesting document from Comcast (CMCSA) to the Federal Communications Commission outlining what the nation’s top cable operator would provide in return for having its proposed acquisition of NBC-Universal blessed.
The letter, dated December 23rd, from Comcast’s head of regulatory affairs, promises, among other things, [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

An interesting wrinkle today in the debate over net neutrality and broadband content accesss: Level 3 Communications (LVLT), which operates thousands of miles of fiber optic networks throughout North America, said this afternoon it was asked on November 19th by Comcast (CMCSA), the nation’s biggest cable operator, to pay a [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Amazon.com (AMZN) is rising pre-market on this Black Friday, the nation’s day to replace gluttony with … frugality?
Amazon shares are up $1.43, or 0.8%, at $178.68, the only stock to be clicking higher, pre-market, among the biggest retailers: Costco (COST) is down 27 cents, or 0.4%, at $67.27, Wal-Mart (WMT) [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Updated

SB Nation, a network of local sports blogs (that’s what the “SB” stands for), has raised $10.5 million in new funding led by Khosla Ventures. After the news was leaked to All Things Digital, chief executive Jim Bankoff confirmed the funding over email.

The Washington, D.C.-based company has been around since 2003, when it was known as Athletic Nation. The company’s big idea is that the audience for sports news is fragmented — fans care less about general news than they do about their specific sport and team. So SB Nation has built out a massive network of focused sites — the company says there are currently 289 blogs in the network. At the same time, it keeps costs down by just paying its contributors a monthly stipend, according to an Inc magazine profile of the company.

Prior to joining SB Nation in 2008, Bankoff had plenty of experience in the blog world — he was an executive at AOL, where he oversaw the acquisition of blog network Weblogs.

SB Nation has been growing quickly. It sees 8 million unique visitors and 40 million pageviews for month, Inc reported. (I’ve asked Bankoff if he has updated traffic numbers, and I’ll update if I hear back.) And PaidContent says that the company has almost reached the break-even point.

Previous investors Accel Partners and Comcast Interactive Capital both participated in the new round, which brings SB Nation’s total funding to $23.5 million.

Update: Bankoff just emailed me to say that SB Nation’s Google Analytics numbers put SB Nation at 17 million monthly uniques, while Quantcast says 9 million. Either way, the company has had consistent growth, usually doubling or tripling its traffic every year.

Tags: blog networks, hyperlocal news, sports

Companies: Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital, Khosla Ventures, SB Nation

People: Jim Bankoff

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

IAC/Interactive (IACI) CEO Barry Diller resigned as chairman of Live Nation (LYV) and quit the concert promotion company’s board, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing “people familiar with the situation.” The story notes that the resignation follows a “disastrous” July investor meeting in which the company’s shares fell as investors [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Unilever joined biofuel company Solazyme’s fourth round of financing as a strategic investor, Solazyme announced yesterday. The companies already share an R&D agreement: Solazyme’s oils are already used in Unilever’s Lux soap, with the plans to incorporate more renewable oils into its personal care products, such as palm oil harvested from algae technology. Solazyme announced last month that they had raised $52 million in fourth-round fundraising, with Chevron Technology Ventures and agribusiness leader Bunge included among its backers. It also drew the backing of Richard Branson.

Frito Lay launched five all-electric  trucks yesterday in New York City, made by Smith Electric Vehicles. The trucks have a range of up to 100 miles on a single charge, and the snack maker has committed to make its considerable fleet (the seventh largest in the nation) “what will ultimately be the largest fleet of commercial electric trucks in North America.” The company said it will add 176 more electric trucks over the next year and a half, 21 of which will hit the roads across the U.S. by year-end.  Smith Electric Vehicles, which specializes in all-electric commercial cars, won a $32 million grant from the Department of Energy earlier this year.

Echelon announced a new open software platform for smart grid applications – and has already bagged its first customer, Duke Energy, which placed a $14.5 million order for its ECN 7000 series of grid hardware . The company’s Echelon Control System platform focuses on intelligent distributed control, which is the process of developing controls and sensing throughout the grid. CNET explains the technology further here. Also notable is that the platform is open – no licensing restrictions to prevent third-party developers to create applications for it. GigaOm observed that Echelon faces competition from industry heavyweights such as Siemens and Cisco, and startups like Current.

The Department of Energy awarded $58.5 million in renewable energy grants this week, with $30 million announced today for state energy efficiency projects. Earlier this week, it gave $16.5 million to biomass R&D, with $12 million going to biofuel development, and allocated $8.5 million for electric grid projects, underscoring the importance of infrastructure in the push to switch the nation over to clean energy.

In other electric car news, Mitsuibishi is planning a revamp of the U.S. version of its Miev after a poor showing in the U.K., which included customer complaints about the car’s performance and reliability, particularly in cold weather. Nissan announced plans to launch its all-electric Leaf in the United Arab Emirates. And Hyundai unveiled its first all-electric car, the BlueOn. The Korean carmaker will put 30 of BlueOns with local government agencies for a pilot program starting in October, and said it will produce 2,500 cars for public purchase by 2012.

Tags: biofuel, biooil, BlueOn, electric vehicles, Leaf, Miev, Smart Grid

Companies: Bunge, Chevron, Department of Energy, Duke Energy, Echelon, Frito Lay, Hyundai, Mitsuibishi, Nissan, Smith Electric Vehicles, Solazyme, Unilever

People: Richard Branson

Article courtesy of VentureBeat