March 2008 Archives

OSI Systems, the Hawthorne-based maker of security detection and healthcare equipment, won a $7.3 million contract from the US Army for multiple relocatable Gamma Radiographic Detection Systems.

Known as the Rapiscan GaRDS, this product line detects hidden contraband, including weapons, explosives, weapons of mass destruction, drugs and undeclared goods.

The systems bought by the Army are to be deployed in multiple undisclosed international locations.

Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA recognized 78 science teachers nationwide during a weekend conference by doling out $550,000 in total grants through the Toyota TAPESTRY: Grants for
Science Teachers program.

The awards were given at the National Science Teachers Association National
Conference on Science Education in Boston.

Of the $550,000 granted, 50 teachers received up to $10,000 each and 28 received grants of up to $2,500 each. More than $8 million has been awarded to 986 teams of teachers in the program’s 18-year history.

Sadly, none of this year's winning teachers were from the South Bay.

On Aprl 1, the California Association of Realtors will roll out two new programs to help Realtors select the proper forms to use for real estate transactions.

Forms Advisor and Forms Tutor will offer online forms management to members of the association.

The association already offers WINForms.

Go to car.org for more info.

Virgin Blue International Airlines will launch non-stop service between Australia and Los Angeles later this year under a new open-skies agreement, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today.

The new open-skies agreement deregulates international air travel that will draw more airlines flying over the Pacific and Atlantic.

Let's hope the deregulation lowers the sky-high prices for air travel.

What about Yahoo for men?

(CNET) Yahoo launched a new Web site aimed at women on Monday. The site, called "Shine," will feature original blogs and content from major publishing partners including Conde Nast, Hearst, and Time.

The site is Yahoo's latest foray into vertical sites, which include the popular Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance, as well as Sports and Entertainment, and the much less popular Yahoo Tech and Yahoo Green. Shine is also Yahoo's first targeting a specific audience and not just a topic.

Here's 10 money lessons from top March Madness teams, courtesy of TheStreet.com

1. Good Coaching Creates Success
2. Team Play Is Important
3. Having a Star Player Also Helps
4. Defense Is as Important as Offense
5. Free Throws Count
6. It's Little Mistakes That Kill
7. Making a Game Plan Is Essential
8. Set Plays Are Essential
9. Tempo Can't Be Ignored
10. Staying Calm Wins Games

Read the full story.

Not as painful as losing the Air Force tanker deal, but a loss nonetheless.

(Bloomberg News) Lockheed Martin Corp. and its partners beat a Boeing Co.-led team for a $766 million contract to supply the U.S. Defense Department with advanced radios.

Lockheed and BAE Systems PLC, General Dynamics Corp. Raytheon Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. will develop the airborne and maritime Joint Tactical Radio Systems, a satellite radio platform for aircraft and ships.

I care about this story because we're planning a trip in the summer. And the airline prices are on fire.

PHOENIX (AP) -- Your ginger-ale doesn't come in a glass anymore on most US Airways flights. On Delta you'll find yourself in a thinner, lighter seat. If you fly JetBlue cross-country, you'll get a dainty bag of 100-calorie crisps in place of the original snack box of cookies, crackers and spreadable cheese.

With jet fuel prices so high, airlines have no choice but to scour their planes for ways to lighten the load. There's no room for even the smallest bits of dead weight, from redundant wing lights to extra wires in the walls. Manufacturers also are using lighter materials in plane construction.

"The pressure is immense" to cut weight, said John Heimlich, chief economist for the Air Transport Association of America, an industry trade group. "Every penny more per gallon adds $195 million to the industry's expenses per year.

"You simply cannot make all of that up with fare increases."

Jet fuel, which the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration tracked at $3.17 per gallon in New York on Tuesday, has doubled since the beginning of 2007. It outpaced labor as the biggest airline expense three years ago. As of September 2007, fuel made up 27 percent of operating expenses for U.S. airlines, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The industry has struggled to keep up. Carriers have increased fares, cut capacity, parked their gas guzzler planes, charged customers to check a second bag, trimmed staff and pushed as many passengers as possible to automated kiosks.

Airlines also try to exert some control over fuel expenses through hedging, a practice of capping fuel prices months or years in advance with long-term contracts.

But hedging is still a gamble.

"Reducing consumption is a certainty," Heimlich said. "You're always going to win by consuming less energy."

To that end, carriers have pulled out unused ovens, magazine racks and trash compactors during the past few years. Some removed paper manuals in the cockpit and installed electronic maintenance logbooks.

Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines created a Fuel Smart Team in 2005 as fuel prices started to go up. Tom Opderbeck, American's manager of strategic programs, said the team tried to cut weight in places that customers wouldn't notice.

The team capped electrical outlets in the lavatories and cut the power converters from the wall. It took out phones in seat backs and removed the heavy telephone wiring that was folded inside.

"I always think we've come to the end of the list, but we keep on finding new items" to remove, Opderbeck said.

The weight-savings measures were unrelated to the grounding this week of MD-80 planes operated by American, a company spokesman said Friday. American and Delta Air Lines both had to cancel flights after Federal Aviation Administration inspectors questioned whether the airlines had properly performed a modification. A $10.2 million civil penalty imposed by the FAA on Southwest Airlines this month also was unrelated to fuel-saving measures.

Last year, American replaced its silverware on business and first class with another set that was made from a lighter metal.

"Every little bit helps, especially for an airline like American Airlines that flies over 750,000 flights a year," Opderbeck said.

American Airlines burned 2.8 billion gallons in 2007. After the recent weight cuts, the carrier estimates it will conserve about 111 million gallons this year.

Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways had similar ideas when it redesigned aircraft interiors following its 2005 combination with America West Airlines.

Sherri Shamblin, US Airways vice president for InFlight Services, said management realized it could save fuel by simply replacing meal carts with ones that weigh 12 pounds less.

"Twelve pounds is significant when you run anywhere from six to 35 carts on an airplane," Shamblin said. The lighter carts will save the airline $1.7 million a year in fuel costs, she said.

Management decided last month to continue to lighten its meal service by getting rid of glassware on domestic flights. Its east coast flights already had switched to plastic. But on western flights previously run by America West, first-class passengers were still handed beverages in glass flutes and tumblers, Shamblin said.

"We actually were going to put glassware back on the east in first class until fuel continued to keep rising," she said.

US Airways officials wondered if replacing glass with plastic would bother passengers. But in customer surveys "glassware didn't come up on the list" of what was important on their flight, Shamblin said.

Still, US Airways will keep glasses for its premium Envoy class service during trans Atlantic flights.

JetBlue's aircraft are 1,079 pounds lighter after removing extra trash bins, flight kits, supplies and seats -- "all the little things that, when combined, make a decent difference," JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin said.

The weight loss will save the carrier roughly $16,000 for a three-hour flight, he said.

A lot of airlines are also trying to fly differently to be more fuel efficient. They're carrying less water and putting less gas in the tank if the plane doesn't need it to make the trip. They also plug in planes to ground power as soon as the plane lands.

Southwest Airlines cut fuel costs simply by flying more direct routes. The Dallas-based carrier equipped planes with life vests during the past two years, allowing pilots to fly over bodies of water and shave miles off of their flights.

All of these changes have helped airlines boost their fuel efficiency, Heimlich said. But he's not sure how much more fuel conservation airlines can do. As fuel prices continue to rise, he said, carriers are parking many of their planes and cramming customers into the remaining flights.

"The place to cut now is simply the quantity of service: The number of flights, the number of seats," he said. "In other words, the only thing left to cut is the amount of supply itself."

Will a deal help the troubled airline industry?

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Northwest Airlines Corp. has proposed to Delta that the airlines move ahead with their combination without a prearranged deal with pilots, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said on Friday. The person, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Delta Air Lines Inc. hasn't rejected the idea.

Neither airline would comment on the development, but Delta said in a statement that it supports "industry consolidation as a vehicle to ensure Delta remains an industry leader." It said it is continuing to look at strategic alternatives.

The usual approach in airline combinations has been to have pilots work out a joint union contract afterward. Delta and Northwest took a different approach in their merger talks, figuring that if they could obtain full pilot agreements in advance they would reap the benefit of a combined airline much sooner.

With that in mind, pilots were in line to get raises. But the two groups couldn't agree on seniority, which determines who flies more desirable aircraft and routes.

Now, the rising cost of oil has put all airlines under intense financial pressure. Since the talks began, Delta and Northwest have announced plans to reduce capacity this year, and Atlanta-based Delta has announced plans to eliminate 2,000 jobs.

The person who spoke about the talks said the absence of a seniority agreement means there won't be as much money for pilot raises.

Northwest's move could be intended to spur pilots to renew efforts to make a deal on seniority. Northwest pilots have said they'd be willing to let an arbitrator decide seniority. Delta pilots have rejected the idea.

Dave Stevens, chairman of the Northwest branch of the Air Line Pilots Association, issued a statement saying a successful merger will need the agreement of the pilots of both airlines.

"We will reserve our judgment and support until the economic and contractual elements of an agreement have been negotiated," he said. "Any merger must be in the best interests of our customers and the employees, not just the shareholders."

A spokeswoman for Delta's pilots had no comment.

Those shareholders have seen the value of Delta and Northwest investments shrivel. Both have lost about half their value since mid-February, suffering from rising oil prices and fading hope that they would combine. Both recovered from lows on Friday after the reports that Northwest was pressing the issue of combining. Northwest rose 30 cents, or 3.5 percent to close at $8.76. Delta rose 26 cents, or 3.1 percent, to close at $8.61.

There's no limit to the ways people can make money.

(Reuters) The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.

Read the full story.

Here's what Honda did:

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Honda Motor Co. reported Friday the number of cars that rolled of its global production lines in February rose 10% from a year earlier, with total vehicle production totaling 332,563 units, a monthly record. The automaker said February output establishd records for the month in the U.S., Europe, Asia and China. Production in Honda's domestic market in Japan eased 8%, the only major region to record a decline. For the first two month of this year global output has climbed 8.9% to 673,325 units.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Latest from SpaceX:

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), the Hawthorne-based developer of low-cost rockets, conducted the first three-engine firing of its Falcon 9 medium to heavy lift rocket at its Texas Test Facility outside McGregor, on March 8, the company said Thursday.

At full power the engines generated over 270,000 pounds of force, and consumed 1,050 lbs of fuel and liquid oxygen per second.

This three-engine test again sets the record as the most powerful test yet on the towering 235-foot tall test stand. A total of nine Merlin 1C engines will power the Falcon 9 rocket.

The test series continues with the addition of two engines for a total of five, then finally the full compliment of nine engines. With all engines firing, the Falcon 9 can generate over one million pounds of thrust in vacuum - four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft.

“The incremental approach to testing allows us to closely observe how each additional engine influences the entire system,” said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX. “This ensures that we obtain as much data, knowledge and experience as possible as we approach the full nine engine configuration. To date we have not encountered any unexpected interactions between the engines.”

Did anyone see the Wall Street Journal story Wednesday about how stocks have been underperforming for nearly a decade? Here's a taste of the story.

Over the past 200 years, the stock market's steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade.

The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, the basis for about half of the $1 trillion invested in U.S. index funds, finished at 1352.99 on Tuesday, below the 1362.80 it hit in April 1999. When dividends and inflation are factored into returns, the S&P 500 has risen an average of just 1.3% a year over the past 10 years, well below the historical norm, according to Morningstar Inc. For the past nine years, it has fallen 0.37% a year, and for the past eight, it is off 1.4% a year. In light of the current wobbly market, some economists and market analysts worry that the era of disappointing returns may not be over.

