News money 2008-07-09 Andanh.com

Pickens: 'Any solution' better than foreign oil Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:21:00 EST
Saying "any solution" is better than imported oil, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens views breaking America's reliance on foreign oil as the great battle of the next decade, which he said must be won at any cost.

Ford truck-seat supplier lays off 114 Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:22:00 EST
More than half the workers who make seats for F-Series Super Duty trucks have lost their jobs at Johnson Controls in Shelbyville, Ky., a United Auto Workers official said yesterday.

Still no deal for horsemen, 2 tracks Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:36:00 EST
Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association officials said yesterday that they do not have deals yet on sharing account-wagering revenues with Keeneland Race Course in Lexington and Turfway Park in Florence.

Fed will issue new rules on lending Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:22:00 EST
The Federal Reserve will issue new rules next week aimed at protecting future homebuyers from dubious lending practices, its most sweeping response to a housing crisis that has propelled foreclosures to record highs.

Q: What is Homearama? Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:23:00 EST
A: The Home Builders Association of Louisville puts on the event each year to show off the latest in new home construction, decorating, appliances and other features.

Business People Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:54:00 EST
Professional services, advertising/marketing awards and board member 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.

Comair tells employees of major job cuts to come Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:24:00 EST
Regional airline Comair told employees this week that it expects to cut about one-fifth of its pilots and flight attendant jobs beginning this fall.

Alcoa's profit shrinks24% on rising costs Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:24:00 EST
Alcoa's second-quarter earnings fell nearly 24 percent as higher prices failed to offset the costs of raw materials, energy and disruptions at several facilities, the Pittsburgh aluminum maker said yesterday.

Steroids a priority for new racing commission Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:22 EDT

Racing regulators could vote to ban steroids as early as August, according to Kentucky Horse Racing Commission chairman Bob Beck Jr.

Most new and reappointed members of the panel were sworn in Wednesday at an emergency meeting so the commission could begin considering business.

The panel will meet Monday to consider changes in individual licensing, but new medication rules are in limbo with the loss of its advisory panel's chairwoman. The Equine Drug Research Council, which must be headed by a commission member, had been led by Republican Connie Whitfield, who was not reappointed last week. She was replaced on the commission by Thoroughbred breeder and former state Democratic party fund-raising chairman Tracy Farmer.

.I think we've got a good group and we're going to get started fairly quickly,. Beck said.

Lexington doctor to lead horse drug council Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:56 EDT

Gov. Steve Beshear on Wednesday appointed Dr. Jerry Yon of Lexington to head the Equine Drug Research Council.

Yon is a gastroenterologist. He was appointed to the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority by Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher; he was reappointed by Beshear to the reorganized Kentucky Horse Racing Commission last week.

The drug council advises the racing authority on medication rules and research.

.Dr. Yon is committed to working toward improving the way we regulate the horse racing industry in Kentucky. As chair, I am confident he will provide the leadership necessary for the council to make recommendations to the commission to accomplish those goals,. Beshear said in a news release.

Ceradyne acquires chip company Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:20 EDT

Ceradyne Inc. is buying SemEquip Inc. for $25 million in cash and as much as $100 million in contingency payments over 15 years based on SemEquip's revenues.

In its announcement Wednesday, Ceradyne said it will take a pre-tax charge of $9 million to $11 million when the acquisition occurs because of incentive payments to SemEquip employees and advisors.

SemEquip is privately held and based in North Billerica, Mass. It develops cluster ion subsystems and advanced ion source materials used in logic and memory chips.

The company also has a .significant. patent portfolio related to cluster chemicals in semiconductor ion implantation, Ceradyne said. The acquisition will expand Ceradyne's boron products and semiconductor businesses.

Panel rejects suit in Military Channel dispute Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:48 EDT
An investor who says he lost millions on the failed Military Channel cannot collect from the bank that handled the network's funds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati turned down Paul Bariteau's request to reinstate his lawsuit against PNC Bank, ruling that he wasn't part of a provision between the channel and the bank he cited in his lawsuit.

Paul Bariteau said he put $14 million behind the channel, which went off the air in 1999 after broadcasting for about a year.

Bariteau said in a federal lawsuit filed in 2006 against PNC Bank in Louisville that he lent the money in 1998 and 1999, but he instructed PNC that any withdrawal of more than $1,000 required signatures from two company officers. He claimed in the suit that the bank let the former chairman, Leonard Krane, withdraw millions of dollars on his own.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit last year.

Labor bureau: Japanese man, 45, died of overwork Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:18 EDT
A Japanese labor bureau has ruled that one of Toyota's top car engineers died from working too many hours, the latest in a string of such findings in a nation where extraordinarily long hours for some employees has long been the norm.

The man who died was aged 45 and had been under severe pressure as the lead engineer in developing a hybrid version of Toyota's blockbuster Camry line, said Mikio Mizuno, the lawyer representing his wife. The man's identity is being withheld at the request of his family, who continue to live in Toyota City where the company is based.

