BRIEFCASE RETAIL SALES REACH A 17-MONTH HIGH.Byline: - Staff and Wire Services WASHINGTON - Consumers snapped out of a funk in March and splurged on cars, garden supplies and furniture. The biggest increase in retail sales in 17 months occurred even as energy prices soared. After a string of mostly dismal economic reports, analysts were encouraged by Friday's sales figures sales figures npl → cifras fpl de ventas and another report showing that consumers' confidence improved in April. Still, they weren't ready to declare the economy's trouble days over. Profit-pressed businesses and battered manufacturers remain reluctant to make big investments in capital projects or in hiring, major forces holding back the economic recovery. Turning that situation around could take time, even with a swift military victory in Iraq, some economists said. Pilots, mechanics agree to pay cuts CHICAGO - United Airlines' bid to gain employee backing for drastic cost cuts in bankruptcy got a twin boost Friday when mechanics tentatively agreed to a contract and pilots overwhelmingly ratified rat·i·fy tr.v. rat·i·fied, rat·i·fy·ing, rat·i·fies To approve and give formal sanction to; confirm. See Synonyms at approve. separate concessions. Combined, the two pacts would lower the bankrupt carrier's labor costs by $1.45 billion a year through 2008 - $349 million from mechanics, $1.1 billion from the higher-paid pilots. Chief executive Glenn Tilton Glenn Tilton (born April 1948 in Washington, DC) is the Chairman, President, and CEO of UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines. He has held this role since September 2002, 3 months before UAL Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. touted the completion of initial or final agreements with all unions as an ``extraordinary'' achievement for United, which has a history of labor turbulence. Top aide testifies about recording BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A former top aide to HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy testified in federal court Friday about a tape recording he made of a conversation they had a day before the government accused Scrushy and the company of massive accounting fraud. While questioning former Chief Financial Officer William T. Owens Lieutenant Colonel William Taylor Owen was born on the 27 May, 1905 in Nagambie, Victoria, Australia. He worked as a bank officer in civilian life and served as a Militia officer during the years prior to the war. , defense attorney Tom Sjoblom suggested that Owens was behind the scandal that has shaken the rehabilitation rehabilitation: see physical therapy. giant. Owens testified that his wife was worried about him going to prison for signing ``phony financial statements,'' confirming what he said on the tape recording made last month. Steel companies compete for rival PITTSBURGH - U.S. Steel The United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States and Central Europe. The company is the world's seventh-largest steel producer ranked by sales (see list of steel producers). Corp. raised its bid in the competition to buy assets of bankrupt National Steel by increasing its offer to $775 million, the company said Friday. The bid now includes National Steel Pellet pel·let n. 1. A small pill; a pilule. 2. A small rod-shaped or ovoid mass, as of compressed steroid hormones, intended for subcutaneous implantation in body tissues to provide timed release over an extended period of time. Corp., a taconite taconite, low-grade iron ore, a flintlike rock usually containing less than 30% iron. Resistant to drilling and to the extraction of its contained metal, the rock was long considered worthless. Experiments begun in 1912 by the American scientist Edward W. mine in Keewatin, Minn., that was excluded from an earlier bid of $750 million. U.S. Steel's offer is still $150 million less than one by AK Steel Corp., which was named by a federal bankruptcy judge in February as the lead bidder for National. Both companies also would assume $200 million of National's debt. |
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