You may not remember him, but you must remember his contribution to the world.

By DENISE PETSKI, Associated Press Writer

Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald's restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald's official said Wednesday. He was 89.

Peterson died peacefully Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in that city.

He began his career with McDonald's Corp. as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."

Peterson eventually became a franchisee and was currently co-owner and operator of six McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta, Fraker said.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972. He "was very partial to eggs Benedict," Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar.

The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin.

The Egg McMuffin made its debut at a restaurant in Santa Barbara that Peterson co-owned with his son, David Peterson.

Fraker said that, although semiretired, Peterson still visited all six of his stores in the Santa Barbara area until last year when his health began to deteriorate.

"He would talk to the customers, visit with the employees. He loved McDonald's," Fraker said.

Fraker, who said he worked with Peterson for 30 years, said "he was amazing as far as giving back to the community."

"He embraced the community and the community embraced him," Fraker said. "We loved the man."

Peterson is survived by his wife, son and three daughters.

A public memorial service will be held April 23 at All Saints by the Sea church in Montecito.

You may not remember him, but you must remember his contribution to the world.

By DENISE PETSKI, Associated Press Writer

Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald's restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald's official said Wednesday. He was 89.

Peterson died peacefully Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in that city.

He began his career with McDonald's Corp. as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."

Peterson eventually became a franchisee and was currently co-owner and operator of six McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta, Fraker said.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972. He "was very partial to eggs Benedict," Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar.

The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin.

The Egg McMuffin made its debut at a restaurant in Santa Barbara that Peterson co-owned with his son, David Peterson.

Fraker said that, although semiretired, Peterson still visited all six of his stores in the Santa Barbara area until last year when his health began to deteriorate.

"He would talk to the customers, visit with the employees. He loved McDonald's," Fraker said.

Fraker, who said he worked with Peterson for 30 years, said "he was amazing as far as giving back to the community."

"He embraced the community and the community embraced him," Fraker said. "We loved the man."

Peterson is survived by his wife, son and three daughters.

A public memorial service will be held April 23 at All Saints by the Sea church in Montecito.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

Barney, the big purple dinosaur, is coming to Torrance to celebrate his 20th super-dee-duper birthday.

The cuddly T-Rex with his own children’s television show is in the midst of a nationwide tour to mark two decades since Sheryl Leach, a former school teacher, created the toy -- in 1987, which would actually make this Barney's 21st year, but we won't quibble with details.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, a life-sized Barney will be at the Torrance Toys R Us, at 22035 Hawthorne Blvd., to meet with children, who will be able to make their own birthday cards for him.

The Barney tour is sponsored by toy company JAKKS Pacific in partnership with Toys “R” Us and Children’s Miracle Network.

This comes from the "anti-regulation" president.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 26 minutes ago

The crash of Wall Street's once mighty Bear Stearns underscores the need to bring investment houses under the kind of federal oversight that has long been given to commercial banks, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday.

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Paulson said the Bush administration will soon release just such a blueprint in an effort to promote a smoother functioning of financial markets.

For months the financial markets — rocked by the double blows of a housing and credit crises — have been suffering through extreme turmoil, threatening to plunge the U.S. economy into a deep recession. The modern U.S. financial system is a complex web of financial players — institutions and individuals and practices that are subject to different rules and regulations. Commercial banks, long a financial bedrock, are subject to regulations and supervision.

"This latest episode has highlighted that the world has changed as has the role of other nonbank financial institutions and the interconnectedness among all financial institutions," Paulson said. "These changes require us all to think more broadly about the regulatory and supervisory framework that is consistent with the promotion and maintenance of financial stability," he added.

The former president of its El Segundo-based Integrated Systems sector helped Northrop snag the Air Force tanker deal that Boeing was favored to win.

By Edmond Lococo

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Northrop Grumman Corp. and former executive Scott Seymour just exchanged parting gifts: He helped give the underdog contractor a win on a $35 billion Air Force refueling tanker contract, and Northrop gave him $300,000.

Seymour's payment is a ``special completion award'' for running the Integrated Systems unit that led the tanker bid, Century City-based Northrop said in a regulatory filing Tuesday.

Seymour's retirement, announced Sept. 19, became effective Feb. 29, the same day Northrop won the contract over Boeing Co., which had supplied the Air Force tankers for more than half a century and was the unanimous pick to win in a Bloomberg analyst survey. Seymour had already received a cash bonus of $800,000 for his 2007 performance, the company said in a Feb. 26 filing.

Read the whole story.

The former president of its El Segundo-based Integrated Systems sector helped Northrop snag the Air Force tanker deal that Boeing was favored to win.

By Edmond Lococo

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Northrop Grumman Corp. and former executive Scott Seymour just exchanged parting gifts: He helped give the underdog contractor a win on a $35 billion Air Force refueling tanker contract, and Northrop gave him $300,000.

Seymour's payment is a ``special completion award'' for running the Integrated Systems unit that led the tanker bid, Century City-based Northrop said in a regulatory filing Tuesday.

Seymour's retirement, announced Sept. 19, became effective Feb. 29, the same day Northrop won the contract over Boeing Co., which had supplied the Air Force tankers for more than half a century and was the unanimous pick to win in a Bloomberg analyst survey. Seymour had already received a cash bonus of $800,000 for his 2007 performance, the company said in a Feb. 26 filing.

Read the whole story.

Bill Rancic, winner of the first season of Donald Trump's "The Apprentice," and Armando Montelongo, of A&E's "Flip This House," will be featured as keynote speakers at the California Entrepreneur Summit this Saturday at the Torrance Marriott.

The conference will be from 9 am to 3:30 pm.

The two celebrities wil share their trade tips and "secrets" on how to navigate the real estate market.

Their Torrance appearance is part of a four-day Sourthern California series.

Rancic, if you've forgotten, passed up a chance to manage Trump's golf course in Palos Verdes. Instead, Rancic chose to manage construction of a Trump development in Chicago.

I lost interest in "The Apprentice" after the second season.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe.
The trustees, issuing their once-a-year analysis, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.

Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in payroll taxes. For Medicare, that threshold is projected to be reached this year and for Social Security it is projected to occur in 2017.

Both programs are expected to come under increasing pressure as 78 million baby boomers start retiring and drawing benefits.

Ducommun Inc., the Carson-based aerospace contractor, said today that its Gardena subsidiary, Ducommun AeroStructures, was awarded a long-term contract to make titanium blade erosion caps that provide protection for blades on the CH-47 Chinook Helicopter.

The contract, valued at about $23 million, will last through 2010.

The contract was awarded by Boeing Philadelphia, which manufactures new and refurbished CH-47 Chinook Helicopters for all branches of the U.S. Defense Department.

All work will be performed in Gardena.

The Los Angeles office of Hines REIT purchased the Raytheon and DirectTV buildings at 2200 and 2230 E. Imperial Highway in El Segundo from an affiliate of Lexington Realty Trust for $120 million, or about $218 per square foot.

In addition to the two office buildings, the transaction included a 1,200-square-foot, 10-story parking structure. The two top floors of the structure consist of 140,175 square feet, which is leased by Raytheon.

Read the whole story.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Toyota is likely to miss its groupwide global sales target for this year, hit by slowing sales in major markets and a firming yen, an executive vice president said on Thursday.

"Frankly speaking, sales in the U.S., Europe and Japan are showing signs of slowdown. It will be difficult to meet the group's sales target of 9.85 million, although emerging markets such as China and Russia are active," Tokuichi Uranishi, executive vice president of Toyota, told reporters in Seoul.

The sales target is 5 percent higher than sales in 2007.

Read the whole story.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer confidence took an unexpectedly sharp hit, dropping to a five-year low in March, the Conference Board said on Tuesday, as expectations for the future tumbled to their lowest in 34 years.

Consumers continued to fret over job prospects, the Conference Board said, as the labor market continues to tighten amid an economic slowdown brought on by the worst housing slump in a generation.

The Conference Board said its index of consumer sentiment fell in March to 64.5 -- its lowest since March 2003 -- from an upwardly revised 76.4 in February.

The median forecast of economists polled by Reuters was for a reading of 73.5 in March. February's index was originally reported at 75.0.

The Conference Board, a private business and research organization, said its expectations index fell to 47.9 -- its lowest since January 1974 -- from an upwardly revised 58.0 in February.

Read the whole story.

The median home price in the South Bay dropped 7% in February, compared to a year earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors.

San Pedro was down 12.4%, while the PV Peninsula was down only 0.4 percent.

Torrance was down 5.3 percent.

Read about it in Tuesday's Daily Breeze.

Kelly Timko used to have only one job.

Then she took on a second.

Now the Torrance resident has acquired a third job.

And she still finds time to sleep.

Timko, 35, recently launched Uptown Tots, a home-based business that sells infant clothing made from 100 percent organic cotton as well as the Topple Stopper, a Velcro strap Timko developed that secures baby's toys and bottles to a stroller.

Read the whole story.

Used-car seller CarMax offered these car-buying tips to check if a vehicle with flood damage:

- Check for a moldy smell inside the car.

- Check for rust under the brake or gas pedals.

- Look for dirt or rust under the dashboard and floormats.

- Look for corrosion, water marks, or a thin brown line on the exterior of the vehicle.

- Ask questions about an older car with a brand new interior or carpeting.

- Check to see if the electrical system works.

- Feel the carpet for dampness.

- Inspect the bolts and screws under the seats for evidence of rust.

- Check the undercarriage for excessive rust.

- Check the VIN number with AutoCheck or Carfax to see whether a flood claim has been filed or a salvage title has been issued on the vehicle.

Lundberg Survey: Gas Prices Rise 7 Cents

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) -- A survey says the national average price for gasoline rose 7 cents over the last two weeks.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline on Friday was $3.26 a gallon, mid-grade was $3.38 and premium was $3.50. That's all according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide released Sunday.

Of the cities surveyed, the cheapest price was in Newark, N.J., where a gallon of regular cost $3.03, on average. The highest average price was in San Francisco at $3.66.

Go to Lundberg Survey.

Could this happen in the South Bay?

Drivers Slow Down Their Tractor-Trailer Rigs to Save Fuel As Diesel Hits $4 a Gallon

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Coast-to-coast trucker Lorraine Dawson says fellow drivers used to call her "Lead Foot Lorraine." But with diesel fuel around $4 a gallon, she and other big-rig drivers have backed off their accelerators to conserve fuel.

"I used to be a speed demon, but no more," said Dawson, based at Tacoma, Wash. "Most drivers have cut their speed considerably."

Dawson said she's cut her speed by five to 10 miles per hour to save money for her company. Many independent owner-operators have slowed even more, she said.

"My fiance is an owner-operator and he's been crying a lot about the price of fuel," Dawson said. "He's been slowing way down."

Truckers and industry officials say slowing a tractor-trailer rig from 75 mph to 65 mph increases fuel mileage by more than a mile a gallon, a significant bump for machines that get less than 10 miles per gallon hauling thousands of pounds of freight. Even sitting still with the engine idling, a rig gulps about a gallon of diesel every hour.

"We just can't afford it," Dawson said of diesel as she was topping off her fuel tanks at a Bismarck truck stop.

When she started driving trucks in 1997, diesel was about $1.97 a gallon, $2 a gallon cheaper than what she paid Wednesday in Bismarck. Rigs like hers have two fuel tanks, typically holding 300 gallons each.

The nationwide average for a gallon of diesel on Thursday was $4.03, up from $2.74 one year earlier, AAA North Dakota spokesman Gene LaDoucer said. The average in North Dakota on Thursday was $3.98, up from $2.82 a year ago, he said.

