News money 2008-05-14 Andanh.com

UPS will add vehicles to fuel-efficient fleet Tue, 13 May 2008 23:57:00 EST
UPS, the world's largest shipping carrier, said yesterday that it has ordered 200 hybrid electric vehicles and another 300 compressed natural gas vehicles as it seeks to make its trucks more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly.

Churchill purse cuts start today Wed, 14 May 2008 02:11:00 EST
Leaders of Kentucky and national horsemen's groups urged members last night to maintain the fight with Churchill Downs Inc. over account-wagering revenues -- even if it costs them money in purses at the company's Louisville track.

Bird sues over use of name by resort Wed, 14 May 2008 02:11:00 EST
Basketball legend Larry Bird is suing the owners of his former home in Orange County, Ind., claiming their plans to turn the property into a resort are illegal.

Bernanke: Market woes ease Tue, 13 May 2008 23:58:00 EST
Turmoil in financial markets has eased somewhat, but the situation is still "far from normal," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech yesterday.

Area Business Association offers 'Networking at Noon' events Tue, 13 May 2008 12:56:00 EST
As a kind of business equivalent of speed dating, it's one of the strategies that has helped dramatically increase association membership. Each person had four minutes to tell about his or her business.

Business People Tue, 13 May 2008 22:01:00 EST
Thoroughbred Industry, professional services and award announcements are in today's Business People. Submit new items at courier-journal.com/businesspeople Sign up for the daily Business People newsletter at courier-journal.com/newsletters.

Q: What's a good credit score? Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EST
A: The score can range between 400 and 900. Generally, a score on the scale developed by Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) of between 770 and 850 is considered very good and will get you the best rates and terms.

Smart fortwo receives top crash-test scores Wed, 14 May 2008 00:01:00 EST
The 2008 Smart fortwo micro-car, the smallest passenger vehicle sold in the United States, has earned top scores in insurance-industry crash tests.

Ceradyne gets $31.5 million order for body armor Wed, 14 May 2008 11:21 EDT
Ceradyne Inc. has received a $31.5 million order for ceramic body armor from the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

The order is for what are called enhanced side ballistic inserts, to be delivered from September to November.

The armor is made by Ceradyne plants in Lexington and in Costa Mesa, Calif. U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan wear them as protection against bullets and explosive devices.

Ceradyne's stock trades on Nasdaq as CRDN.

Foreclosures slow in Kentucky; rate is nation's 8th best Wed, 14 May 2008 09:46 EDT
Foreclosure filings increased in 43 states in April, but Kentucky saw a 26.4 percent decrease when compared with April 2007.

The state also had a 26.2 percent decline in filings from March 2008, according to RealtyTrac, a California company that monitors foreclosures.

RealtyTrac said Wednesday that new foreclosures rose 64.75 percent nationwide in April, compared with April 2007, and 4.4 percent from March 2008.

One in every 519 U.S. households -- 243,353 properties -- received a foreclosure filing during April 2008, RealtyTrac said.

"The total number of U.S. properties with foreclosure activity in April was the highest monthly total we've seen since we began issuing the report in January 2005," said James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac.

Webb fails to sway hoteliers Wed, 14 May 2008 02:06 EDT
Developer Dudley Webb met with a skeptical audience Tuesday when he talked to professionals in the tourism industry about the market for an upscale high-rise hotel that he hopes to build downtown.

Webb was the keynote speaker at a Bluegrass Hospitality Association symposium at the Lexington Center. He was met with questions mostly about the hotel rooms expected to cost about $200 a night in the CentrePointe project.

Where will business come from to fill a 200-plus room high-end hotel, he was asked. Will the project bring in new money, or just pirate business away from existing downtown hotels?

Larry Bell, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, asked what Webb's financial consultants found in their market surveys that made another downtown hotel look feasible.

Webb said there had been four market studies -- two by hotel chains, one by a consultant hired to conduct a financial analysis for possible tax increment financing, and yet another commissioned by The Webb Cos.

Inflation pressures ease despite food price jump Wed, 14 May 2008 20:41 EDT
Consumer prices slowed in April despite the biggest jump in food costs in nearly two decades. But with oil near record levels, Americans should brace for more pain at the pump in coming months.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that consumer prices edged up 0.2 percent last month, slightly lower than expected and better than the 0.3 percent rise in March.