In the two months up to his death, the man averaged more than 80 hours of overtime per month, according to Mizuno.

He regularly worked nights and weekends, was frequently sent abroad and was grappling with shipping a model for the pivotal North American International Auto Show in Detroit when he died of ischemic heart disease in January 2006. The man's daughter found his body at their home the day before he was to leave for the United States.

The ruling was handed down June 30 and will allow his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, Mizuno said.

Stocks tumble on uneasiness about financials Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:13 EDT
Wall Street tumbled Wednesday as investors grappled with renewed worries about the soundness of the financial sector. The major indexes fell more than 2 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost more than 230 points.

While many financial services companies logged steep declines during the session, government-sponsored lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were among those hardest hit. Investors are worried that the mortgage finance companies will have to sell more shares than anticipated to compensate for losses from the housing slump. Merrill Lynch . consumer discretionary earnings are going to be down, too."

Selling accelerated amid light volume, which tends to skew price moves.

Comair to cut hundreds of pilot, attendant jobs Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:30 EDT

CINCINNATI . Regional airline Comair said Tuesday that it expects to cut about one-fifth of its pilots and flight attendant jobs beginning this fall as part of parent Delta Air Lines Inc.'s overall cost reductions in response to high fuel costs.

Erlanger-based Comair announced in January that it will ground up to 14 of its 50-seat jets this year and fly fewer hours as part of Delta's cuts. Comair has said that it plans $35 million in cuts this year.

The airline already has reduced non-crew staff members since the beginning of the year by more than 6 percent, and Comair spokeswoman Kate Marx said Tuesday that the pilot and flight attendant staffing also will have to be adjusted with the grounding of the 14 planes by year end.

.We are still operating those aircraft during the summer based on customer demand, but our flight schedule changes dramatically in September,. Marx said Tuesday.

Business Notes Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:13 EDT

Kentucky

100 workers laid off at plant that makes truck seats for Ford

A union official says that more than 100 workers have been laid off at a Shelbyville plant where truck seats are made. Local United Auto Workers official Tim Arvin said letters were sent to 114 workers at Johnson Controls informing them that they were laid off. The workers make up more than half the Shelbyville plant's work force. Johnson Controls spokeswoman Debra Lacey could not be reached for comment. Arvin says workers understand the business decision. He says one shift, rather than two, will make seats for Ford's F-250, F-350, and F-450 trucks when the plant resumes operations in August.

Beshear mum on equine drug chair

Housing outlook stays gloomy Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:13 EDT

WASHINGTON . Signs are emerging that the U.S. housing market's long slump is likely to continue through the summer, and might not recover for at least another year.

The latest report, the National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index, slipped by 4.7 percent in May to the third-lowest reading on record. The decline .suggests we are not out of the woods by any means,. said the trade group's chief economist Lawrence Yun.

The bad news came as the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tried to reassure investors that an accounting rule change wouldn't force the government-chartered mortgage finance companies to raise tens of billions in capital to offset losses.

Central Kentucky has largely been spared the worst of the housing crisis that has decimated home values in Florida, Southern California, Nevada and other areas that were booming. Nationally, economists are reluctant to say the worst is over.

Fed to curb shady lending Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:13 EDT

WASHINGTON . The Federal Reserve will issue new rules next week aimed at protecting future home buyers from dubious lending practices, its most sweeping response to a housing crisis that has propelled foreclosures to record highs.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke of the much-awaited rules in a broader speech Tuesday about the challenges confronting policy makers in trying to stabilize a shaky U.S. financial system. To that end, Bernanke said the Fed might give squeezed Wall Street firms more time to tap the central bank's emergency loan program.

To prevent a repeat of the current mortgage mess, Bernanke said the Fed will adopt rules cracking down on a range of shady lending practices that have burned many of the nation's riskiest .subprime. borrowers, those with spotty credit or low incomes, who were hardest hit by the housing and credit debacles.

The plan, which will be voted on at a Fed board meeting on Monday, would apply to new loans made by thousands of lenders of all types, including banks and brokers.

The best way to insure your teen driver Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:13 EDT

New driver in the family? Your teen driver will need to be insured. To keep your costs as low as possible, consider these tips from the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit organization supported by the insurance industry:

Keep teens on your policy. Typically, you'll get a lower rate if you add your teens to your policy rather than purchasing a separate one.

Watch out for who is assigned to what car. Many insurers might assign a teen who is the most expensive to insure to the car that is the most expensive. A cheaper option is to assign teens to the least expensive car. But this is the car that they must drive. If they get in an accident in a car that they are not insured for, penalties and increases in the premiums will probably follow.

Add some extra liability insurance. This will help you get off the hook for damages if your teen causes an accident. If your teen does get in an accident, and the damages exceed your insurance limits, you can be sued for the amounts not covered by your insurance.

