A steep decline in car buying depressed sales at the nation’s retailers by 0.3 percent in January, although consumers continued spending heartily in less expensive ways. The overall decline, the first since September, was reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday. It largely reflected a sharp drop in the sales of automobiles. When auto sales – which tend to swing widely from month to month – are removed, sales at all other merchants rose by a strong 0.9 percent in January, the biggest gain in five months.
The government expects to rest its case against Martha Stewart and her former broker next week, and jurors are likely to begin deliberations in the stock-fraud trial sometime in March. Stewart lawyer Robert Morvillo said he expected Stewart’s defense to take up to three weeks – “if we put on a defense.” Legal experts say it is highly unlikely Morvillo will gamble by not offering his own witnesses. The lawyers gave U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum their estimates as court concluded Wednesday. The trial, in recess Thursday for Lincoln’s birthday, was to resume this morning.
Ted, United Airlines’ discount carrier, took its first flight from Las Vegas to Denver before dawn Thursday, launching a key component of United’s strategy to emerge from bankruptcy this summer. United parent UAL Corp. hopes Ted will be competitive with low-cost carriers that are rapidly snatching customers from major airlines. The new airline is based in Denver, home to discount carrier Frontier Airlines. An Everett engineering services company, Northwest Aerospace Technologies, drew up the plans for converting the planes and provided United with the parts. United, the nation’s No. 2 airline, has pitched Ted as laid-back fun, with free overhead programming – Tedevision – that includes music videos and comedies, and free music on Tedtunes.
Eastman Kodak Co., which sold more digital cameras in the United States during the end-of-year holiday season than any of its Japanese rivals, introduced six new camera models Thursday in hopes of surpassing top-ranked Sony Corp. this year. Kodak is scrambling to make the transition from film to digital photography after getting blind-sided by the swift rise in popularity of digital cameras. It lost ground to Sony, Canon and Olympus and even gave up a chunk of market share to computer giant Hewlett-Packard. The struggle seems all the more painful since Kodak invented the world’s first digital camera prototype in 1976.
From Herald news services
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