The lower inflation reflected a flat reading for energy, which helped offset a 0.9 percent jump in food. That was the biggest one-month surge since a 1.5 percent increase in January 1990.

Last month's increase was driven by widespread increases in a number of areas from bread, butter and margarine to milk and coffee. Food prices have been climbing rapidly over the past year, reflecting higher world demand and the impact of increasing energy prices on the cost of fertilizer and transportation of products to grocery store shelves.

For April, energy prices were unchanged and gasoline prices even fell by 2 percent, a decline that would strike motorists as strange, given that they have been watching the price of gasoline rise relentlessly in recent weeks.

Stocks advance after lower inflation reading Wed, 14 May 2008 21:16 EDT
Wall Street advanced Wednesday after a better-than-expected report on consumer prices tempered some of the market's concerns about inflation.

The Labor Department's report that consumer prices advanced 0.2 percent in April after rising 0.3 percent in March seemed to alleviate investors' worries that the recent surge in energy costs would force prices throughout the economy to spike higher. The moderation in prices comes despite the largest jump in food prices in 18 years.

Wall Street has been concerned that higher food and energy costs are cutting into consumers' ability to spend. Any pullback is an unnerving prospect for investors because consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist for Cantor Fitzgerald, said the tame consumer prices reading, along with recent figures on productivity, indicate that businesses are swallowing some of the rising costs they face and not passing all of them to consumers.

"You have higher input costs but you're getting more out of your workers so therefore you're able to control your output costs," he said. "The economy is lean and mean and doing well even though on the demand side it's slumping."

Lexington can cash in on Ryder Cup too Wed, 14 May 2008 02:06 EDT
Most Lexington business owners know the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games will be at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2010.

Fewer know that the 37th Ryder Cup begins in Louisville in just 126 days, delivering a $120 million-plus boost to Kentucky's economy.

"We are going to have a big party," Karl Schmitt told the Bluegrass Hospitality Association. "You are probably going to have a big party here, too, though you may not know it yet."

Schmitt, the executive director of The Cup Experience, the Louisville host committee for the Ryder Cup, urged Lexington hotels, restaurants and entertainment sites to go after their share of a tourism bonanza by holding special events and training their staffs to help the tourists.

Louisville hotels are full and Lexington hotels are filling fast for the Sept. 16-21 golf tournament that long ago sold all of its 240,000 tickets, he said.

Leitchfield man saddles up to protest high gas prices Wed, 14 May 2008 02:06 EDT
Americans facing rising gasoline and diesel prices are walking the walk, saddling up and singing out.

Allan Peerce, 53, a sign maker, said he's been accused of trying to drum up business for his shop in Leitchfield, Ky., by riding his horse to jobs and the bank. But Peerce says he already has more business than he can handle and is concerned for truckers whose rig doors he adorns with his artwork.

Peerce's horse, Hitman, began wearing a sign reading "In protest of diesel and gas prices" when diesel hit $4 a gallon. If it hits $4.20, he plans to camp out in the city's courthouse square.

"Somebody has to stand up and do something," Peerce said. "If I can do it, then two people can do it. If two can, four can, and if four can, eight can. It can grow into whatever we want it to be."

In Valparaiso, Ind., Jay Weinberg, 29, collaborated with a friend's band, Planetary Blues, and recorded a protest song.

Business notes Wed, 14 May 2008 07:34 EDT
KROGER EXPANDS DRUG PLAN

Following in the steps of the world's largest retailer, Kroger announced Tuesday that it is expanding its generic drug discount program by offering 90-day prescriptions for $10. The company also is adding several women's medicines to its generic discount program. The medicines, which include hormone replacements and drugs used to treat osteoporosis and breast cancer, will cost $9 for a 30-day supply or $24 for a 90-day supply. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. made a similar announcement last week. Kroger began offering more than 300 generic prescription medicines for $4 for a 30-day supply in Lexington area stores in February.

WTVQ-TV SALE COMPLETED

Media General Inc. has completed the sale of WTVQ-TV in Lexington to Morris Network Inc., the companies said Tuesday. Financial details were not disclosed. Morris Network is owned by Morris Multimedia Inc., a privately held company founded in 1970 and based in Savannah, Ga. Morris Multimedia owns seven other television stations, primarily in the South, plus more than 90 daily and weekly newspapers, shoppers and niche publications. Media General is publicly owned. Its stock is MEG:NYSE.

