Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Business Today

By wire services
Published March 18, 2005

HIGH-DEFINITION DEAL: WFLA-Ch. 8 and Bright House Networks have settled their long-running dispute, and the NBC affiliate's high-definition channel will be available on the area's dominant cable company. The companies are previewing it on Channel 608, with the official launch May 22, according to Bright House spokesman Dan Ballister.

STATE SETS INSURANCE DEADLINE: With the 2005 hurricane season fast approaching and nearly 150,000 people still waiting to fix damage from last year, Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet voted Thursday to require insurers to settle all claims from 2004's four storms by April 18. The insurance industry says it has settled more than 90 percent of the 1.66-million claims filed as a result of Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which pummeled Florida in August and September last year. But state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher said that doesn't mean much to the remaining 10 percent of storm victims. The new rule requires insurance companies to solve all open damage claims by April 18, or, if there are some they can't close by then, they must tell the Office of Insurance Regulation exactly why.

INDICATORS RISE AGAIN: An index designed to forecast future economic activity rose in February for the third time in the past four months while unemployment claims fell, suggesting the U.S. economy is on track to continue expanding into the summer. The Conference Board reported Thursday that its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators advanced 0.1 percent to 115.6 in February. Analysts had expected the index to be unchanged. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said that the number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week declined for the first time in a month - a sign the jobs market may be gaining traction.

COURT HEARS STEWART APPEAL: With Martha Stewart looking on, a federal appeals judge in New York sharply questioned a prosecutor Thursday about why no hearing was held into alleged lies told by a juror in the celebrity homemaker's trial. The exchange came as lawyers for Stewart, freed from prison earlier this month and now serving five months of house arrest, sought to convince a three-judge appeals panel to overturn her conviction for lying to the government. Stewart is basing her appeal partly on allegations that juror Chappell Hartridge lied repeatedly on his jury questionnaire in order to get on the jury.

CIGARETTE SALES DEAL: Major credit card companies will refuse to participate in Internet sales of cigarettes nationwide under a government agreement made Thursday. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the companies and state attorneys general agreed to work together to prevent the long unchecked use of credit cards to buy cigarettes over the Internet across state lines. The agreement is effective immediately. The result is that virtually all credit cards will no longer participate with Web sites based in the United States and abroad that sell cigarettes and tobacco products in every state.

COMPANY RESTRICTS INFO ACCESS: A legal research company said Thursday it will greatly restrict customer access to Social Security numbers in response to complaints from Congress that its previous policy of limited sales of the numbers invited identity theft. Westlaw, a Minnesota legal research firm, said private companies and many government offices no longer will be able to obtain such information from the company. The company's practices came under fire from lawmakers after another data company, ChoicePoint, announced some 145,000 customers had been exposed to identity theft. Westlaw, which is owned by the Thomson Corp., has not suffered a similar breach.

ITALIAN AIRLINE WARNS OF BANKRUPTCY: Italian airline Alitalia SpA said Thursday that the latest strike by flight attendants could plunge the struggling carrier into bankruptcy. "Around this time last year, Alitalia was close to bankruptcy," the state-controlled airline said in a paid statement published in four newspapers. Wednesday's strike, which forced the airline to cancel at least 118 flights, "risks plunging the company into crisis once again," it said. The company is seeking to attract new private investors for a capital increase of 1.2-billion euros ($1.6-billion) later this year. The 24-hour strike was the third since February by SULT.

HUMANA CO-FOUNDER TO RETIRE: David A. Jones, Humana Inc.'s co-founder and chairman, said Thursday he will retire after the company's annual shareholder's meeting next month. Jones, 73, has served as chairman of the board for the health care company since its founding. The board is scheduled to elect Jones' replacement at the April 26 meeting. Jones and Wendell Cherry founded Humana in August 1961. The company grew from a single nursing home to the country's largest investor-owned chain of hospitals in the late 1970s.

FANNIE MAE TO MISS DEADLINE: Mortgage giant Fannie Mae, previously accused by regulators of manipulating earnings, disclosed Thursday that it will miss the regulatory deadline for filing its financial report for 2004 and may have to record an additional loss of some $2.4-billion. Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. buyer of home mortgages, recently was ordered by the Securities and Exchange Commission to restate its earnings back to 2001, a correction that could reach an estimated $8.4-billion. That would erase nearly one-third of the company's reported profit since 2001. The government-sponsored company said it would not be able to meet a March 31 deadline to file the annual report and was unable to provide "a reasonable estimate" of its earnings for 2003 and 2004.

[Last modified March 18, 2005, 00:51:32]