"Twenty-four states are paying $4 or higher," LaDoucer said Thursday.

The climb is blamed on record crude oil prices and global demand, LaDoucer said.

"Diesel is the predominate fuel used in foreign countries, and there is a lot more demand for it globally and that helps bid up the price that we are paying here," LaDoucer said.

Fuel accounts for about a quarter of carriers' operating costs, and now is surpassing labor as the biggest expense for some carriers, said Tiffany Wlazlowski, a spokeswoman for the Arlington, Va.-based American Trucking Associations.

"And rising fuel costs do increase the cost of consumer goods," she said.

Trucks haul 70 percent of all freight tonnage in the U.S., according to the American Trucking Associations.

State troopers have noticed the decline in truckers' speeds, said North Dakota Highway Patrol Capt. Eric Pederson.

"We see it when we're out patrolling," Pederson said. "In talking to the drivers, a lot of the large companies are setting policies that give the drivers a little more leeway on the time on their loads -- just to save on the fuel."

Wlazlowski said the U.S trucking industry expects to spend $135 billion on diesel this year, up from $112 billion in 2007. There are 3.5 million truck drivers in this country, she said.

"For every one-penny increase in the price of diesel, it costs our industry $391 million," she said. "In the last month, it's gone up 50 cents."

Wlazlowski said the trucking industry does "anything that will help them save fuel." She said that includes outfitting trucks with aerodynamic fairings and special tires to improve mileage. Drivers also are using more efficient routes and reducing idling times.

Trucking company Con-way Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., announced this month that it adjusted speed governors on the engines of the 8,400 semis in its less-than-truckload division, Con-way Freight.

Truckload carriers usually dedicate a shipment to a single customer, and move freight directly from the shipper to the receiver. Less-than-truckload carriers are filled with shipments from multiple customers, and may redistribute it at terminals along routes.

Con-way spokesman Gary Frantz said the maximum speed of the trucks has been cut from 65 mph to 62, a move that should cut fuel consumption by 3.2 million gallons a year.

"It's a significant savings," Frantz said.

The company said the move also would eliminate 72 million pounds of carbon emissions annually, or the equivalent to removing nearly 7,300 automobiles from U.S. highways.

Frantz said the company should have the governors on the 3,000 rigs in its truckload fleet adjusted next month.

CHINO, Calif. (AP) -- One of two men caught on videotape apparently abusing cattle at a California slaughterhouse has been sentenced to six months in jail.

Rafael Sanchez Herrera pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of animal abuse in a San Bernardino County Superior Court on Friday.

Under the plea deal the 34-year-old Herrera will be deported to his native Mexico after serving jail time.

A conviction on the three charges might have meant three years in jail.

The video shows Herrera and other workers at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company dragging sick cows with metal chains and forklifts, shocking them with electric prods and shooting streams of water in their nose and faces.

It led to the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- Major auto makers saw retail sales in the first half of March decrease as weak demand for new vehicles persists in the U.S., according to a report by research firm J.D. Power and Associates.

The U.S. market has been under pressure for more than a year as consumers have dealt with higher fuel prices, a downturn in the housing market and concerns about the economy.

Read the whole story.

Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Mazda Motor Corp. say they expect their U.S. sales to rise this year, bucking an expected industrywide drop in demand amid a slowing economy.

The automakers are counting on new models and a reputation for higher-than-average fuel efficiency to help insulate them from a contracting market and near-record gasoline prices.

Read the whole story.

(Reuters) BP Plc. plans to begin restarting a 103,000 barrel per day gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit at its 265,000 bpd Carson refinery, over the weekend, sources familiar with refinery operations said on Friday.

The FCC restart comes after wholesale gasoline prices spiked up 8.5 cents in the Los Angles market on Thursday because of overhauls at several California refineries and a power outage a Chevron Corp's 260,000 bpd El Segundo refinery.

Read the whole story.

Feds Open Criminal Probe Into Alcoa

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The U.S. Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into whether aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. participated in bribery in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain.

In documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, federal prosecutors asked a judge to halt a federal civil lawsuit that accused Pittsburgh-based Alcoa of bribing officials through overseas shell companies to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in overpayments.

"The United States has a direct and substantial interest in this case, as the subject matter giving rise to this case is also the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation," prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud section said in court filings.

Alcoa employs hundreds of people in the South Bay to manufacture fasteners for aircraft and cars.

Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C., also known as Alba, in which the Bahrain government holds a 77 percent stake, is seeking more than $1 billion in damages from Alcoa and other affiliated defendants, according to a federal lawsuit filed last month.

"The Alba complaint alleges numerous facts which, if true, could be relevant to the government's criminal investigation and a potential criminal trial," prosecutors said in court filings.

"As the criminal investigation arises out of the same facts and circumstances on which the claims in this civil action are based, the determination of potential liability against possible subjects of the investigation, particularly if they are charged with crimes as a result of the investigation, will turn on the same essential factual questions at issue in this civil action," the government said.

Alba, a 30-year Alcoa customer, and Alcoa do not object to the government's request to temporarily halt the civil proceedings, according to court documents.

"We were approached and asked and we agreed to the stay," Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery told The Associated Press early Friday. "We obviously are going to cooperate fully. We see this as an opportunity to see a speedy resolution to the entire matter."

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment early Friday.

Alba, which operates one of the world's largest aluminum smelters, also sued Alcoa World Alumina LLC, a global joint venture 60 percent owned by Alcoa and 40 percent owned by Australia's Alumina Ltd. The lawsuit also named William Rice, an Alcoa World Alumina executive, and Victor Dahdaleh, a Canadian citizen who has acted as an agent for Alcoa and Alcoa World Alumina.

After being contacted by Alba about the allegations, Alcoa offered to conduct a full review of its dealings with Alba over the past 20 years, but Alba chose to sue, Lowery said in February.

A "very fast review" done by Alcoa found nothing that deviated from standard practices, which prohibit improper activity by the company's employees, partners and contractors, Lowery said.

The company wasn't aware of any wrongdoing and would "vigorously defend" the lawsuit, he said.

Alba, which buys most of its alumina -- a material used to make aluminum -- from Alcoa and its affiliated companies, alleged the defendants bribed one or more former senior officials of Alba and the Bahrain government to persuade the company to cede a controlling interest in the company to Alcoa and to pay inflated prices for alumina.

The scheme began in 1993 and is ongoing, but was not found out until last year, the lawsuit claimed. The lawsuit also alleged the bribes were sent through a series of shell companies the defendants ultimately controlled.

Alcoa, the world's third-largest aluminum producer, reported 2007 revenue of $30.75 billion, an all-time record.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Starbucks Corp. to pay its California baristas more than $100 million in back tips and interest that the coffee chain paid to shift supervisors.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett also issued an injunction that prevents Starbucks' shift supervisors from sharing in future tips, saying state law prohibits managers and supervisors from sharing in employee gratuities.

Starbucks spokeswoman Valerie O'Neil said the company planned an immediate appeal of the ruling, calling it "fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason."

The lawsuit was filed in October 2004 by Jou Chou, a former Starbucks barista in La Jolla, who complained shift supervisors were sharing in employee tips.

The lawsuit gained ground in 2006 when it was granted class-action status, allowing the suit to go forward for as many as 100,000 former and current baristas in the coffee chain's California stores.

It was not immediately clear how many current and former employees are affected by the ruling.

"I feel vindicated," Chou said in a written statement released by attorneys. "Tips really help those receiving the lowest wages. I think Starbucks should pay shift supervisors higher wages instead of taking money from the tip pool."

California is Starbucks' largest U.S. market, with 2,460 stores as of Jan. 8, the latest count available. The Seattle-based company has more than 11,000 stores nationwide.

Starbucks employs more than 135,000 baristas in the U.S. The company did not immediately respond to a request for a head count in California.

The judgment comes as Starbucks is struggling to revive its U.S. business, where store traffic has slipped amid a sagging economy, rising energy and dairy costs, and growing competition from cheaper rivals.

The company's stock has slid more than 50 percent since late 2006, when it was trading close to $40 a share. Starbucks shares rose 3 cents to $17.53 Thursday.

Starbucks earned more than $672 million on revenue of $9.4 billion during its 2007 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

The judge ordered Starbucks to pay $87 million in back tips, plus interest of $19 million, bringing the total judgment to about $106 million.

The company said it planned to ask the court to stay the ruling while the appeal is pending.

"The decision today, in our view, represents an extreme example of an abuse of the class-action procedures in California's courts," O'Neil said.

The coffee company also took issue with the brevity of the judge's ruling, which was only four paragraphs, saying she failed to address the unfairness to shift supervisors.

"This case was filed by a single former barista and, despite Starbucks request, the interests of the shift supervisors were not represented in litigation," O'Neil said.

But attorney Laura Ho, who tried the baristas case, said the court's verdict follows state law.

"Starbucks illegally took a huge amount of money from the tip pool to pay shift supervisors, rather than paying them out of its own pocket. The court's verdict rightfully restores that money to the baristas," Ho said.

AP Business Writer Elizabeth M. Gillespie in Seattle contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. spent almost $5.9 million in 2007 on lobbying, according to a disclosure form posted online Feb. 13 by the Senate's public records office.

The auto company spent almost $3.6 million in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government on motor vehicle fuel economy standards, climate change legislation, providing health care for employees, trade policy and amending the Family and Medical Leave Act, among other issues.

Toyota also spent $2.3 million in the first six months of 2007 to lobby, mainly on the same issues.

Besides Congress, Toyota lobbied the departments of Transportation, Labor, State, Treasury, Commerce and Health and Human Services, the U.S. Trade Representative's office and other agencies.

Lobbyists are required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches, under a federal law enacted in 1995.

On Saturday, more than 400 Northrop Grumman employees gathered at the company's El Segundo Integrated Systems sector to stuff USO care packages for US personnel stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan and
other overseas locations.

In about six hours, company volunteers assembled 16,200 packages - a USO single-day record.

Each package contains a collection of items deemed "most wanted" by deployed troops.

The gathering marked the second year that Northrop has hosted a care package stuffing event with the USO. Since 2003, Northrop Grumman employees have also donated more than $310,000 to the USO.

See the photo.

On Saturday, more than 400 Northrop Grumman empoyees gathered at the companies El Segundo Integrated Systems sector to stuff USO care packages for US personnel stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan and
other overseas locations.

I about six hours, company volunteers assembled 16,200 packages - a USO single-day record.

Each package contains a collection of items deemed "most wanted" by deployed troops.

The gathering marked the second year that Northrop has hosted a care package stuffing event with the USO.

Since 2003, Northrop Grumman employees have also donated more than $310,000 to the USO.

See the photo.

(AP) A gauge of future economic activity dropped in February for the fifth consecutive month, suggesting that the weakening U.S economy could, indeed, be slipping into recession.

The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3 percent last month to 135.0 after dipping a revised 0.4 percent in January.

The February reading was in line with the 0.3 percent decline expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR.

The index is designed to forecast where the nation's economy is headed in the next three to six months.

Many economists believe rising gas prices, falling home prices and tightening credit markets have begun squeezing consumers and businesses, forcing them to cut spending. As a result, the U.S. economy may have stopped growing in the current quarter and could continue faltering in the second quarter. That would meet a technical definition of a recession — two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Ken Goldstein, labor economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement accompanying the report that economic signals "are flashing yellow."

He said the numbers indicate "the economy may be grinding to a halt" and that "a small contraction in economic activity cannot be ruled out."

A further sign of economic deterioration came as the Labor Department reported that the number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly two months. But a Federal Reserve reading of business activity in the Philadelphia area was not as bad as analysts had expected.