NATIONAL

Driving habits to cut your auto fuel bills Wed, 14 May 2008 07:43 EDT
You can cut your fuel bills by simply changing the way you drive. Consumer Reports suggests these four tips on how to drive more fuel-efficiently:

Minimize driving with a cold engine. Engines run most efficiently when they're warm. In Consumer Reports' city-driving tests, making multiple short trips and starting the engine from cold reduced fuel economy. Engines also produce more pollution and wear faster when they're cold. Combine short trips into one so that the engine stays warm.

Drive smoothly. Avoid hard acceleration and braking whenever possible. In Consumer Reports' tests, frequent bursts of acceleration and braking reduced the Toyota Camry's mileage by 2 to 3 miles per gallon and the Mercury Mountaineer's by about 1 mpg.

Reduce unnecessary drag. At highway speeds, more than 50 percent of engine power goes to overcoming aerodynamic drag. Don't add to that drag by carrying things on top of your vehicle when you don't have to.

Slow down. Aerodynamic drag exponentially increases on the highway the faster you drive. Consumer Reports tested its vehicles' fuel economy at 55, 65 and 75 mph. Driving at 75 mph instead of 65 reduced the Camry's gas mileage from 35 mpg to 30. For the Mountaineer, fuel economy fell from 21 mpg to 18. Slowing to 55 mph improved the gas mileage by similar margins: The Camry improved to 40 mpg and the Mountaineer to 24 mpg.

Merck says appeals court overturns Vioxx verdict Wed, 14 May 2008 22:16 EDT
A Texas appeals court on Wednesday overturned a multimillion-dollar verdict against Merck & Co. in one of the few trials it lost over its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx.

A jury in Rio Grande City, Texas, in April 2006 awarded $32 million to the widow of 71-year-old Leonel Garza, a short-term Vioxx user who died of a heart attack in 2001. That award - $7 million for compensatory damages and $25 million for punitive damages - later was cut to about $7.75 million under Texas law limiting damages.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Texas 4th Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ruling in favor of Merck. The opinion was signed by Justice Sandee Bryan Marion.

The judges wrote that Garza's family did not prove his brief use of Vioxx caused two blood clots that the family's attorneys argued triggered his heart attack. The judges also concluded the family did not provide sufficient evidence to rule out his long-standing heart disease as the cause of his fatal heart attack.

Garza had a prior heart attack and heart bypass surgery, smoked for nearly 30 years and died of the second heart attack after taking Vioxx for less than a month.

High oil prices rekindle oil production in Mo. Wed, 14 May 2008 01:46 EDT
Pumpjacks, the oil rigs that resemble those thirsty bird toys, are going up in Missouri for the first time in two decades, the latest region to revive a long-faded industry as crude nears $130 a barrel.

The sky-high price of oil has turned extraction methods recently considered cost-prohibitive into cash cows.

Bright blue pumpjacks stand over a 10-acre site near the Missouri-Kansas border where MegaWest Energy Corp., a Canadian company, is attempting to draw heavy oil - as thick as molasses, and requiring better technology and extra effort to pull from the ground.

The domestic oil revival is taking place in smaller oil fields that require new technology, said Fred Lawrence, vice president of economics and international affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

"We've been producing oil in this country for parts of three centuries. So a lot of the easy oil is gone," Lawrence said.

US foreclosure filings surge 65 percent in April Wed, 14 May 2008 20:36 EDT
More U.S. homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments last month, driving the number of homes facing foreclosure up 65 percent versus the same month last year and contributing to a deepening slide in home values, a research company said Tuesday.

Nationwide, 243,353 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in April, up 65 percent from 147,708 in the same month last year and up 4 percent since March, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida were among the hardest hit states, with metropolitan areas in California and Florida accounting for nine of the top 10 areas with the highest rate of foreclosure, the company said.

Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

One in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in April. Foreclosure filings increased from a year earlier in all but eight states.

Cave City welcomes new business
Chamber members and well-wishers gathered on May 1 at a ribbon cutting for the grand opening of Fox Insurance Agency Inc.

Local cheesemaker rides high in Wisc.
Glasgow’s Bluegrass Dairy and Food went up against the best cheeses in the world and came out near the top of the Colby heap.

BUSINESS BRIEFS
Hall joins Glasgow RE/MAXSturgeon retires from RR DonnelleyParsley returns to Cave City ChevroletWagner attends Kentucky Optometric CongressGillie Hyde announces winners

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