AUTOMOTIVE

Hybrid owners show loyalty

Detroit —- Owners of hybrid cars are some of the most loyal in the U.S. market, with nearly half purchasing a vehicle of the same make when they buy another car, said a study released Monday. Forty-seven percent of hybrid buyers buy a vehicle of the same make, compared with 35 percent of buyers overall, according to Experian Automotive, a division of global information provider Experian. Eighteen percent of hybrid car buyers even buy the same model, compared with 12 percent overall. Toyota Prius owners were the most loyal to the vehicle model among hybrid buyers.

Ford lays off 300 at V-8 engine plant

Ford Motor Co. is laying off 300 workers at a Michigan engine factory as demand dwindles for vehicles equipped with V-8 engines. The layoffs are at the Romeo Engine Plant, spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said Monday in an e-mail.

DEALS

Waste Management raises buyout offer

Waste Management Inc. has raised its unsolicited buyout offer for Republic Services Inc. by about 9 percent to $6.73 billion, escalating a takeover battle among the nation's largest trash haulers. The sweetened offer of $37 a share comes less than a month after Waste Management, the nation's largest trash collector, offered to buy No. 3 Republic in an all-cash buyout worth $34 a share, or about $6.19 billion. That bid was quickly rejected by Republic, which said the offer undervalued the company and was an attempt to disrupt its own plans to buy another waste hauler. Republic agreed earlier this summer to buy the second-largest U.S. hauler, Allied Waste Industries Inc., for $6.07 billion, creating a company with annual revenue of $9 billion, which would put it close on the heels of Waste Management, which had revenue of $13 billion last year.

FINANCIAL

Auction-rate probe targets more banks

New York —- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday that he is expanding his investigation into the collapse of the auction-rate securities market to include JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Corp. Last week, Cuomo's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission reached settlements that forced Swiss bank UBS to repurchase $18.6 billion in the securities, while Citigroup agreed to buy back $7 billion of the securities. Cuomo sent letters to JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia telling them that his office is reviewing the banks' behavior in the sale of auction-rate securities. The attorney general will determine if the banks knowingly misrepresented the safety of the securities when selling them to investors.

Fortress awards trader $400 million

Fortress Investment Group LLC awarded a senior employee the equivalent of 31 million company shares, then worth more than $400 million, according to a regulatory filing. Fortress, a New York-based manager of private equity and hedge funds, granted the employee operating group units in April, according to a Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15. These units, which represent interests in four limited partnerships, are exchangeable for the company's Class A shares. The Fortress filing didn't identify the employee. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the recipient was Adam Levinson, who helps run the firm's global macro hedge fund.

Interest rates rise in Treasury auction

Washington —- Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday's auction, with rates on three-month bills climbing to the highest level since June. The Treasury Department auctioned $26 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.870 percent, up from 1.710 percent last week. Another $25 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 2.020 percent, up from 1.920 percent last week. 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, fell to 2.23 percent last week from 2.30 percent the previous week.

Wachovia plans even deeper cuts

Wachovia Corp. said Monday that it plans to cut 600 more jobs than it previously expected. According to its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank now expects to eliminate 11,350 positions, including 6,950 active employees and 4,400 open positions. All of the additional job cuts will be in the bank's troubled mortgage business.

Many corporations avoid income taxes

Washington —- Most U.S. corporations and foreign companies doing business in the United States pay no federal income tax, according to a new report from Congress. The study by the Government Accountability Office said two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, and about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period. "It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

MANUFACTURING

GE tops goal for Olympic revenue

General Electric Co. says sales related to the Beijing Olympics topped its $1.7 billion goal on record-setting advertising revenue and work on venues that include the National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest." GE's NBC Universal has generated more than $1 billion in advertising revenue, the company said Monday in a statement.

Lockheed protest of contract denied

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s victory in a Navy contest for an unmanned spy plane program valued at as much as $3.74 billion has been upheld after a protest by losing bidder Lockheed Martin Corp. was denied. The Government Accountability Office notified Lockheed of the decision on Friday, Tierney Helmers, a spokeswoman for Lockheed said Monday.

