AGRICULTURE

Corn futures hit another record

Corn surged to a record for the sixth straight trading session on speculation that record flooding in some Midwest states will damage crops, tightening grain inventories and driving up food costs. Soybeans also gained. "The corn and soybean crops are in trouble," said Joe Victor, a vice president for Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Ill. "The slow planting pace and crop emergence will hurt yields and reduce the number of acres farmers plant." Corn futures for July delivery reached a record $7.255 Thursday before retreating.

AUTOMOTIVE

Electric car research funded

The Energy Department plans a $30 million program aimed at helping carmakers develop vehicles that can be recharged at electric outlets. Automakers involved include General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. General Electric also will participate. The three-year study, announced Thursday in Washington, is to fund demonstration projects of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that can travel at least 40 miles on electricity before battery packs need recharging.

DEALS

Steel maker rejects Russian offer

Wheeling, W.Va. —- Esmark Inc., which makes and sells steel products, has rejected a $670 million takeover offer from Russia's OAO Severstal, calling it inadequate. The announcement came Thursday, 24 hours after India's Essar Steel Holdings Ltd. increased its offer for the West Virginia company by $80 million, to $19 per share.

Invitrogen to buy unit of Applera

Carlsbad, Calif. —- Invitrogen Corp. has agreed to pay $6.4 billion in cash and stock for Applera Corp.'s Applied Biosystems Group. Carlsbad-based Invitrogen, which makes technologies for disease research and drug discovery, will pay $38 per share for scientific instruments maker Applied Biosystems, representing a 17 percent premium to the stock's closing price Wednesday. The purchase price will be paid 45 percent in cash and the rest in stock.

ECONOMY

Lawmakers argue over tax breaks

Washington —- House Democrats delivered an ultimatum to the Senate on Thursday, saying a stalled package of more than $50 billion in tax breaks for families and businesses won't move unless Congress finds ways to replace lost revenues.

FINANCIAL

Citigroup to end hedge fund

New York —- The hedge fund Citigroup's CEO built is closing, the bank said Thursday. After nearly flat returns since the fund's inception two years ago and investor bailouts that resulted in a $200 million markdown in the first quarter, the bank's decision to dissolve Vikram Pandit's Old Lane Partners fund hardly came as a surprise to Wall Street.

KeyCorp to halve dividend, raise cash

Cleveland —- KeyCorp will halve its dividend and raise about $1.5 billion to shore up its balance sheet following an unfavorable tax ruling, the financial services company said Thursday. The company said a federal court decision involving the tax treatment of part of its leveraged lease portfolio will force it to take an after-tax charge of about $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion. The KeyCorp board approved the issuance of new shares to raise about $1.5 billion in equity capital intended to offset that charge. Annual dividends will be cut by 50 percent, to 75 cents per share, beginning in the third quarter.

FOOD / BEVERAGE

Teriyaki Experience to expand in Ga.

Teriyaki Experience, a Canadian fast-food chain with 120 outlets worldwide, plans to add 40 in Georgia in the next five years, the company said Thursday. The chain, which serves Asian-inspired dishes, opened its first U.S. location in Atlanta last year in the District at Howell Mill development. Areas targeted for possible franchises include Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Vinings, Marietta, Kennesaw, Cumberland, Norcross and Smyrna. The company also is looking at Athens, Columbus and Augusta. Atlanta-based Champ Foods LLC is overseeing the expansion.

LEGAL

Scrushy returns to Ala. for testimony

Columbiana, Ala. —- Fired HealthSouth Corp. chief Richard Scrushy was jailed in Alabama on Thursday after being transferred from a federal prison in Texas to give sworn testimony about fraud at the rehabilitation company he founded. Scrushy is scheduled to give several days of sworn testimony starting Monday in Birmingham in investor lawsuits concerning the HealthSouth fraud. Scrushy was acquitted in the HealthSouth fraud in 2005, but he was convicted the next year with former Gov. Don Siegelman in a state bribery scheme. Scrushy was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison.

MANUFACTURING

Caterpillar forms truck alliance

Caterpillar Inc. agreed with Navistar International Corp. to develop commercial trucks. Included in the offering is a heavy-duty truck for road and infrastructure work to be sold in North America under the Cat brand and slated for rollout in 2010, the Peoria, Ill.-based company said in a statement Thursday. As part of the move, Caterpillar won't sell engines that meet 2010 emissions standards to other manufacturers of on-highway trucks.

Korean firm buys Superior Essex

Superior Essex Inc., an Atlanta-based manufacturer and supplier of cable and wire products, is being sold to a South Korean firm in an all-cash deal for $900 million. The agreement calls for LS Cable Ltd. to pay Superior Essex shareholders $45 per share in a tender offer that ends July 31. That's a premium of about half a percent based on Wednesday's closing share price, the day the deal was announced. The cable and wire industry is consolidating, and LS wanted to capitalize on the two companies' complementary geographic facilities and markets. Combined, they would have annual sales exceeding $12 billion a year and would be the third-largest wire and cable manufacturing company in the world. No staffing changes are expected as a result of the deal, the companies said. Superior Essex, which employs 4,500 in offices and facilities in the United States, France, China and several other countries, will become a wholly owned LS subsidiary but will keep its Atlanta headquarters, the companies said. Its products are used in a host of items from industrial motors and generators to voice and data transmission devices.

