The U.S. Department of Transportation fined American Airlines $90,000 for failing to disclose a fee for using flight vouchers.
The federal agency said the airline offered the vouchers to passengers who voluntarily gave up seats on overbooked flights.
A senior U.S. Treasury official said he did not see any national security concerns with Deutsche Boerse’s planned takeover of NYSE Euronext.
The deal between the German market and the iconic New York-based exchange must win approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Get the full story »
Sunil Kumar. (Handout)
In an interview with the website Poets & Quants, Sunil Kumar, the new dean at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, said he hopes to make the prestigious school more global and strengthen its alumni network, among other goals. Kumar also said he has put together a committee of senior faculty to assess Chicago’s global strategy and determine what, if anything, the school should do. “We want to consult widely, collect data on other schools and see how well they’re doing it,” Kumar said.
Kumar was appointed dean on July 28, 2010, and began his term on Jan. 1.
Motorola Mobility is planning to make its webtop application, which connects a smart phone with a laptop dock to simulate a desktop experience, a common feature on most of its high-end devices by year-end, Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said Monday.
Motorola introduced the webtop functionality at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, when it unveiled the Atrix, a smart phone running Google’s Android operating system. The Atrix, which will go on sale at AT&T stores next week, nestles into a thin laptop dock with an 11.6-inch display and full keyboard. The phone powers the set-up, which gives the user full PC capabilities, including Web-based desktop applications. Get the full story »
In a first for a wireless carrier, AT&T Inc. said Monday that it will use its phones’ location-sensing ability to target text ads with coupons and other offers to participating subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.
Kmart, part of Sears Holdings Corp., is one of the chains that have signed up for ShopAlerts by AT&T. That means AT&T could send discount offers to subscribers who are close to a Kmart store. Get the full story »
The purchase price of U.S. homes fell 4.3 percent in the fourth quarter froma year earlier, as values declined across the country, according to Freddie Mac.
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, said Monday that low mortgage rates and the fact that foreclosed-property and short sales remain a big part of the market, helped push “homebuyer affordability to levels not seen in decades in most places.” Get the full story »
The Honda Fit. (Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images)
Honda Motor Co. and several other Asian automakers scored high marks in a series of new studies and rankings of new cars by Consumer Reports magazine.
Ford Motor Co. was the only one of the Detroit Three to make it into the Top 10 in the publication’s automaker score card for 2011, released Monday. General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC placed 12th and 13th out of 13 carmakers ranked in the April issue of the magazine. Get the full story »
AT&T will begin selling Amazon’s Kindle 3G March 6 as it looks toward other gadgets to increase its customer base outside of cell phones.
The Kindle 3G will sell for $189 at AT&T’s retail stores, the same price at which Amazon sells the e-reader online. Amazon has said that the Kindle is the most popular item sold on its gigantic retail Web site — though the company has never said how many it has sold.
The Food and Drug Administration suggested manufacturers consider taking zinc out of denture cream, after reports of neurological problems that might be associated with zinc poisoning.
Zinc is a mineral naturally present in some foods, available as a dietary supplement and added to certain products. Zinc has been added to denture cream to boost its adhesive properties. The FDA said in a Feb. 23 letter sent to denture-adhesive manufacturers that it’s received “numerous reports of adverse events related to the use of denture creams” consistent with zinc toxicity. Get the full story »
Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America Inc. in April will begin selling a new pill to treat high blood pressure after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Deerfield-based company’s Edarbi tablets, the agency said.
Edarbi, which will cost about $75 for a month’s supply, enters a crowded field of blood pressure medications, including several cheaper generics that employers and consumer groups say work well and can cost pennies a day. Get the full story »
Almost three years after a series of government bailouts began, what many feared would be a deep black hole for taxpayer money isn’t looking nearly so dark.
The brighter picture is highlighted by the outlook for the bailouts’ centerpiece — the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
“It’s turning out to cost one heck of a lot less than what we all thought at the beginning,” said Ted Kaufman, a former U.S. senator from Delaware who heads the congressionally appointed panel overseeing TARP. Get the full story »
Large financial institutions may need to make significant and potentially costly structural changes to comply with new U.S. “living will” requirements, bank regulator Sheila Bair said on Monday. Get the full story »
Libertyville-based Motorola Mobility is suing TiVo Inc., saying that the technology company is infringing on several of its patents for digital video recorders.
Motorola Mobility was split off from Motorola Inc. at the beginning of the year and comprises mobile devices and TV set-top boxes. Motorola entered the cable business in 2000 with its $17 billion buyout of Horsham, Pa.-based General Instrument Corp. General Instrument’s DVR technology is at the heart of the lawsuit Motorola filed Friday against TiVo in federal court in Texarkana, Tex. Get the full story »
CME Group Inc. on Monday unveiled a cross-margining plan that would help customers trading both interest rate and Treasury futures, as the world’s largest derivatives exchange prepares for more competition.
The move by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange parent to create a new clearing membership class comes weeks before rival NYSE Euronext is expected to launch a similar cross-margining platform. Get the full story »