Share prices were up on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones industrial average advanced 112.43, or 0.9 percent, to 12,212.09 in morning trading.

Although many analysts believe the economy is faltering now, they don't expect a steep recession.

Scott Brown, chief economist with Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla., noted that "most of the monthly indicators have been suggesting we're on the edge of a recession."

He expects economic growth could be "close to zero, maybe negative" in the first half of the year but that output likely will improve in the second half.

The Fed in recent months has aggressively lowered interest rates to try to boost spending; it also has made more funds available to banks and brokerages to encourage easier credit. And the Bush administration has been moving on several fronts to boost the economy, including the promise of tax rebates starting the summer.

"It will take some time before the Fed rate cuts since January to have an effect on the economy," Brown said. And the rebates and other fiscal stimulus are likely to kick in this summer, he added.

The Conference Board said the leading index has declined 1.5 percent since August, with eight of its 10 components showing declines.

In the latest month, the biggest negative influences were unemployment insurance claims, building permits, vendor performance and consumer expectations.

The coincident index, which measures current activity, was unchanged for a third consecutive month at 124.9. The lagging index was up 0.2 percent in February after rising 0.1 percent in January.

The ratio of the coincident index to the lagging index — a measure of future economic performance that some economists monitor — dipped just a bit in December as it has every month since August.

International Rectifier: $20.83, down $0.35 or 1.65%

DirecTV Group: $24.25, down $0.96 or3.81%

Raytheon: $63.20, down $1.34 or 2.08%

Northrop Grumman: $78.24, down $1.55 or 1.94%

Boeing: $73.45, down $3.08 or 4.02%

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Story on Aerospace and Defense Stocks:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of companies in aerospace and defense fell with the broader markets Wednesday, with Boeing Co. suffering the largest decline.
On Wednesday, the markets returned about two-thirds of their jump from the previous session. The Dow Jones industrial average, which climbed 420 points on Tuesday, fell 293 points, or 2.4 percent, to 12,099.66.

Shares of Chicago-based Boeing lost $3.08, or 4 percent, to $73.45 on reports that Boeing's 787 jet may be further delayed.

Precision Castparts Corp. of Portland, Ore., fell $5.36, or 5.3 percent, to $96.70.

Goodrich Corp. stock shed $2.12, or 3.4 percent, to $59.79. Goodrich is based in Charlotte, N.C.

Shares of Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co. slid $1.34 to $63.20.

General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church, Va., which slid 31 cents, to $85.04.

Boeing executives filed their formal bid to overturn a $35 billion contract for air refueling tankers that was awarded to the team of Northrop Grumman (NOC) and European Aeronautic Defence & Space, or EADS. In the document, the Chicago-based company acknowledged it won't be easy to overturn the decision and provided some telling detail about why it fell short.

In its Mar. 18 filing with the Government Accountability Office, Boeing argued that the Air Force—under "continuing pressure from Capitol Hill" and from Northrop/EADS representatives—skewed the contest in Northrop's favor. Air Force contract officers "repeatedly made fundamental but often unstated changes to the bid requirements and evaluation process," Boeing complained.

Read the whole story.

Int'l Rectifier Gets Extension From NYSE

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) -- Power chip maker International Rectifier Corp. said Wednesday it has received a three-month extension from the New York Stock Exchange for continued listing and trading.
With the extension, International Rectifier has until June 17 to file its annual report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

If the company does not meet the deadline, the NYSE may grant a further extension for three more months.

International Rectifier said NYSE will reassess the agreement on an ongoing basis.

The company has been conducting an internal investigation into "unsubstantiated" sales that may have inflated the company's sales reports. The company's former chief executive, Alex Lidow, resigned in October after the probe began.

International Rectifier shares fell 17 cents to $21.01 in morning trading

Shares of Aerospace and Defense Companies Make Modest Gains in Wednesday Morning Trading

NEW YORK (AP) -- Aerospace and defense stocks are treading water, edging slightly higher as the market edged back from Tuesday's surge.

Strong earnings from the financial sector and a Federal Reserve interest rate cut sent major indexes barreling upward Tuesday, and most aerospace and defense stocks rose in sympathy. Although the broader markets were mixed in Wednesday morning trading, the sector's gains continued.

Shares of Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Rockwell Collins Inc. gained 70 cents to $57.74.

General Dynamics Corp., based in Falls Church, Va., added 93 cents to $86.28.

Morristown, N.J.'s Honeywell International Inc. picked up 43 cents to $57.21.

Two stocks missed out on the gains. Chicago-based Boeing Co. declined $1.30 to $75.23.

Shares of Precision Castparts Corp., based in Portland, Ore., shed 56 cents to $101.50.

I'd like to here what YOU think about the economy and stock market.

Send comments, predictions, rants to muhammed.el-hasan@dailybreeze.com.

Watch the video.

Manhattan Beach's Belamar Hotel completed a $2.2 million renovation, the hotel said Tuesday.

The upgrade focused on the lobby, a new restaurant called Second Story and state-of-the-art meeting facilities for corporate groups of various sizes.

The upgrade includes five new meeting rooms offer flexible space for groups numbering from two to 100. The hotel now has 7,095 square feet of meeting center space.

The hotel is owned and operated by Larkspur Hotels & Restaurants, which said the renovation stays true to the hotel's "Southern California roots" by using bright colors, mod-style furniture and iconic artwork -- "for a chic, unique lodging experience for guests ranging from business travelers to families."

Here it is.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday described the economy as being in "sharp decline," the closest he has come yet to conceding an election-year recession has set in.

Appearing tired after a weekend of helping to broker a fire sale takeover of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns to keep it from outright collapse, Paulson pushed back against efforts to have him admit a recession was under way.

"There's no doubt that the American people know that the economy has turned down sharply. So to me much less important is the label that's placed on it today. Much more important is what we do about it," he told NBC's Today Show.

Paulson also appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" where he claimed the Bush administration's $152-billion fiscal stimulus program could generate hundreds of thousands of jobs once tax rebate checks begin flowing in May.

Read the whole story.

Toyota Motor Corp. will cut back production of Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs in Indiana and Texas in response to slow sales.

The reduction in volume--a rare move for Toyota in North America--will begin in late spring, said Mike Goss, a spokesman for Toyota's North American production company. He said last week that Toyota has no plan to lay off workers at either plant.

Goss declined to say how many fewer trucks Toyota will produce this year because of the cutback.

Read the whole story.

EL SEGUNDO (KABC) -- Hundreds of Northrop-Grumman employees took part in a special U.S.O. project on Saturday to send personal items and support to servicemen and women around the world.
It took place in El Segundo, in the hangar where Northrop-Grumman workers assemble the Navy's F-18 Super Hornet.
A number of Hollywood celebrities showed up to support the U.S.O. and help the aerospace workers

Read the whole story.

El Segundo-based Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems will supply an additional 16 AESA radars to Boeing for the F-15C.

Eight of the radars will be for the Air Force and eight for the Air National Guard.

The contracts are work more than $89.5 million, Raytheon said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street begins the new week trying to come to terms with just how bad the fallout from the credit crisis is -- so bad that an investment bank worth $20 billion weeks ago has been bought for just $236 million.

The news late Sunday that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will buy Bear Stearns for a sum that's considered paltry by Wall Street standards is likely to leave investors shaken. What might give stocks some support is the Federal Reserve's latest steps to inject cash into the banking system -- steps aimed at lifting the economy but also to restore some confidence to investors. But how much that will help stocks, and for how long, is a big question on the Street.

Wall Street faces a paradox as trading opens -- the more investors find out about the problems caused by billions of dollars in failed mortgages and investments, the more unknowns seem to crop up. And the near-collapse of Bear Stearns after it invested heavily in risky mortgage-backed securities, while it ends uncertainty about one company, still raises concerns about how badly wounded other financial institutions might be.

Budget-priced and brimming with hits, Sony's old console is the perfect gateway to affordable gaming.

Wave goodbye to the Wii, pass on the PS3 and pull a 180 on the 360 - if you're looking for a way to play great games without breaking the bank, you're looking for the Playstation 2. We know it sounds crazy, but provided you're not overly concerned with cutting-edge graphics and online gaming, Sony's last-generation console still offers plenty of gaming thrills at a fraction of the cost of the newer systems.

Read the whole story.

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- If you think the cost of gassing up your car is outrageous, wait until you need to restock your pantry.

The price of wheat has more than tripled during the past 10 months, making Americans' daily bread -- and bagels and pizza and pasta -- feel a little like luxury items. And baked goods aren't the only ones getting more expensive: Experts expect some 80 percent of grocery prices will spike, too, and could remain steep for years because wheat and other grains are used to feed cattle, poultry and dairy cows.

"It's going to affect everything ... impact on every section of the grocery store," said Michael Bittel, senior vice president of King Arthur Flour Co. in Norwich, Vt.

Consumers such as Maria Cardena feel trapped by the prices. She said the bread she buys has jumped from 69 cents a loaf to $1.09 in recent weeks.

A year ago, Jeff Shea began buying up rental properties around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from which he had only recently graduated with a business major. Shea, 23, who lives in Chicago, owns three rental homes near campus, including a four-bedroom house he bought for $138,000 and rents to four students for $1,800 a month.

"It's the best time ever to buy houses," Shea said. "The rent is inflated because so many people go to school here."

Shea said he'd be happy if Champaign-Urbana prices took a dive so that he could buy even more. But college towns have remained relatively stable in this slumping real estate cycle. Students, university employees, and faculty keep apartments filled and form a steady stream of home buyers. And retirees and professionals flock to college towns because they're attracted to the lifestyle and cultural activities.

Read the whole story.

World business briefs: Toyota’s president says growth partly to blame for problems
Speed bumps

Toyota’s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, acknowledged that the company’s rapid global growth was partly behind a surge in problems that has plagued the automaker.

Watanabe said the company had improved quality controls and was sticking to its sales targets, despite worries about a credit crunch and a slowdown in the auto market.

BOCA RATON, Florida (Reuters) - The United States is in a recession that could be "substantially more severe" than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday.
"The situation is very bad, the situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad," Feldstein said in a speech at the Futures Industry Association meeting in Boca Raton, Fla.

"There's no doubt that this year and next year are going to be very difficult years."

NBER is a private sector group that is considered the arbiter of U.S. business cycles. Feldstein is also a Harvard economics professor and former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

Answering questions from the audience, Feldstein said the downturn could be the worst in the United States since World War Two.

Read the whole story.

Gold Hits $1,000 After Dollar Falls

NEW YORK (AP) — Gold briefly pushed past the psychologically important $1,000 mark Thursday, as investors poured money into the metal to hedge against a tumbling dollar, soaring crude prices and a shaky U.S. economy.

Gold's rally lifted other commodities, with silver, platinum and soybean futures all trading higher. Crude oil hit a trading record of $111 but fluctuated between gains and losses, while copper futures fell.

Growing unease about the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve's interest rate-cutting campaign have sent the greenback to record lows against the euro, boosting the allure of precious metals as a safe-haven investment.

The 15-nation euro hit a record $1.5625 in Thursday trading, topping the previous record of $1.5559 set Wednesday. The dollar also fell below the 100 Japanese yen for the time in 12 years — raising worries of instability in currency markets.

Gold reacted swiftly to the dollar's fall, rising to $1,001.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest ever. Traders later cashed in profits, leaving gold to settle at $993.80, still up $13.30 an ounce.

By Muhammed El-Hasan
The Westin LAX and a labor union agreed to end their two-year dispute, with the hotel accepting the union as the bargaining agent of its workers, both sides said Thursday.