REAL ESTATE

Mortgage rates at 8-month high

Washington —- Rates on 30-year mortgages jumped to the highest level in nearly eight months, reflecting increased concerns about what the Federal Reserve might do to battle inflation. Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.32 percent this week. That was up from 6.09 percent last week. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 5.93 percent from 5.65 percent. The five-year adjustable-rate mortgage rose to 5.70 percent from 5.51 percent. The rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage edged up to 5.09 percent from 5.06 percent.

Foreclosure filings up 48% from 2007

The number of U.S. homeowners swept up in the housing crisis rose further last month, with foreclosure filings up nearly 50 percent compared with a year earlier. Nationwide, 261,255 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in May, up 48 percent from 176,137 in the same month last year and up 7 percent from April, RealtyTrac Inc. said. One in every 483 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in May, the highest number since RealtyTrac started the report in 2005.

REGULATORY

FCC wants to curb cell contract fees

Washington —- The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission laid out a plan Thursday to regulate the high fees that cellular phone companies charge consumers for canceling their contracts early. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's proposal was similar to an industry plan put forward last month. Martin said he was skeptical ongoing class-action lawsuits would adequately resolve for consumers all the pending issues about the unpopular fees. The chairman made his comments at a public hearing. Companies charge early termination fees that can range from $150 to $225 to recover the cost of cellphones, which they subsidize under long-term service contracts, according to wireless companies. The fees also defray costs for signing up new customers, companies said.

TECHNOLOGY

PC shipment forecast raised

Personal computer shipments will grow 12.5 percent this year, more than previously forecast, because of stronger-than-expected sales of laptops, Gartner Inc. said. Worldwide PC shipments will increase to 297 million units in 2008 from 264 million last year, the research firm said Thursday in a statement.

Blu-ray DVD format gains momentum

Sales of DVD players based on Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray technology will almost triple to 2.8 million units this year as consumers buy high-definition televisions, said Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association. "The increase in Blu-ray DVD players is absolutely huge," Shapiro said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. "It will just keep picking up." Blu-ray won a standards war with Toshiba Corp.'s HD-DVD this year after Sony persuaded more studios to release movies on Blu-ray discs. Some stores have run out of Blu-ray players because manufacturers didn't expect the format to prevail so soon, Shapiro said.

Yahoo ends talks with Microsoft

Yahoo Inc.'s efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft Corp. have reached a dead end, prompting the Internet pioneer to hire online search leader Google Inc. to handle some of its advertising sales. The news disclosed Thursday caused Yahoo shares to plunge as investors abandoned hope that Microsoft would renew a nearly five-month quest to buy the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. Wall Street's disenchantment comes at a particularly bad time for Yahoo and its board of directors. Yahoo is trying to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn.

TELECOM

Sprint to sell walkie-talkie phone

Sprint Nextel Corp. will start selling phones that function as walkie-talkies. The QChat feature will be available next week on four phones in more than 40 U.S. markets, Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint said Thursday in a statement. Sprint plans to use the feature to win back subscribers after 1.1 million customers dropped their contracts last quarter. QChat may help the company retain users of its older push-to-talk technology, acquired in the 2005 purchase of Nextel Communications Inc.

AT&T may charge big DSL users more

AT&T Inc., the country's largest Internet provider, is considering charging extra for customers who download large amounts of data. "A form of usage-based pricing for those customers who have abnormally high usage patterns is inevitable," spokesman Michael Coe said this week. The top 5 percent of AT&T's DSL customers use 46 percent of the total bandwidth, Coe said. Overall bandwidth use on the network is surging, doubling every year and a half. AT&T doesn't have any specific fees to announce yet, Coe said.

TRANSPORTATION

Credit card deal helps Continental

New York —- Continental Airlines Inc. said Thursday that it will get a $413 million initial payment under its co-branded credit card deal with Chase Bank USA, adding to the carrier's cash cushion. Continental said it expects to have between $3.2 billion and $3.3 billion on hand at the end of the second quarter. Elsewhere, the airline said travelers in Cleveland and Houston will be most affected when it starts cutting flights in September. Nine smaller cities will lose Continental service altogether, including Chattanooga, Montgomery and Reno, Nev.

UTILITIES / ENERGY

Exxon to leave retail gas business

Houston —- ExxonMobil is getting out of the retail gasoline business, a market where profits have gotten tougher. The world's largest publicly traded oil company said Thursday that it will sell its 820-company owned stations and another 1,400 outlets operated by dealers to gasoline distributors across the United States. The Irving, Texas-based company didn't disclose financial details but said the transition will take place over a "multiyear period." However, the Exxon and Mobil names will continue to be licensed.

Two bills take aim at ICE trading

Senators are pressing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to increase oversight of oil trades. Two bills introduced Thursday take aim at data from Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange Inc. Among the things the measures seek is the identity of traders and their trading positions. Interest over trading activities on the London-based Intercontinental Exchange Futures, also known as ICE, has increased as the price of oil has risen. "Without knowing the players in the market, it is impossible to evaluate whether speculators have taken over the market or traders are engaging in manipulative activities," said a letter from Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to the commission.