Salmonella infects over 1,000; peppers now eyed Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:18 EDT
More than 1,000 people now have become ill from salmonella initially linked to raw tomatoes, a sobering milestone Wednesday that makes this the worst foodborne outbreak in at least a decade. Adding to the confusion, the government is warning certain people to avoid types of hot peppers, too.

Certain raw tomatoes - red round, plum and Roma - remain a chief suspect and the government stressed again Wednesday that all consumers should avoid them unless they were harvested in areas cleared of suspicion.

But people at highest risk of severe illness from salmonella also should not eat raw jalapeno and serrano peppers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Wednesday. The most vulnerable are the elderly, people with weak immune systems and infants.

Raw jalapenos caused some of the illnesses, conclude CDC investigations of two clusters of sick people who ate at the same restaurant or catered event.

But jalapenos cannot be the sole culprit - because many of the ill insist they didn't eat hot peppers or foods like salsa that contain them, CDC food safety chief Dr. Robert Tauxe told The Associated Press. As for serrano peppers, that was included in the warning because they're difficult for consumers to tell apart.

Wachovia confirms Steel to lead bank Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:13 EDT
Wachovia Corp., the nation's fourth-largest bank, named Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel chief executive on Wednesday, ending a nearly six-week search for a new leader.

The Charlotte-based bank also said it has set aside $4.2 billion pretax to cover bad loans for the quarter, leading to an estimated second-quarter loss of about $2.6 billion to $2.8 billion.

The quarterly loss will equal $1.23 to $1.33 per share, excluding an expected write-down of goodwill. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a profit.

Wachovia is expected to release second-quarter earnings on July 22.

Steel succeeds Ken Thompson, who was ousted by the bank's board in June after a series of missteps.

Gates says Pentagon will reopen $35B tanker bid Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:03 EDT
Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. will submit new offers for a disputed $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, and the Pentagon will pick a winner by the end of the year.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that his office - not the Air Force - will oversee the competition between Boeing and the team of Northrop and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

The plan, which hands control to Pentagon acquisition chief John Young and sets up a dedicated source-selection committee, is the latest illustration of senior Defense Department civilians lack of confidence in the Air Force's ability to manage the contract.

Many lawmakers embraced the action, but analysts questioned the Pentagon's aggressive timetable.

The Government Accountability Office last month detailed "significant errors" the Air Force made in the original award to the Northrop team. The GAO said Chicago-based Boeing, which protested the deal, might have won had the service not made mistakes in evaluating the bids.

Abu Dhabi fund buys stake in NY Chrysler Building Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:43 EDT
An Abu Dhabi investment fund has bought a 75 percent stake in the Chrysler Building, one of the best-known landmarks on the city skyline.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Council, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, closed the sale with Prudential Financial Inc. on Tuesday, Prudential spokeswoman Theresa Miller said Wednesday.

Miller wouldn't disclose the sale price, which many published reports placed at $800 million. Prudential held its stake in the building on behalf of a fund of primarily German investors that had closed in the past couple of years, she said.

A telephone message left Wednesday at the Abu Dhabi council wasn't immediately returned.

New York's Tishman Speyer Properties, which owns the remaining stake in the 77-story, Art Deco skyscraper and will continue to manage it, declined comment Wednesday.

Bush to sign bill overhauling eavesdropping regs Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:33 EDT
President Bush said Wednesday he will soon sign a bill that overhauls the rules on secret government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that helped, calling it a "vital intelligence bill."

The Senate passed the bill Wednesday, sending it to Bush. The president spoke shortly after the vote, immediately upon his arrival back at the White House from a four-day trip to Japan. The bill is a victory for Bush, as it retroactively shields telecommunications companies from lawsuits as he had demanded and ends almost a year of political wrangling over the regulation of eavesdropping.

"This legislation is critical to America's safety," the president said in brief Rose Garden remarks. "It is long overdue."

Bush said it would protect Americans' civil liberties, and also their security.

"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying and what they're planning," he said.

Price of metal helps clean up E. Kentucky Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:22 EDT

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. . After hearing about the high price being paid for scrap metal, Brian Kelley of Pine Top took his four-wheel-drive truck into the mountain hollows.

A few days later, he was selling a few pieces of obscure-looking metal objects, including abandoned mine equipment and an old radiator he found, for an .amazing. $300.

Skyrocketing costs of scrap metal have created a silver . or should we say steel . lining to economic and environmental woes. Collecting scrap not only brings in extra money, but also encourages citizens to clean up unsightly refuse.

The effects are magnified in Eastern Kentucky, a region with a chronic problem of improper disposal .or no disposal at all .of junk cars and appliances. Now, the prospect of getting fast cash is motivating a mass clean-up of litter, traditionally the work of prison inmates and environmentalists.

Colton’s packs ’em in
Finding a parking spot at Colton’s Steakhouse and Grill in Glasgow may be the only downside to the new restaurant.

Cave City Chamber announces ribbon cuttings
The Cave City Chamber of Commerce would like to invite everyone to join them in the following ribbon cuttings on Thursday.

Chinese Dir