UNITE HERE Local 11 will represent the hotel’s 220 non-management employees in contract negotiations after workers voted to unionize, union spokeswoman Paulina Gonzalez said.

"I hope that the other hotels on the strip, especially the LAX Hilton, will take this as a sign that an employer can do right by their employees and can be profitable at the same time,” said Gonzalez, whose union chapter represents 13,000 hotel and food service workers in the Los Angeles area.

With 740 rooms, the Westin is one of the largest hotels on LAX’s Century Boulevard corridor.
For the past two years, the union has led pickets and even a hunger strike in front of the Westin and Hilton. Pickets continue in front of the Hilton.

In September 2006, about 300 pickets were arrested for civil disobedience in front of the two hotels.
The agreement announced Thursday ends UNITE HERE’s boycott of the Westin LAX, which will be added to the union’s national list of recommended hotels.

Read the rest of the article in Friday's Daily Breeze.

(AP) DETROIT - Chrysler LLC is telling employees worldwide to take a mandatory two-week vacation in July.
Chrysler informed employees of the plan in an e-mail sent to employees that was obtained by The Associated Press. Chrysler spokeswoman Mary Beth Heilprin confirms the e-mail was sent.

Chrysler plans a corporate-wide shutdown the weeks of July 7 and July 14. Heilprin says some employees may be asked to stay on to work on special projects.

It's common for automakers to shut down plants in July, but this also would affect salaried workers.

Chrysler says the shutdown should help it boost productivity and efficiency. Heilprin didn't have any details about why the decision was made.

(AP) -- Housing data show median home prices plunged in February across many of California's most populous counties, with Southern California leading the slide with an average drop of 17.9 percent, year over year.

DataQuick Information Systems says median home prices in February fell from a year ago in 15 major California counties.

That drove down the median price in Southern California to $408,000. In the San Francisco region, prices fell 11.6 percent to $548,000.

Computer Sciences Corp., the El Segundo-based IT comany, said Thursday that it will end its sponsorship of Riis Cycling or its professional cycling team after the end of the current contract, which expires on Dec. 31, 2008.

CSC said its decision to end its long-time sponsorship of the cycling team "reflects a shift in priorities as the company makes new investments to implement a strategic long-term growth plan.'

"Our involvement in the sport of cycling has been a positive and productive experience," said Henrik Bo Pedersen, the CSC executive responsible for overseeing the sponsorship. "We will continue to support
the team and exercise our sponsorship rights during the 2008 race season. At the same time, we are committed to helping the team secure a new title sponsor.

"Our company and employees have enjoyed our relationship with the riders, staff and management of Team CSC. We especially wish to thank each member of Riis Cycling for their dedication and commitment to
making professional cycling a healthy and safe sport."

See for yourself the alleged call girl prosecutors say -- ahem -- "serviced" New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Here's the link to the photos.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A recession has already started and the downturn is likely to last longer than in the recent past, with the economy recovering only late next year, according to a quarterly survey of corporate finance chiefs released on Wednesday.

Read the whole story.

By Muhammed El-Hasan
Staff Writer

Leiner Health Products Inc., the Carson-based maker of vitamins and nutritional supplements, has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Filed Monday, the bankruptcy will allow the company to dig out of its debt as it restructures and looks for a possible buyer.

“Filing for Chapter 11 allows Leiner and its lenders to initiate a formal process for restructuring the company’s debt obligations and for exploring the sale of the business in a timely manner,” Rob Reynolds, the president and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday. “Although we had taken many steps to address the challenges facing our business, they were not enough to offset the cost of our substantial debt obligations.”

Reynolds added that the company does not expect any disruption in its operations or employee layoffs because of the filing. The company also expects to continue to pay its employees and provide them with benefits including health insurance and 401(k).

It was unclear how many people the firm employed.

Also unclear was how long the company expected to remain in Chapter 11. A spokeswoman declined to comment beyond Reynolds’ statement and an earlier company statement.

The Carson firm also said its management team would remain.

The bankruptcy filing does not include its Canadian subsidiary.

Leiner said it had secured an agreement from lenders to provide $74 million in financing that will help the company maintain operations. The financing is subject to court approval, the company said.

The bankruptcy filing came a year after an FDA inspection of Leiner’s Fort Mill, S.C., plant led to a voluntary recall of its over-the-counter drugs because of manufacturing problems.

“Although we have already taken many steps to address the challenges that arose following our March 2007 decision to voluntarily suspend OTC operations by streamlining our operations and manufacturing footprint, these actions were not enough to offset the cost of our substantial debt obligations,” Reynolds said.

muhammed.el-hasan@dailybreeze.com

Japan and Australia have expressed interest in the F-22, but the US banned foreign sales of the high-tech fighter-bomber.

“This has so much advanced technology that the Congress voted to ban its export,” defense analyst Paul Nisbet said. “It’s an extremely advanced aircraft in its capabilities. It flies higher, faster, quieter and has tremendous battle management capabilities.”

Read the whole story.

McCain defends his tanker deal inquiries

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday his inquiries into a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract were designed to assure evenhanded bidding and denied they were motivated by lobbyists who are close advisers to his presidential campaign.

"I had nothing to do with the contract, except to insist in writing, on several occasions, as this process went forward, that it be fair and open and transparent," he said at a meeting with voters in St. Louis. "That was my involvement in it."

His remarks came after The Associated Press reported that some of his current advisers lobbied last year for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the parent company of plane maker Airbus. EADS and its U.S. partner Northrop Grumman Corp. beat Boeing Co. for the lucrative aerial refueling contract.

Boeing on Tuesday filed a formal protest of the tanker award with the Government Accountability Office, citing "irregularities" in the contract competition.

Two of the lobbyists working on the EADS account gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign last year. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbies for EADS and serves as McCain's national finance chairman.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been instrumental in the Pentagon's long attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier, scandal-marred tanker contract with Boeing in 2004 and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to change proposed bidding procedures opposed by Airbus.

EADS retained The Loeffler Group to lobby for the tanker deal last year, months after McCain sent two letters urging the Defense Department to make sure the bidding proposals guaranteed competition between Boeing and Airbus.

"They never lobbied him related to the issues, and the letters went out before they were contracted" by EADS, McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said.

According to lobbying records filed with the Senate, Loeffler Group lobbyists on the project included Loeffler; Susan Nelson, who left the firm and is now the campaign's finance director, and former Secretary of the Navy William Ball III, who has campaigned for McCain. EADS also had a long-term relationship with Ogilvy Government Relations, formerly known as the Federalist Group. Ogilvy lobbyist John Green, who records show worked on the EADS account, recently took a leave of absence to volunteer for McCain as the campaign's congressional liaison.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a watchdog group that has cooperated with McCain in the past on the tanker issue, said she had seen no evidence that lobbyists influenced McCain's stands on the bidding process. But she said he is judged differently because of his reputation as a self-described "straight-talking" reformer.

"McCain ends up having to live by a higher standard than everyone else because he's the one that's been pointing out how corrupt the whole Washington system is," she said. "And when he doesn't, he does hand his critics ammunition."

McCain on Tuesday said his work on the tanker was designed to keep the bidding competitive.

"I think my record is very clear on this issue, including a paper trail of letters that we wrote to the Department of Defense during this process and saying clearly and unequivocally we just want a fair process, and we don't want a repeat of the previous process," he told reporters in St. Louis. "I think my record on this issue is very clear and authenticated by both written and verbal statements on the issue."

McCain is a longtime critic of influence peddling and special interest politics. But he has come under increased scrutiny as a presidential candidate, particularly because he has surrounded himself with advisers who are veteran Washington lobbyists. He has defended his inner circle and has emphatically denied reports last month in The New York Times and The Washington Post that suggested he helped the client of a lobbyist friend nine years ago.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on the links between McCain and lobbying efforts on behalf of EADS. Loeffler did not respond to phone and e-mail messages.

But Boeing supporters, particularly in Washington state where Boeing would have performed much of the tanker work, already have begun to accuse McCain of damaging Boeing's chances by inserting himself into the tanker deal.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said the field was "tilted to Airbus" because the Pentagon did not weigh European subsidies for Airbus in its deliberations — a decision he blamed on McCain.

In December 2006, just weeks before the Air Force was set to release its formal request for proposals, McCain wrote a letter to the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, warning that he was "troubled" by the Air Force's draft request for bids.

The United States had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that Airbus unfairly benefits from European subsidies. Airbus in turn argued that Boeing also receives government support, mostly as tax breaks.

Under the Air Force proposal, bidders would have been required to explain how financial penalties or other sanctions stemming from the subsidy dispute might affect their ability to execute the contract. Airbus objected to the provision and asked the Pentagon to drop it in June 2006.

McCain, in his letter to Gates on Dec. 1, 2006, said the proposed bid request "may risk eliminating competition before bids are submitted." The Air Force changed the criteria four days later.

Dicks, a senior member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said the removal of the subsidy language was a "game-changer" that favored EADS over Boeing.

EADS also wanted the Pentagon to factor into the bidding process the ability of the new tanker to carry cargo and passengers. The Airbus proposal called for a much bigger plane than the familiar Boeing 767 tankers currently used by the Air Force.

In his letter to Gates, McCain urged the Pentagon to write bid requests that would take into account the various capabilities of the tanker plane.

Nearly two months later, Gates replied that the Air Force had made changes "responsive to the concerns identified in your letter."

Last week, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the EADS-Northrop Grumman plane was "clearly a better performer" than the one proposed by Boeing.

But Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the Air Force altered its requirements at the last minute. Smith said he didn't know whether McCain had influenced the Air Force decision. "What is clear is there was a change," he said.

EADS' interest in the tanker deal is evident in the political contributions of its employees. From 2004 to 2006, donations by its employees jumped from $42,500 to $141,931, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. So far this election cycle, company employees have donated $120,350. Of that, McCain's presidential campaign has received $14,000, more than any other member of Congress this election cycle.

McCain's oversight of the tanker contract goes back to 2003 when, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and of an Armed Services subcommittee, he led an investigation that uncovered a procurement scandal that killed an earlier tanker contract with Boeing. A former Air Force official and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.

While McCain has praised Boeing for fixing its practices, his campaign said the experience prompted him to demand "a full, fair and open competition." His letters — one to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England in September 2006 and the other to Gates — were sent with that spirit in mind, Hazelbaker said.

Once the rules were in place, Hazelbaker said, bidders submitted proposals, the Air Force reviewed them and the contract was awarded.

"That is a process that McCain, appropriately, had absolutely no role in," she said.

Read about why Raytheon was letting people fly the simulator. The article will be in Wednesday's paper and Web site.

CarMax, the nation's biggest used-car seller, said that black was the top color in online searches for used vehicles on carmax.com in February.

“I am not surprised that black tops the list," Mark Simmons, CarMax purchasing manager in San Diego, said in a release. "The color black looks good on nearly every make and model.”

Here's the list of top five color searches for Februar on carmax.com:

Color Choice Percent of Searches
Black 36%
White 17%
Blue 11%
Red 10%
Silver 9%

Mall Centers Feel Hangover As Retail Industry Retrenches

(AP) The signs that smaller retailers are struggling are unavoidable at malls across America: "Going out of business" sales at many Wilsons Leather stores. "Up to 70 percent off" at KB Toys.

At the once-sizzling Paradise Valley Mall in Phoenix, the space once occupied by Bombay Co., the furniture chain that went bankrupt last year, is empty. Wilsons just finished liquidating its inventory. KB Toys, AnnTaylor and American Eagle feature bold posters advertising steep discounts.

