On Monday September 27, 2010, 5:56 pm EDT
Southwest Airlines to buy
AirTran for $1.4B
NEW YORK (AP) -- Southwest
agreed to buy AirTran in a $1.4 billion deal that will combine two of the
country's largest low-fare airlines and give Southwest a bigger slice of the
market in the Northeast and in Atlanta, the busiest hub in the nation.
The acquisition announced
Monday moves Southwest, which already carries more passengers than any other
American airline, into 37 new cities.
It gains a foothold in
cities like New York and Boston, where it has already been expanding, and adds
to its push to expand internationally.
Southwest has been
targeting Atlanta, where AirTran currently competes with Delta Air Lines,
because it is a hub for business travelers, who tend to pay higher fares.
Segway owner dies after
falling off river cliff
LONDON (AP) -- A wealthy
British businessman who owns the company that makes the two-wheeled Segway has
been found dead in a river in northern England after apparently falling off a
cliff on one of the vehicles, police said Monday.
The body of 62-year-old
Jimi Heselden and a Segway personal transporter were found in the River Wharfe
and he was pronounced dead at the scene, West Yorkshire Police said.
Heselden, who bought
control of the Bedford, New Hampshire-based Segway company in December, made
his fortune through his firm Hesco Bastion Ltd., which developed a successful
blast wall system that replaced the sand bags once used to protect troops in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stocks edge lower as a 4-week
rally loses steam
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks
took a pause Monday from their big September rally as worries about the
financial sector offset excitement over a fresh round of corporate dealmaking.
The Dow Jones industrial
average lost 48 points in a late-day slide, but it's still up 8 percent for the
month, putting it on track for its best September since 1939.
Prior to Monday the Dow
Jones industrial average had risen in each of the past four weeks, its longest
winning streak since eight consecutive weekly gains ended in late April when
stocks hit their highest levels of the year.
Wal-Mart offers to buy
Massmart for $4.25B
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. is offering to buy South African retailer Massmart Holdings Ltd.
for about $4.25 billion in a bid to jump-start growth beyond its sluggish U.S.
business.
A deal would give the
world's largest retailer an opening to expand in South Africa, a fast-growing
economy but one that's also troubled by high crime and a 24 percent
unemployment rate. It also has a heavily unionized work force.
Wal-Mart has focused on
expanding overseas, particularly in emerging markets, but South Africa had not
been an area that officials had discussed as a potential opportunity.
Unilever to buy Alberto
Culver for $3.7 bln
AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Consumer
products maker Unilever NV said Monday it has agreed to buy Alberto Culver Co.,
the U.S. maker of beauty products such as TRESemme, VO5 and Noxzema, for $3.7
billion in a management-backed deal.
Unilever, which makes Dove
soaps, Degree deodorants and Suave shampoos, said it will offer $37.50 per
share for Alberto Culver, a 19 percent premium to its closing price in New York
on Friday. The deal must be approved by regulators and Culver shareholders.
Unilever Chief Executive
Paul Polman said Culver will fit well with his company's current beauty range.
Despite economy, Americans
don't want farm work
VISALIA, Calif. (AP) --
It's a question rekindled by the recession: Are immigrants taking jobs away
from American citizens? In the heart of the nation's biggest farming state, the
answer is a resounding no.
Government data analyzed by
The Associated Press show most Americans simply don't apply to harvest fruits
and vegetables. And the few Americans who do usually don't stay in the fields.
The AP analysis showed
that, from January to June, California farmers posted ads for 1,160 farmworker
positions open to U.S. citizens and legal residents. But only 233 people in
those categories applied after learning of the jobs through unemployment
offices in California, Texas, Nevada and Arizona.
One grower brought on 36.
No one else hired any.
BlackBerry maker offers
tablet aimed at businesses
NEW YORK (AP) -- The
company that gave us the BlackBerry -- still the dominant phone in corporate
circles -- thinks its business customers will have room in their briefcases for
at least one more device: the PlayBook.
Research in Motion Ltd.
showed off the tablet for the first time Monday and is set to launch it early
2011, with an international rollout later in the year. With it RIM is betting
on a smaller, lighter device than Apple Inc.'s iPad, which kicked-started the
tablet market when it launched in April.
The PlayBook will have a
7-inch screen, making it half the size of the iPad, and weigh about to the
iPad's. And unlike the iPad, it will have two cameras, front and back.
Report: US would make
Internet wiretaps easier
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Obama administration is pushing to make it easier for the government to tap
into internet and e-mail communications. But the plan has already drawn
condemnation from privacy groups and communications firms may be wary of its
costs and scope.
Frustrated by sophisticated
and often encrypted phone and e-mail technologies, U.S. officials say that law
enforcement needs to improve its ability to eavesdrop on conversations
involving terrorism, crimes or other public safety issues.
Critics worry the changes
are an unnecessary invasion of privacy and would only make citizens and
businesses more vulnerable to identity theft and espionage.
Spill panel: Federal
confusion lost public trust
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Obama administration's repeated low estimates of the huge BP oil spill
undermined public confidence in the government's entire cleanup effort, leaders
of a White House-appointed commission declared at an investigatory hearing
Monday. One likened the mistakes to Custer's disastrous decisions at Little Big
Horn.
Federal officials botched
the government's response, a local official and government and university
scientists contended as the commission focused on the questions of who was in
charge and how much oil spewed out of the well into the Gulf of Mexico.
Eventually, U.S. officials
said the spill was about 60 times bigger than originally estimated. Instead of
42,000 gallons a day, the volume of leaking oil was closer to 2.4 million
gallons a day.
US to expand rules for
tracking money transfers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Obama administration is proposing that banks report all electronic money
transfers in and out of the U.S., expanding its anti-terrorism requirements for
financial institutions.
Officials at the Treasury
Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Monday that the new
requirement would boost their ability to track the source of funding for
terrorists.
Currently banks are
required to only report cash transactions above $10,000. They are also required
to keep records on all electronic transfers of money in and out of the country
above $3,000 and provide that information to law enforcement officials if asked
to do so.
By The Associated Press
The Dow Jones industrial
average fell 48.22, or 0.4 percent, to close at 10,812.04.
The Standard & Poor's
500 index dropped 6.51, or 0.6 percent, to 1,142.16, while the Nasdaq composite
index fell 11.45, or 0.5 percent, to 2,369.77.
Benchmark oil for November
delivery added 3 cents to settle at $76.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile
Exchange.
In other Nymex trading,
natural gas fell as tropical storms threats to Gulf of Mexico production
evaporated. Natural gas lost 8.1 cents to settle at $3.800 per 1,000 cubic
feet.
Heating oil fell 0.78 cent
to settle at $2.1228 a gallon and gasoline added 0.17 cent to $1.9488 a gallon.
In London, Brent crude lost
30 cents to settle at $78.57 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.