BRIEFCASE CD COMPANIES OK MASS SETTLEMENT.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Nearly 400,000 Californians will receive checks for $13.86, part of a multistate settlement of a CD price-fixing lawsuit against the five largest music companies, the state attorney general said Thursday.

The settlement resolves a lawsuit led by New York and Florida and joined by 39 other states, including California.

The plaintiffs alleged that the music industry kept consumer compact disc prices artificially high between 1995 and 2000 with a practice known as ``minimum-advertised pricing,'' or MAP.

Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Bertelsmann's BMG Music and EMI Group, plus retailers Musicland Stores, Trans World Entertainment and Tower Records, admitted no wrongdoing and said they had not practiced MAP since 2000.

But the groups agreed to pay $67.4 million, which will go to all 50 states, with shares based on population, as well as distributing $75.7 million in CDs to public and nonprofit groups.

Push on for flights from LAX to D.C.

WASHINGTON - Southern California's congressional delegation banded together Thursday to push for direct flights between Los Angeles International Airport and the District of Columbia's Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Currently, direct flights link LAX and Dulles International Airport, which is about 25 miles outside of the District of Columbia.

``For the numerous tourists, business people and legislators who travel between these two cities each month, it's a considerable inconvenience,'' said Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, whose district includes LAX and who is leading the delegation's campaign for direct flights.

Congress limits the number of flights from Reagan National to and from places more than 1,250 miles away, largely because of noise and congestion concerns of residential communities near the airport.

Los Angeles has no direct flights to Reagan National because, in 2001, Alaska Airlines obtained a slot previously used by a different airline for that route. Alaska filled the slot with a flight to Seattle instead.

Economic index rose in December

NEW YORK - Evidence continues to build that the U.S. economy is strengthening - including on the jobs front.

The Conference Board said Thursday that its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose 0.5 percent in December to 115.0 following gains of 0.2 percent in December and 0.3 percent in November.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week. That offered hope that companies might be feeling better about business conditions and be less inclined to hand out pink slips.