"I don't think it brings much business when all these stores are closed," said Michelle Green, a sales clerk at Fred Meyer Jewelers.

Around the country, mall centers are starting to feel the recoil from a rapid expansion in recent years that allowed retailers to aim stores at almost every niche, from shoppers who wanted Talbots clothes for their children to those who craved Bombay's little wood tables.

Now, consumers who are closing their wallets amid rising gasoline prices and a housing slump are forcing specialty retailers to pare back their brands. While still healthy overall, mall centers in areas hardest hit by the housing downturn -- like Paradise Valley -- are suffering the most store shutdowns.

Retailers including AnnTaylor Stores Corp., Talbots Inc. and Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. have closed hundreds of stores so far this year. Gadget seller Sharper Image Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection last month and plans to shutter nearly half of its 184 stores.

That retrenchment, along with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of catalog retailer Lillian Vernon Corp., marks the beginning of a wave of retail bankruptcies that's expected to go well beyond the home furnishings stores hurt by the housing malaise.

"This is economic Darwinism," said Dan Ansell, a partner at Greenberg Traurig LLP and chairman of its real estate operations division. "Those retailers and businesses that have a product that is desired by consumers will survive, and those who do not will not."

Unless the economy dramatically improves, Ansell believes retail bankruptcies this year could reach the highest level since the 1991 recession. More closings could leave gaping holes in the nation's retail centers, which have already seen average vacancy rates creep up to between 7 percent and 8 percent from 5 percent over the last six months, according to data from NAI Global, a commercial real estate services firm.

David Solomon, president and CEO of ReStore, NAI Global's retail division, expects the vacancy rate could hit 10 percent by the end of the year. Suzanne Mulvee, senior economist at Property & Portfolio Research, figures that vacancies could rise as high as 12.5 percent this year. Her figure includes retail spaces where tenants have defaulted on their rents.

Part of the problem, according to Mulvee, is that more retail space is coming to the market just as consumer demand is falling. Another 130 million square feet of retail space will become available this year, she predicts, on top of last year's 143 million. That is well above the average 100 million square feet added per year earlier in the decade.

As a result, markets like Phoenix, which had a retail boom, are expected to see the most dramatic increases in vacancies. Phoenix's rate is expected to more than double to 10 percent by the end of 2009 from 4.4 percent late last year, according to Property & Portfolio. In Kansas City, Mo., rates could rise to almost 17 percent by the end of 2009 from last year's 13.5 percent. In San Antonio, experts say the figure may hit 20.5 percent next year from last year's 17.4 percent.

Still, Solomon doesn't think the situation will be as dire as in 1991, when the savings and loan crisis hurt the entire country. Experts also say merchants are weathering downturns better because of new systems to control inventory and costs.

Nevertheless, consumers are seeing fewer stores that focus on specific niches, like apparel for women baby boomers or clothing for surf fans. That would differ from 17 years ago, when it was the department stores that felt the major shakeup as leveraged buyouts and fierce competition led to the demise of names like Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Woodward & Lothrop. But there's one common theme: the power of national discounters like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which helped seal the eventual demise of regional discount chains last time around. Now, the discounters' clout is hurting consumer electronics stores like CompUSA, which is closing most of its stores, and Circuit City Stores Inc., which posted dismal holiday sales.

Christina Avila, shopping at the Oak Park Mall in Kansas City, Mo. -- which had more than half a dozen store vacancies -- said she's cutting back because of the economy and spending more at places like Wal-Mart and Target.

"I'm more interested if they have clearance items," she said.

Michele Lipovitch of Phoenix said she only goes to the Paradise Valley mall twice a month.

"We have two kids. I have credit card debt I'm trying to pay off," said Lipovitch. "It's kind of scary because we keep hearing that it looks like we're going into a recession."

The industry pullback follows several years of rapid expansion and experimentation with a range of new store formats as retailers enjoyed robust consumer spending fueled by rising home values. But the sharp spending drop has made stores rethink how to expand their businesses.

Jewelry retailer Zale Corp. announced more closings last month, meaning it now plans to shutter almost 5 percent of its stores by the end of July. In January, Pacific Sunwear said it will close all 154 remaining Demo stores, which sell urban fashions. AnnTaylor is shutting down 13 percent of its stores and delaying a new store concept aimed at women boomers, while Talbots is closing its 78 children's and men's apparel stores to focus on its core middle-aged female customer. Macy's also has said it will close nine stores.

And Wilsons The Leather Expert is closing a majority of its 260 mall locations.

Analysts say they're watching to see if Circuit City closes any stores after posting a third-quarter loss and cutting its full-year profit outlook. Analysts also expect more store cutbacks at Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Kmart and Sears stores.

Some shoppers are not going to miss the casualties.

"They have nice clothes, nice urban wear, but their prices (are) a little high," said Tasha Burts, 35, of Demo at the Dolphin Mall west of downtown Miami. She walked out empty-handed.

Mall operators Taubman Centers Inc. and Simon Property Group say their top tenants -- the department stores and other big chains that anchor most shopping centers -- are in good financial shape.

Bill Taubman, chief operating officer of Taubman Centers, predicts more store closings and bankruptcies than last year, but doesn't think they will reach historic highs.

That will still mean a more limited selection for consumers, who until a few months ago had a plethora of choices, particularly when it came to furniture. Recent home furnishings casualties included Bombay and Levitz Furniture, which filed for bankruptcy in November and has been liquidating its inventory. Clothing stores, in a malaise since consumers see fashion spending as discretionary, could see widespread closures this year.

While the industry overall is experimenting less with new formats, Janet Hoffman, managing partner of the North American retail division of Accenture, expects the mood to be temporary.

"There is this undying belief in the retail industry that they have an idea that will work," Hoffman said, citing Abercrombie & Fitch Co.'s new lingerie chain Gilly Hicks. "A year or 18 months from now you will see new ones at play."

Associated Press Writers David Twiddy in Kansas City, Mo., Terry Tang in Phoenix and Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this report.

Boeing to File Protest of U.S. Air Force Tanker Contract Award

The following is Boeing's statement:

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] will file a formal protest on Tuesday asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the decision by the U.S. Air Force to award a contract to a team of Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) to replace aerial refueling tankers.

"Our team has taken a very close look at the tanker decision and found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal," said Jim McNerney, Boeing chairman, president and chief executive officer. "This is an extraordinary step rarely taken by our company, and one we take very seriously."

Following a debriefing on the decision by the Air Force on March 7, Boeing officials spent three days reviewing the Air Force case for its tanker award. A rigorous analysis of the Air Force evaluation that resulted in the Northrop/EADS contract led Boeing to the conclusion that a protest was necessary.

"Based upon what we have seen, we continue to believe we submitted the most capable, lowest risk, lowest Most Probable Life Cycle Cost airplane as measured against the Air Force's Request for Proposal," McNerney said. "We look forward to the GAO's review of the decision."

Boeing said it would provide additional details of its case in conjunction with the protest filing on Tuesday.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), the Hawthorne-based developer of low-cost rockets, said Monday that it won a contract from the Department of Defense for a June launch.

The DoD has not announced the payload yet.

The contact is part of the DoD's Jumpstart mission, which aims to establish a way to streamline contracting and execution of missions to make the process much quicker from beginning to end.

The June launch will occur from the SpaceX launch complex in the Central Pacific Marshall Islands’ Kwajalein Atoll. The launch will use SpaceX's smallest rocket, the Falcon 1.

A gas compressor at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo caused heavy flaring Saturday evening, according to Dow Jones newswire.

The facility refines up to 260,000 barrel a day.

McDonald's Posts Strong February Sales

OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) -- McDonald's Corp. said Monday that February sales at restaurants open more than a year jumped a better-than-expected 11.7 percent, boosted by growth in Europe, the weak dollar and the benefit of an extra selling day this year.

Two straight months of solid results to start the year have reassured investors worried about the impact of the economic slowdown on the world's largest fast-food chain, among other restaurant companies.

McDonald's shares increased $1.11, or 2.1 percent, to $53.38 in morning trading.

The leap year boosted same-store sales by about 4 percent last month, the Oak Brook-based company said.

Same-store sales in the U.S. rose 8.3 percent during the month ending Feb. 29, led by breakfast and coffee offerings. European same-store sales grew by an impressive 15.4 percent on strong results in the U.K., France, Germany and Russia.

Same-store sales in the Asia Pacific region, Middle East and Africa rose 10.9 percent for the month, mostly on strength in Australia, China and Japan.

Systemwide sales, which include restaurants owned by franchisees and affiliates operating under joint-venture agreements rose 13.2 percent in February.

Goldman Sachs analyst Steven Kron said McDonald's is well-positioned to navigate through economic challenges because of its tiered menu platform which offers a mix of value and more expensive new products.

Paul Westra of Cowen and Co. said he is hearing positive feedback from the rollout of McDonald's specialty coffees, now available in more than 1,000 U.S. restaurants en route to being in all of them by mid-2009.

"We strongly believe that February's solid results were positively impacted by the rollout of its two Southern-style chicken sandwiches (breakfast and lunch sandwiches) ahead of a likely spring 2008 media launch. This fact bodes well" for a strong second quarter, he said in a note to investors.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gasoline prices were poised Monday to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon. Oil prices, meanwhile, surged to $107, a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions on an upbeat report on wholesale inventories.

The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Last May, prices peaked at $3.227 as surging demand and a string of refinery outages raised concerns about supplies.

That record will likely be left in the dust soon as gas prices accelerate toward levels that could approach $4 a gallon, though most analysts believe prices will peak below that psychologically significant mark. In its last forecast, released last month, the Energy Department said prices will likely peak around $3.40 a gallon this spring; a new forecast is due Tuesday.

Reuters - U.S. average retail gasoline prices have reached a new high of almost $3.20 per gallon and will likely jump another 20 to 30 cents in the next month, worsening the pain of consumers struggling to make ends meet in an economic downturn.

Gasoline prices are rising sharply as refiners, who have kept prices down in order to compete for sales, become more willing to pass on their higher costs of crude oil, according to an industry analyst on Sunday.

The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas was nearly $3.20 a gallon on March 7, up about 9.44 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations. The price has risen 64 cents per gallon in the past 12 months.

Read the whole story.

Chrysler Closing Calif. Design Studio

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- Chrysler LLC is closing its advanced design studio in California as part of a companywide consolidation.

Work from the studio in Carlsbad, Calif., will be moved to Chrysler's headquarters in Auburn Hills.

About 20 Carlsbad employees will be affected by the closing announced Friday.

Design chief Trevor Creed will continue to lead Chrysler's design efforts.

Chrysler has been restructuring since Cerberus Capital Management LP, the private equity firm, bought a majority stake in automaker last summer.

Boeing Supporters Target GOP Candidate John McCain in Wake of $35B Tanker Contract Loss

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing's loss of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus.

There are other targets for their ire -- the Air Force, the defense secretary and even the entire Bush administration.

But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.

"I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose state would have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.

"Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. "We are sending the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it."

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Century City-based Northrop Grumman, won a competition with Boeing Feb. 29 to build the refueling planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades. The unexpected decision has sparked outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security. EADS and Northrop say about 60 percent of their tanker will be built in the U.S.

(Northrop employs thousands of people in the South Bay.)

McCain said he is keeping an open mind on the contract, but in the past he has boasted about his role in blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing. The deal was killed in 2004 after a former Boeing executive improperly recruited an Air Force official while she was still overseeing contracts involving prospective Boeing deals. The former Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.

McCain has run ads touting his role in fighting "pork" such as the tanker project and cited the deal in a recent GOP debate.

