Business news in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment.”

Mike Underhill, Justice Department attorney Article, 1D

Treasury bill rate hits two-year high

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday’s auction with rates on three month Treasury bills rising to the highest level in two years.

The Treasury Department auctioned $35 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.125 percent, up from 0.115 percent last week. Another $30 billion in six month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.135 percent, up from 0.130 percent last week.

The three-month rate was the highest since three month bills averaged 0.145 percent on Feb. 28, 2011. The six-month rate was the highest since those bills averaged 0.140 percent on Dec. 3.

The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,996.84 while a six-month bill sold for $9,993.18.

That would equal an annualized rate of 0.127 percent for the three-month bills and 0.137 percent for the six-month bills.

Separately the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 0.17 percent last week from 0.15 percent the previous week.

Wal-Mart to add Bentonville market

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it plans to open a new Neighborhood Market in its hometown of Bentonville.

The store, scheduled to open this fall, will be located at the northwest corner of I Street and Arkansas 12 and will employ about 65 people. The 41,000-square-foot store will carry a full line of grocery items and will include a pharmacy, delicatessen foods and household supplies.

Times Co. to rename Herald Tribune

The New York Times Co. said its International Herald Tribune newspaper will be renamed the International New York Times, eliminating a global newspaper brand that traces its roots to 1887.

The new name will debut later this year, the New York based publisher said Monday in a statement. The publication will be edited from Hong Kong, Paris, London and New York, according to Times Co., which said it would release more details on the transition in coming months.

The newspaper, which started out as the European edition of the New York Herald, came under full ownership of the New York Times Co. in 2003.

The move furthers the parent company’s efforts to focus on its central media brand, the New York Times. Last week, the publisher said it would sell the Boston Globe and related newspapers. The New York-based company has already sold its About.com website and a regional newspaper business over the past 13 months.

Buffett’s firm buying Tulsa World

OMAHA, Neb. - Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is buying the Tulsa World, bringing its newspaper unit to 28 dailies.

The privately held Tulsa newspaper has a daily circulation of 95,000. The sale was reported Monday by the Tulsa World and Berkshire’s Omaha World-Herald, whose executives oversee the company’s newspapers.

Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in March, weren’t disclosed.

  • The Associated Press

All Nippon grounds 787s through May

Japan’s All Nippon Airways is scrubbing its planned 787 flights through May as the Boeing Co. plane remains grounded.

All Nippon has 17 of the planes - more than any other airline.

The canceled flights include trips from Seattle and San Jose to Tokyo, as well as flights around Asia. The airline said flights from Frankfurt to Tokyo’s Haneda airport will continue on a different type of plane.

All Nippon has had to cancel 3,600 flights that would have carried almost 168,000 passengers.

The 787 has been grounded since Jan. 16 because of the risk of battery fires. Other airlines that have had to cancel 787 flights include United Continental Holdings Inc. and LOT Polish Airlines.

  • The Associated Press

Utility agrees to shut 3 coal plants

WASHINGTON - One of the nation’s largest utilities agreed Monday to close three of its coal-fired power plants as part of a settlement with government officials and environmental groups.

Updating an earlier 2007 settlement, American Electric Power will stop burning coal by 2015 at three power plants in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky and replace a portion of that supply with new wind and solar investments in Indiana and Michigan. The company will spend $5 billion to install pollution controls on plants in its aging, coal-fired fleet in the Eastern United States and cut its annual sulfur dioxide emissions over the next 12 years from 828,000 tons to 174,000 tons.

Coal plants, which supply 32 percent of the nation’s electricity, remain the largest U.S. source of both sulfur dioxide and mercury - which contribute to heart and respiratory illness - as well as carbon dioxide linked to global warming.

HP selling webOS to S. Korea’s LG

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard said Monday it is selling its webOS operating system technology to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. for an undisclosed sum.

Hewlett Packard Co. and LG said on Monday that LG will use webOS to support its “smart TV” technology.

Like smart phones, smart TVs are web-connected and allow for more interaction between the device and its user.

LG and rival Samsung Electronics showed off smart TV models earlier this year ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

HP bought the struggling smart-phone maker Palm Inc. for nearly $1 billion in 2010, hoping Palm’s webOS would help its standing in the mobile market. This did not happen. In late 2011, HP made webOS available as open source software for anyone to use or modify for free.

  • The Associated Press

Business, Pages 24 on 02/26/2013

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