BAY AREA BUSINESSES PLAN TO HIRE: Half of all Tampa Bay area businesses expect to hire additional employees during the third quarter of 2004, a Manpower Inc. survey found. An additional 36 percent told the staffing company they expect no change in payroll size, and 7 percent expected a net reduction in staff. By comparison, 30 percent of the 16,000 employers surveyed nationwide expect to hire more staff in July, August or September.
CYPRESS GARDENS REOPENING DELAYED: Kent Buescher, the new owner of Cypress Gardens, said he has pushed back the reopening of the historic Florida attraction from July to October because the park was in worse condition than expected. The purchase of the 68-year-old park, rechristened Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, took longer than he would have liked, and the buildings were in worse shape than he expected. Also, workers building roller coasters found that maps of utility lines were incomplete, and purchasing sufficient amounts of concrete has been difficult, Buescher said.
HACKERS BLOCK INTERNET TRAFFIC: Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and Apple Computer had their Web sites blocked Tuesday by hackers who attacked computers of Akamai Technologies Inc. that direct traffic to Web sites. Akamai suffered a "large-scale attack" affecting customers between 8:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m., company spokesman Jeff Young said. The attack on Akamai's computers, which run a program called "domain name server," or DNS, is novel because attacks of that kind have never affected multiple companies' Web sites simultaneously.
SONG TO CUT FLIGHTS IN FALL: Delta Air Lines will cut a fourth of the flights on its low-cost Song carrier in September, raising questions about how well the budget airline is doing. Delta officials say the cutback is just temporary, with the full 144 daily flights returning in October. "September is a particularly low travel time for all carriers," said Song spokeswoman Katie Connell. Song, launched in April 2003, relies on leisure travel, which drops off at the end of summer, Connell said.
BRITAIN TO TRY IRIS SCANS: A test run of an iris-scanning system will begin at Britain's Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Birmingham airports by mid 2005 in a bid to increase security and speed immigration controls, the government said Tuesday. The Home Office said selected foreign travelers would be invited to sign up for the test. After the participants are vetted, their irises would be scanned and they would be able to pass through a dedicated immigration channel at the airports. Britain hopes to introduce biometric data, including iris scans, on visas and passports within the next few years.
RUSSIA SEEKS ECONOMIC GROWTH: Russia wants to become less reliant on the export of its natural resources as part of the government's bid to double the gross domestic product by 2010, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said Tuesday at the opening of the eighth St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Russia's economy has been growing strongly, with GDP rising 7.3 percent last year. But the surging growth is based on "high prices for raw materials," warned Andrei Sharonov, the deputy head of the Russian Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
4-WEEK BILL'S YIELD RISES: The interest rate on four-week Treasury bills increased at the latest auction of the securities. The Treasury sold $15-billion of the bills at a discount rate of 1.07 percent, up from 1 percent the week before and the highest since 1.075 percent June 10, 2003.