"I saved the taxpayers $6 billion in a bogus tanker deal," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoing the thoughts of many congressional Democrats, sees McCain's role in a less positive light. She said the earlier tanker deal was "on course for Boeing" before McCain started railing against it.

"I mean, the thought was that it would be a domestic supplier for it," Pelosi told reporters. "Senator McCain intervened, and now we have a situation where the contract may be -- this work may be outsourced."

Even Boeing's Republican supporters are critical of McCain.

"John McCain will be the nominee and I will support him, but if John McCain believes that Airbus or EADS is the company for our Air Force tanker program he's flat-out wrong -- and I'll tell him that to his face," said Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican whose district includes a Boeing plant that could have gained hundreds of new jobs from the tanker program, said McCain's role in killing the earlier deal is likely to become an election issue. Both of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have criticized the Air Force decision.

"I think we absolutely will hear more about it," Tiahrt said. "We'll hear it mostly from the Democrats and they have every right to be concerned."

McCain called such criticism off base.

"In all due respect to the Washington delegation, they vigorously defended the process before -- which turned out to be corrupt -- which would have cost the taxpayers more than $6 billion and ended up with people in federal prison," he said. "I'm the one that fought against that ... for years and brought down a corrupt contract."

Keith Ashdown, with the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Boeing executives who broke the law were to blame for the demise of the tanker contract -- not McCain.

"This was theirs from day one," he said. "This idea that any lawmaker is to blame is a joke."

Still, Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, said McCain's opposition to Boeing could hurt him with voters in Washington and other states affected by the tanker program. Boeing would have performed much of the work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. Significant work also was slated for Texas.

"If he can be painted as somehow being associated with job losses ... it could hurt him on the margins," Donovan said.

McCain's role in the tanker deal did not bother Alabama politicians, including Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who endorsed McCain three days after the Air Force contract was announced. The EADS-Northrop tanker, based on the Airbus A330, will be built in Mobile, Ala., where it will produce 2,000 new jobs, and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.

Associated Press writers Libby Quaid and Sam Hananel contributed to this story.

Aura Systems, the El Segundo-based maker of mobile power generators, said it will move its main facility to a new location in the same city. The firm will move from 2330 Utah Ave. to 1310 East Grand Ave.

The move will take occur in April.

The new facility is about the same size as the old one, but with a floor plan and layout that's much more flexible for the operational needs faced by the company with the increased demand for the AuraGen generator.

The company is seeking an additional production, service and warehouse facilities in the Atlanta, Ga., area, where it expects to open in teh first half of this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers slashed 63,000 jobs in February, the most in five years and the starkest sign yet that the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also indicated that the nation's unemployment rate dipped from 4.9 percent in January to 4.8 percent last month as hundreds of thousands of people — perhaps discouraged by their prospects — left the civilian labor force.

Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere, including education and health care, leisure and hospitality and the government.

The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate underscored the heavy toll of the housing and credit crises on companies, jobseekers and the overall economy.

Torrance will lose a longtime auto dealership when Peninsula Pontiac GMC Buick shutters its doors today.

The dealership moved to Torrance from Lomita a decade ago and employs about 60 people who will be scrambling for new jobs.

The car lot, at 2909 Pacific Coast Highway, was quiet Thursday afternoon as managers prepared for today's closure.

Read the whole story.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Responding to record recalls of products that sickened children, the Senate passed legislation Thursday that would toughen inspections of toys and other playthings made outside the U.S.

The bill calls for a public database of consumer complaints, bolsters the Consumer Products Safety Commission to help it certify the safety of overseas products, bans lead in children's goods and sets new standards for safe toys.

It won approval by a 79-13 vote after four days of debate. The Bush administration and other critics said the database unfairly could taint manufacturers. But President Bush stopped short of threatening a veto.

Both the Senate and House versions passed with veto-proof margins, increasing the chances a compromise would draw similar support.

LA Importers Charged With Distributing Nearly 90,000 Tubes of Toxic Chinese Toothpaste

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Criminal charges have been filed against a company that prosecutors say imported and distributed nearly 90,000 tubes of Chinese toothpaste containing a poisonous substance and a wholesaler that supplied local stores with the tubes, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced Thursday.

Selective Imports Corp. sold the toothpaste containing diethylene glycol to distributors nationwide between December 2005 and May 2007, prosecutors said. Vernon Sales Inc. is accused of buying some of the tubes and reselling them to Los Angeles stores.

Diethylene glycol is a chemical used in antifreeze and as a solvent. Chinese manufacturers have used the chemical, known as DEG, as a cheaper alternative to glycerin, which thickens toothpaste. Exposure to DEG, however, can cause kidney and liver damage over time.

Vernon Sales President Kamyab Toofer, Vice President Pejman Mossay and the company itself each were charged with 14 criminal counts of receiving, selling and delivering an adulterated drug.

Stocks Drop Amid Credit Concerns

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks tumbled Thursday as the ailing credit market and a spike in home foreclosures intensified the market's worries about a sagging economy. The Dow Jones industrials gave up 214 points.
Concerns about credit grew after Thornburg Mortgage Inc. and a Carlyle Group bond fund revealed troubles with investments backed by mortgages. The entities failed to make margin calls, which are payments to guarantee much larger debt or investments.

Northrop Grumman Corp. defended its winning of the Air Force's aerial refueling tanker contract, which could be worth $40 billion. Northrop and France-based Airbus beat out heavily favored Boeing for the contract. Some US lawmakers say the huge KC-45A aircraft contract should not be given to a team with a foreign company -- Airbus, which is owned by EADS -- as the major partner. EADS and Airbus are based in France.

Northrop says it needs to counter inaccurate statements floating around the debate. Here's what Northrop says:

Warren Buffett Takes Top Spot
(Forbes)
The number 13 has long been considered unlucky by superstitious people around the globe. How fitting, then, that Bill Gates' reign as the world's richest person ends after his 13th year at the top.

Despite being worth $58 billion, $2 billion more than last year, Gates is now the world's third-richest person, ceding the top spot ranking to his good friend and partner in philanthropy, Warren Buffett, whose net worth jumped $10 billion to $62 billion. Ranked No. 2 is Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, whose fortune has doubled in just two years to $60 billion.

Read the whole story.

Here's the top 20:
1. Warren Buffett
2. Helú Slim & Family
3. William Gates III
4. Lakshmi Mittal
5. Mukesh Ambani
6. Anil Ambani
7. Ingvar Kamprad & Family
8. KP Singh
9. Oleg Deripaska
10. Karl Albrecht
11. Li Ka-shing
12. Sheldon Adelson
13. Bernard Arnault
14. Lawrence Ellison
15. Roman Abramovich
16. Theo Albrecht
17. Liliane Bettencourt
18. Alexei Mordashov
19. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
20. Mikhail Fridman

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices rose Thursday, extending their record-setting gains as new economic reports and a decision by central banks in Europe to hold interest rates steady sent the dollar to a new low against the euro.

While retailer reports on same-store sales were mixed, home foreclosures jumped in the fourth quarter to an all-time high, according to The Mortgage Bankers Association.

The European Central Bank and Bank of England, meanwhile, decided to leave interest rates unchanged.

Analysts believe the steadily weakening dollar is the reason oil prices have jumped to a number of new inflation-adjusted record highs this week. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

"This market continues to be based on the dollar," said James Cordier, founder of OptionSellers.com, a Tampa, Fla., trading firm.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose 93 cents to $105.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier spiking to a new record of $105.97.

At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices extended their advance toward record levels. The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.185, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices are following oil higher, and are expected to peak this spring well above last May's record of $3.227 a gallon.

Diesel prices jumped 1.4 cents overnight to a new record national average of $3.71 a gallon. High diesel prices are boosting prices of consumer goods, the vast majority of which are transported by the distillate fuel.

OPEC's decision on Wednesday to hold production steady, and the Energy Department's report that oil inventories rose last week, continued to prompt some investors to buy, analysts said.

Traders also worried about escalating tensions between oil producing countries in Latin America. Following a weekend attack by Colombia on leftist rebels in neighboring Ecuador, Venezuela moved tanks and soldiers to the Colombian border. Ecuador said Monday it had sent 3,200 soldiers to its border with Colombia.

In other Nymex trading, April heating oil futures rose 1.55 cents to $2.9586 a gallon, while April gasoline futures fell 0.81 cents to $2.634 a gallon.

April natural gas futures rose 7.3 cents to $9.814 per 1,000 cubic feet. The Energy Department said inventories fell by 135 billion cubic feet last week, less than analysts had expected.

In London, Brent crude rose 81 cents to $102.45 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Gillian Wong in Singapore contributed to this report.

BERLIN (AP) -- The dollar sank to another record low Wednesday, with a growing list of economic reports pointing to a worsening U.S. climate.
The euro rose to $1.5302 in afternoon European trading before dropping back slightly to $1.5278. The new low broke through the previous record set Monday at $1.5275.

The euro had bought $1.5208 in New York late Tuesday.

On Wednesday, reports showed that U.S. factories saw demand for their products drop sharply in January, while the country's service sector contracted last month.

They provided fresh evidence of weakness in an economy hit by housing and credit crises -- weakness that has raised expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will continue to cut interest rates.

Speculation has mounted that the Fed might cut rates by as much as three-fourths of a percentage point this month. Lower interest rates can jump-start a nation's economy. But they can also weaken its currency as traders transfer funds to countries where they can earn higher returns.

By contrast, the European Central Bank is expected to leave its benchmark rate unchanged on Thursday at 4 percent following two months of inflation in which inflation has run at 3.2 percent -- well above the bank's stated goal of at or near 2 percent.

There is more uncertainty over whether the Bank of England will cut rates from their current 5.25 percent Thursday.

The British pound was up to $1.9945 Wednesday from $1.9859 the previous night. The dollar rose to 103.82 Japanese yen from 103.14 yen.

BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) — Nike and Apple are making the iPod compatible with gym equipment.

The companies announced Tuesday that they are working with gym equipment manufacturers and health clubs to allow members to plug their iPod Nano into cardio equipment to track workouts, set goals and upload the information to a Nike Web site.

The new technology is expected to hit gyms this summer.

It's another major partnership for Nike Inc. and Apple Inc., which created Nike+ technology more than a year ago. The wireless system allows some Nike shoes embedded with a sensor to communicate with Apple's iPod Nano.

By Scott Duke Harris
Mercury News

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia was born of a utopian vision: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

But Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has learned that the Internet is also great for airing dirty laundry. An angry ex-paramour of his is using it to exact payback by posting invective, sharing salacious chat and using eBay to auction off garments that she said he left behind.

The tawdry tale of Wales and former Fox News pundit Rachel Marsden might be summed up by text messagers as TMI - or "too much information." It has been served up with relish on Valleywag and other Internet sites in recent days.

Fallout includes blog postings from ex-Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool and others that raise allegations, which Wales disputes, that he has improperly used his expense account and influence within Wikipedia.

The "Wiki quickie," as one headline dubbed it, created a public relations mess that put the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates the encyclopedia, into damage-control mode. Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner issued a statement denying financial wrongdoing on Wales' part:

"Over the past few days, I've been struggling a little with how to respond to this. I don't want to get drawn into a long back-and-forth in which Danny makes an ongoing series of loose insinuations, and the Foundation then needs to painstakingly reconstruct past events in order to refute him point by point.
"So I'm going to make one simple statement: Jimmy has never used Wikimedia money to subsidize his personal expenditures. Indeed, he has consistently put the Foundation's interests ahead of his own, and has erred on the side of personally paying for his own Wikimedia-related expenditures, rather than the reverse."