MEDIA

Magazine sales off year-over-year

New York —- Newsstand sales of U.S. magazines fell 6.3 percent in the first half of 2008, an industry group said Monday, as rising gas and food costs led consumers to cut back on nonessential spending. Most top titles, including best-selling Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine, reported sharp declines. Of the top 10 newsstand sellers, only People and In Style posted gains. "This is nothing more than really just the impact of the economy," said John Harrington, an industry analyst with Harrington Associates. "People are shopping very cautiously and less frequently, avoiding impulse buys, which are what magazine purchases are."

McClatchy writes down sales venture

McClatchy Co. wrote down the book value of its stake in Classified Ventures LLC, indicating the online ad initiative begun as a way of capturing lost ad sales is stumbling. In a regulatory filing Monday, McClatchy valued its 25.6 percent in Classified Ventures at $86.5 million at the end of June, down 13 percent from its value at the end of December. McClatchy owns the online venture with A.H. Belo Corp., Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and Washington Post Co. Classified Ventures operates automotive ad site Cars.com and real estate site Apartments.com.

REGULATORY

Feds to probe forex trading

Washington —- Federal regulators have formed a task force to investigate and prosecute fraud in the retail market for trading foreign currencies outside of commodity exchanges, a field they say is riddled with unscrupulous operators. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Monday that it was establishing the task force to focus on fraud in the off-exchange retail foreign currency market, as well as to work with other federal and state regulators and criminal authorities.

TECHNOLOGY

RIM settles with patent licenser

Toronto —- Canadian patent-licensing company Wi-Lan Inc. says it has reached a deal with Research in Motion to license certain wireless patents. Wi-Lan said Monday that terms of the agreement with the maker of the BlackBerry are confidential, but that the companies have agreed to drop legal actions against each other. With the addition of RIM, Wi-Lan has signed 34 companies to license wireless patents.

Best Buy to add airport kiosks

Chicago —- Best Buy Co. Inc. plans to add a dozen vending kiosks inside major airports across the country, including Atlanta, as part of a pilot program called "Best Buy Express," company executives said Monday. The nation's largest consumer electronics retailer is partnering with ZoomSystems, a San Francisco-based vending machine company, for the project that will install the small automated stores at eight airports. The machines will stock cellphone and computer accessories, along with digital cameras, portable data storage devices, headphones, travel adapters, electronic chargers and other gadgets. The kiosks will be installed by Sept. 1.

TRANSPORTATION

Airlines sue to stop N.Y. slot auctions

Following through on its warning, the Air Transport Association of America —- the trade organization for U.S. airlines —- sued the FAA on Monday to stop the auction of takeoff and landing slots at New York-area airports. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has also said it will take action —- either in court or on Capitol Hill —- to halt the slot auctions. "We said that we would challenge the FAA decision in a court of law, and we are doing just that," said ATA President and CEO James May. "Today we have started the process to protect our members' rights." The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, says the slot auctions should be set aside because they go beyond the FAA's authority and limits imposed by Congress.

FedEx wins OK to sue ATA

FedEx Corp. won a bankruptcy judge's permission to sue ATA Airlines Inc. over a claim the defunct carrier breached a military-supply contract by ceasing operations. FedEx was cleared to file a "compulsory counterclaim" to defend itself in another lawsuit between the companies over the same contract. Bankruptcy rules prohibit lawsuits against insolvent companies without a judge's approval. ATA ended flights in April after seeking protection from creditors owed $704.9 million. FedEx claims ATA violated an agreement to transport military personnel until Sept. 30 as part of a supply team led by FedEx.

Security firm's laptop reappears

San Francisco —- A laptop computer containing personal information from 33,000 travelers who applied to a program for bypassing airport security lines was probably stolen and returned, not just misplaced, investigators said Monday. The Transportation Security Administration announced last week that it had suspended new enrollments to the program, known as Clear, after the unencrypted computer disappeared from a locked office at San Francisco International Airport. The day after TSA's announcement, the laptop reappeared in a locked cabinet in the same office. Verified Identity Pass Inc., which runs the Clear program, said at the time that the company did not know whether its computer had been stolen or just overlooked. Investigators are now treating the disappearance as a theft and are interviewing Verified Identity Pass employees to figure out who took the laptop and why, according to officials of the San Mateo County sheriff's office.