OIL COMPANY HIT WITH $12.5M FINE

» A California LOS ANGELES oil company with a long history of safety violations and regulatory lapses was hit with a record $12.5 million fine by state regulators Wednesday for nearly 1,500 violations in the past year at an oil field in Orange County.

Greka Oil & Gas falsified results in more than 350 reports, failed to conduct regular pressure testing at dozens of wells and didn’t maintain operating pressure gauges, according to the state’s Department of Conservation.

“The magnitude of this penalty reflects the company’s violations and poor practices, and the potential harm it could cause to surrounding communities, the environment, and groundwater,” said Ken Harris, supervisor of the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.

Nearly $5 billion LAX people mover contract approved.

A $4.9 billion contract to design, build and operate an automated people mover at Los Angeles International Airport has been approved by the City Council. It is expected to be operational in 2023 and have a capacity of 10,000 people an hour.

The elevated 2¼-mile system will have driverless electric trains that carry airline passengers between terminals, a transportation center and the Metro lightrail system, reducing the number of vehicles that use the airport’s central loop roads.

The contract voted on Wednesday goes to a consortium called LAX Integrated Express Solutions, known as LINXS.

Bombardier Transportation will provide the operating system, including all vehicles.

Apple’s stumbling homepod isn’t the hot seller company wanted.

WASHINGTON» When Apple Inc.’s HomePod smart speaker went on sale in January, it entered a market pioneered and dominated by Amazon’s Echo lineup of Alexa-powered devices. Apple, which has arrived late before only to overtake rivals by building better products, has been touting the HomePod’s superior sound quality. It’s demonstrably good, but so far hasn’t enticed many consumers to part with $349.

By late March, Apple had lowered sales forecasts and cut some orders with Inventec Corp., one of the manufacturers that builds the HomePod for Apple, according to a person familiar with the matter.

At first, it looked like the HomePod might be a hit. Pre-orders were strong, and in the last week of January the device grabbed about a third of the U.S. smart speaker market in unit sales, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Slice Intelligence.

But by the time HomePods arrived in stores, sales were tanking, says Slice principal analyst Ken Cassar. “Even when people had the ability to hear these things,” he says, “it still didn’t give Apple another spike.”

You can now get Spotify, Hulu for less if you get them together.

After watching Netflix widen the gap and Apple close in, Hulu and Spotify are fighting back.

The digital subscription companies announced Wednesday that they are significantly expanding a partnership to allow consumers to bundle their services at a lower price and, the firms hope, bring safety in numbers to their businesses.

The streaming services will offer a combined version of their Spotify Premium and basic ad-supported Hulu services for a total of $12.99 a month. The bundle offers a $5 savings on their stand-alone services, which cost $9.99 for Spotify Premium and $7.99 for basic Hulu. It expands on a comparable $4.99 bundle for students, available since the fall.