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JOBLESS CLAIMS UP SLIGHTLY: The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless benefits totaled 339,000 last week, close to a three-year low, a government report showed. Applications increased by 1,000 from 338,000 the week before, the Labor Department said. The previous week's total was the lowest since the week ended Jan. 13, 2001. Filings have averaged 347,250 this year, down from 403,000 for all of 2003. Economists had forecast claims would rise to 340,000, based on the median of 39 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, from the 336,000 initially reported for the week earlier.
ODYSSEY MARINE WINS WRECK: Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., a Tampa company that hunts shipwrecks for sunken treasure, said a federal judge in Tampa awarded it full ownership of the SS Republic, a wreck it discovered off the Georgia coast last year. Odyssey settled a claim by the ship's insurer earlier this year. The company said it has recovered nearly 51,000 gold and silver coins so far, representing 22 percent of the face value of the $400,000 in coins reportedly aboard when the ship sank in 1865.
SCRIPPS FLORIDA GETS VICE PRESIDENT: Harry W. Orf has been named vice president of scientific operations for Scripps Florida in Palm Beach County. Orf has been director of the molecular biology labs at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He also is a principal associate in genetics at Harvard Medical School. As a colonel with the U.S. Army Reserves, Orf spent the last year on active duty in Kuwait and Iraq, returning last month. Orf will oversee the administration and management of scientific services at Scripps' new Florida campus. He will begin this summer at Scripps' temporary facility at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
PRUDENTIAL TO FUND DEBARTOLO DEVELOPMENT: Prudential Real Estate Investors, a $15-billion fund that invests in commercial real estate, has agreed to bankroll a program to accelerate shopping center projects planned by Debartolo Development, a Tampa company controlled by Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. The amount of the investment was not specified.
eBAY DROPOFF STORIES PLANNED: QuikDrop International of Carson City, Nev., said Thursday it plans to open 17 eBay dropoff stores in Florida over the next three years. Some of the stores are likely to be located in the Tampa Bay area but specific locations haven't been determined, according to QuikDrop chief operating officer Kilay Reinfeld. In exchange for a commission, the stores will take items valued at $50 or more from eBay.com sellers, photograph them, place them on eBay's Web site and handle all payment and shipping services for winning bidders.
SOUTHWEST ADDS TO PRESSURE ON US AIRWAYS: Southwest Airlines Co. doubled the number of flights planned for Philadelphia, where US Airways Group Inc. has its second-biggest operation and faces pressure to cut costs or shut down. Southwest, the largest low fare airline, will add 14 more daily flights and seven new destinations from Philadelphia starting July 6, the Dallas carrier announced. The airline already was scheduled to start 14 daily flights to six cities from Philadelphia on May 9. US Airways, whose unit costs last year were 50 percent more than Southwest's, has about two-thirds of the traffic at Philadelphia.
HP SUES GATEWAY OVER PATENTS: Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's second-largest personal computer maker, sued Gateway Inc., saying the smaller rival is using technology protected by six patents. Hewlett-Packard, in a lawsuit filed in San Diego federal court, alleged that Gateway infringed patents on items such as passwords, power usage and a way to create smaller notebook PCs, said Dave Berman, a spokesman for the Palo Alto, Calif., company. According to HP attorneys, Poway-based Gateway paid licensing fees from 1994 to 1999 to Compaq Computer Corp., which HP acquired in 2001. After the first licensing agreement expired in 1999, HP attorneys say, Gateway kept using patented designs but did not pay for them. Hewlett-Packard, which last year spent $3.65-billion on research and development, has 6,000 patents for PCs alone, Berman said. Gateway has said it spends less than 1 percent of annual sales, or less than $34-million, on research.
PENSION FUNDS TRY TO OUST SAFEWAY CEO: A group of public pension funds is banding together in an attempt to oust embattled Safeway Inc. chief executive Steve Burd and two fellow directors, asserting the supermarket chain needs to clean house to snap out of a prolonged slump. The dissident shareholders, who include pension funds in New York, California, Illinois and Connecticut, said Thursday they hope to persuade other major Safeway shareholders to oppose Burd and directors William Tauscher and Robert MacDonnell. All three men are up for re-election at Safeway's annual meeting May 20. By withholding their votes, the pension funds believe they can send a strong message of investor dissatisfaction with Burd's leadership. A similar uprising against Walt Disney Co.'s board culminated earlier this month with 43 percent of shareholder votes being withheld from that company's CEO, Michael Eisner. The rebuke prompted Disney to strip Eisner of his chairman's title, though he remained CEO.
MIAMI MAN SUES COCA-COLA OVER SWEETENER: Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft drink maker, sells a version of Diet Coke at soda fountains that's cheaper and more profitable than the formula used in cans and bottles, a Miami longshoreman claimed in a lawsuit. The suit, filed this month in state court in Miami, claimed Coca-Cola mixes the sweeteners aspartame and saccharin at soda fountains, while canned and bottled Diet Coke contains only more expensive aspartame. Coca-Cola, which says it uses saccharin to stabilize fountain syrup before adding carbonated water, doesn't advertise the difference, the suit said. The Florida lawsuit is one of several in the U.S. that accuse soft drink makers of deceiving customers and seek millions of dollars in damages. Diet Coke is the No. 3 soft-drink in the U.S., behind Coca-Cola Classic and Pepsi, and enjoys 9.4 percent of the U.S. market, said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. "Coca-Cola profits not only because there's a higher profit margin, but also there's a stigma associated with saccharin, rightly or wrongly," said Lance Harke, who represents longshoreman Bartimous Berry in the suit that seeks to represent all Florida soda buyers. Saccharin was formerly classified as a carcinogen.