Valleywag reported that an instant-message conversation revealed by Marsden "strongly suggests Wales violated Wikipedia's rules to encourage favorable changes to Marsden's Wikipedia profile."

But Jay Walsh, head of communications for the Wikimedia Foundation, echoed Wales' contention that there was nothing unusual about his "routine" role in conveying Marsden's objections to her Wikipedia biography to a group of trusted volunteers who address concerns and edit postings accordingly.

Asked whether the controversy could compromise Wales' role with Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, Walsh replied: "No, absolutely not."

The controversy compounds other troubles that have surfaced recently in the Wikimedia Foundation, which relies on donations for support. In December, it was revealed that former Chief Operating Officer Carolyn Bothwell Doran, who had left the foundation in July, had risen to that key financial post despite a criminal record that included theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident. Records also showed citations for theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest. Wikimedia said it was unaware of her troubled past.

Wales, 41, has been likened to an Internet "rock star" who hobnobs with the likes of Bono. Former Wikimedia employee Wool, who suggests in his blog that Wales had abused his credit card privileges while traveling the globe as Wikipedia's ambassador, said in an interview that Wales attracted "groupies."

Marsden, a Canadian now living in New York, has made a reputation in conservative media circles, writing for the Washington Times and serving as a pundit on Fox News Channel. Her Wikipedia profile lists three "personal controversies," including dueling allegations of sexual harassment with her college swim coach, a 2004 sentence to one year of probation for "criminal harassment of her boyfriend following a breakup," and an investigation of an Ontario law enforcement officer after Marsden said he leaked anti-terrorism documents to her during a two-year affair. Her charges against the coach and officer did not stick.

In his March 1 post about the growing online gossip, which Wales posted first on Wikipedia and then moved to his blog, Wales said he wanted "to set the record straight" because "my role with Wikipedia is being dragged into it."

He also addressed his marital status: "I am separated from my wife. I considered myself single at the time of my one meeting with Rachel Marsden on February 9th, 2008. I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden. Gossipy stories suggesting that I have been in a relationship with her since last fall are completely false."

Wales, reached by e-mail, declined to expand on his statement. Marsden, by e-mail, posted a statement she made to the Canadian Press after her eBay sales pitch: "It didn't really help matters that Jimmy chose to announce the breakup to the entire world via Wikipedia (which apparently now is an online encyclopedia that doubles as a personal soapbox?) rather than to me directly (which he did much later, in an instant message discussion)."

Marsden told the Mercury News: "My only focus right now, to be really honest, is on my career and finding a way to get back into print, TV or radio here in NYC. All of this other personal stuff is just an unfortunate distraction."

CHICAGO -(Dow Jones)- Boeing Co. (BA) expects to get a debriefing on Friday from the U.S. Air Force on why the defense giant lost a major contract award that it was widely expected to win, Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit, said Wednesday.

After that, Boeing will decide whether to make a formal protest.

Read the whole story.

On Friday, the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. and its European partner, France-based Airbus, a $40 billion contract to build 179 refueling tankers.

Northrop Grumman expects the program to generate $360 million in annual economic activity in California, creating more than 7,500 direct and indirect jobs.

Read the whole story.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices surged higher Wednesday after the government reported a surprise drop in crude oil stockpiles and OPEC held production levels steady

Most analysts had expected the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration to report oil supplies rose last week for the 8th straight time. Instead, they fell by 3.1 million barrels.

In Vienna, meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it would hold production levels steady, at least for now. Ministers said slowing economic conditions in the U.S. and falling demand for oil and gasoline shows the world is well-supplied with crude.

Gasoline demand is off about 1 percent over the last five weeks compared to the same period last year, according to EIA data.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $3.25 a barrel to $102.77 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rose a cent to a national average of $3.178 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices have been following oil's recent rally, and are 69 cents higher than a year ago. Many analysts expect prices to rise to near $4 a gallon this spring and summer as driving demand picks up.

President Bush on Tuesday asked for a production increase, warning that high oil prices are helping push the economy toward recession. Several OPEC ministers, however, have recently suggested the cartel should cut production due to falling demand.

OPEC did pledge to keep a close eye on oil supply and demand, and said it could change its output levels quickly if need be.

Other aspects of the EIA's inventory report were roughly in line with expectations. Gasoline supplies grew by 1.7 million barrels last week, more than the 900,000 barrels analysts expected, and are at record levels. On the other hand, inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, fell by 2.4 million barrels, more than the expected 1.9 million barrel decline, and are low in historic terms.

Refiners ramped up production for the second week in a row, boosting activity by 1.2 percent to 85.9 percent of capacity, beating analyst forecasts.

The weaker dollar also pushed oil prices higher Wednesday. Many analysts believe the dollar's decline against other world currencies is the primary reason behind oil's rise to inflation-adjusted records this week. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

Other energy futures also rose Wednesday. April gasoline rose 3.53 cents to $2.5644 a gallon on the Nymex, and April heating oil futures jumped 9.65 cents to $2.8883 a gallon. April natural gas rose 14.9 cents to $9.502 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, April Brent crude rose $2.36 to 99.88 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, according to Stephen Chenault, CEO of Troll Lord Games.

Gygax designed the original D&D game with Dave Arneson in 1974, and went on to create the Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventure RPGs, as well as a number of board games. He also wrote several fantasy novels.

"I don't think I've really grokked it yet," said Mike Mearls, the lead developer of the upcoming 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. "He was like the cool uncle that every gamer had. He shaped an entire generation of gamers."

Read the whole story.

On January 4, Wall Street suffered big losses. On my TV, several non-celebrities had a lengthy and lively discussion about what, if anything, the Federal Reserve should do to fix the U.S. economy. The panel was critical of the financial community—which has been badgering the central bank to cut interest rates—for its narrow view of Fed policy. “What’s good for Wall Street isn’t necessarily good for everyone else,” one guest said, and everyone agreed.

No, it wasn’t CNBC, the General Electric-owned financial network, which provides serious economic information and analysis to the business class but rarely considers the economic interests of Americans outside its target demographic (that is, rich people working hard to get richer). If you saw this particular discussion, you were watching Fox Business Network.

Read the full story.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Disgraced media baron Conrad Black, who once counted politicians and popstars among his entourage, has spent his first night in jail.

The former Telegraph owner is serving out a six-and-a-half year term imposed for multi-million dollar fraud.

"He reported today to a low security prison in Coleman, Florida," said Mike Truman, spokeman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Monday.

Read the full story.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Cost: an estimated $2 million to $4 million in lost coffee and muffin sales. ROI so far: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of media coverage for Howard Schultz's turnaround attempt; some better-trained baristas; and a rise in sales for Dunkin' Donuts.

We're talking, in case you were lost at sea for the past seven days, about Starbucks' three-hour closure of 7,100 stores last Tuesday night, an event that was part boot camp for baristas and part mass marketing for a company that wants to demonstrate that it's improving product and customer experience -- and by doing so drive sales growth and its stock price upward once more.

Read the whole story.

GM Says It Will Put Lithium-Ion Batteries in Hybrid Vehicles in 2010

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. says it expects to bring its first lithium-ion battery powered hybrid engine system to market in North America in 2010.

The world's largest automaker by sales was to announce the hybrid system Tuesday at the Geneva International Motor Show, saying the new battery will deliver three times the power of GM's current nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

Automakers and battery companies across the globe have been racing to develop lithium-ion technology, seen by many as the key to mass producing hybrid vehicles powered by conventional and electric motors. The batteries also are essential in producing the next generation of electric cars.

Daimler AG plans to introduce a gasoline-electric hybrid version of its Mercedes-Benz flagship S-Class luxury sedan that also uses a lithium-ion battery starting next year.

Lithium-ion technology already is widely used in consumer electronics, but now is being adapted to meet demanding automotive requirements. The batteries are lighter than other batteries, but cost and concerns about overheating have delayed their use.

Lithium-ion batteries common in laptops are smaller, yet more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in gas-electric hybrids like Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius.

The GM and Daimler announcements in Geneva indicate increasing confidence about lithium-ion technology.

In addition, Toyota said in December it was preparing to start mass producing lithium-ion batteries for low-emission vehicles.

GM said the new hybrid system eventually will spread worldwide, and it expects sales volumes to exceed 100,000 vehicles per year. The system would build on GM's current hybrids, reducing engineering costs and the cost to consumers, the company said.

The battery system would be paired with a wide range of GM engines, including turbocharged gasoline, diesel and biofuel power plants. It would be used in multiple GM models across all brands, but the company would not say which models would get the new system.

The new system will produce a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in fuel economy over what a nonhybrid vehicle would get in 2010, GM spokesman Brian Corbett said.

The company said the hybrid system would debut in North America before the Chevrolet Volt, which is an electric car with a small conventional motor used to recharge the batteries. The company hopes to bring the Volt to market in 2010 as well.

GM said in a statement that the new hybrid system would save fuel by turning the engine off at idle and cutting off fuel during deceleration. It would offer brief electric-only power, the company said in a statement.

Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) today announced its newly revised mission manifest listing twelve flights of its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

SpaceX is developing low-cost launch vehicles meant to make space travel much more accessible to government, business, researchers and others.

The first SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle remains on schedule for delivery to Cape Canaveral in the fourth quarter of 2008..

“We are on track to deliver our first Falcon 9 vehicle to Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008,” said Gwynne Shotwell, Vice President of Business Development for SpaceX, in a release. “In addition, we’re very pleased to have signed a significant new US government customer for our next Falcon 1 flight, and will be releasing details shortly.”

The full SpaceX mission manifest extends into 2011 and lists nine customers on twelve flights, including three demonstration flights of SpaceX’s new Dragon spacecraft for NASA as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) competition.

Here's the manifest with
Customer
Target date
Vehicle
Launch site

- US Government & ATSB
Q2 2008
Falcon 1
Kwajalein

- ATSB (Malaysia)
Q3 2008
Falcon 1
Kwajalein

- US Government
Q4 2008
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- MDA Corp. (Canada)
2009
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- Avanti Communications (UK)
2009
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- NASA COTS - Demo 1
2009
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- NASA COTS - Demo 2
2009
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- SpaceDev
2009
Falcon 1
Kwajalein

- NASA COTS - Demo 3
2010
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

- MDA Corp. (Canada)
2010
Falcon 1
Kwajalein

- Swedish Space Corp. (Sweden)
2010
Falcon 1
Kwajalein

- Bigelow Aerospace
2011
Falcon 9
Cape Canaveral

Target date refers to delivery of the flight vehicle to the launch site. The actual launch date is dependent on a variety of factors, which may include regulatory approvals, launch range scheduling, weather, customer payload readiness and vehicle to launch pad integration.

Education consultant Johnetta Fleming searched for butternut squash with caramelized onions at a Whole Foods Market deli counter, while carrying in her shopping cart her contribution to the planet's welfare: three reusable shopping bags.

The Baldwin Hills resident keeps the bags in the trunk of her car, always ready for a jaunt to the market. She started using reusable bags regularly about 18 months ago.

"I believe in helping the environment and doing what I can," said Fleming, 61, who supervises student teachers through a Cal State Long Beach program. "And I notice how much I waste with plastic containers and things like that, so I want to do something."

Fleming is not the only one doing "something."

Read the whole story.

US lawmakers blast Boeing defense contract snub

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers have reacted angrily after the US military awarded a 35-billion-dollar aircraft deal to Europe's Northrop Grumman/EADS group, in a major blow to US manufacturer Boeing.

"It's stunning to me that we would outsource the production of these airplanes to Europe instead of building them in America," said Republican Senator Sam Brownback about the Pentagon's decision.

Read the whole article.