AGRICULTURE

Flood pushes corn price, will cut crop

New York —- Corn prices pushed higher Monday, closing in on $8 a bushel, as Midwest floods raised fears of a sharply smaller crop and another spike in world food prices. Corn prices have shot up 11 percent in the last week as floodwaters swallow fields just before the crucial growing season. The U.S. government will report June 30 on how many acres have been lost to flooding, but a survey in Farm Futures magazine estimated that flooding could claim 3.3 million acres —- or nearly 4 percent of the expected crop.

AUTOMOTIVE

Slow demand stalls Ford SUV plant

Detroit —- Ford Motor Co. says it will temporarily close a 1,400-employee sport utility vehicle plant in Wayne, Mich., nine weeks starting June 23 because of sagging demand for the trucks. The factory makes the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator full-size SUVs. The shutdown includes Ford's normal two-week summer closure.

Battery production lags Toyota hybrids

Tokyo —- Toyota is struggling to keep up with booming demand for its hybrid vehicles because it can't make enough of the batteries that are key parts, a senior executive said Monday. The crunch is likely to remain the rest of the year, as battery production can't be boosted until next year, said Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada, who oversees production at Japan's top automaker.

DEALS

Intel to start plant for solar-panel cells

Hillsboro, Ore. —- Microprocessor maker Intel Corp. says it is starting a company to manufacture and supply photovoltaic cells for makers of solar panels. Intel announced Monday that it will create an independent company called SpectraWatt Inc. that will be based in Hillsboro. Intel's global investment arm, Intel Capital, is leading a $50 million investment round in the startup. Other investors include Cogentrix Energy, a subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group; PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund and Solon AG. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter this year, and the project is scheduled to break ground in the second half of 2008, with shipments to begin by mid-2009.

Governor asks FTC to check Busch buy

St. Louis —- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt sent a letter Monday asking the Federal Trade Commission to review the proposed sale of Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. to Belgian brewer InBev. He says he is concerned the sale could create a near monopoly in the U.S. beer market and could damage the St. Louis and Missouri economies. InBev is offering to buy Anheuser-Busch for roughly $46 billion. Anheuser-Busch's board has not said if it would support the deal.

HEALTH CARE

Doctors rank

insurers' payment

Chicago —- Some health insurance companies rate doctors on their performance. Now doctors are turning the tables. The American Medical Association issued its first health insurance report card at the group's annual meeting Monday. The primary focus is on how quickly and accurately doctors get paid. The report card compares Medicare and seven commercial health insurers on the timeliness and accuracy of claims processing. United Healthcare had the lowest rate, according to the AMA report. About 62 percent of medical services billed were paid by United Healthcare at the contracted rate, compared with 71 percent for Aetna and 98 percent for Medicare. Medicare performed better than the private insurers in most areas, said Dr. Lawrence Casalino, a University of Chicago health economist and former physician.

HOUSING

Home builders say gloom remains

Los Angeles —- The National Association of Home Builders says its housing market index for June declined one point, reflecting a worsening outlook by hundreds of home builders. The Washington-based trade association said Monday the index fell in June to 18, down from 19 in May. Index readings higher than 50 indicate positive sentiment about the market. The seasonally adjusted index has been below 50 since May 2006.

Lenders pledge faster responses

Washington —- Mortgage companies are pledging to let troubled borrowers know whether they're approved for help within 45 days of receiving their applications. The promise is expected to be announced today by the Hope Now Alliance, a Bush administration-backed industry group. The new efforts come as the industry draws fire for not doing enough to alleviate the housing crisis. The changes, outlined in a copy of mortgage industry guidelines obtained by The Associated Press, are designed to clarify the mortgage-assistance process for borrowers and the industry alike. The mortgage industry is also trying to alleviate a major stumbling block: the reluctance of companies that hold second mortgages, such as home equity loans, to agree to such modifications. Statistics released last month by Hope Now showed nearly 183,000 borrowers received some form of loan workout in April, the highest monthly number since the effort started last summer.

LEGAL

Broadcom founder pleads not guilty

Santa Ana, Calif. —- Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III has pleaded not guilty to federal drug and securities fraud charges. Monday's plea involves 21 counts against the 48-year-old billionaire. He is accused of what authorities claim was one of the largest stock-option backdating cases in U.S. history and of drugging business cohorts, hiring prostitutes and maintaining a drug warehouse.

MEDIA

McClatchy resorts to wide layoffs

Sacramento —- The McClatchy Co., battered by declining profits and revenue, announced a 10 percent companywide cut in its work force Monday, including its first-ever across-the-board layoffs. The decision will eliminate 1,400 jobs through a combination of layoffs, voluntary departures and attrition. McClatchy has prided itself on avoiding across-the-board layoffs even as it has used buyouts and attrition to cut its head count by 13 percent since April 2006. But with the company struggling and its stock price down about 80 percent in two years, McClatchy said it had to act more decisively to reduce costs as it makes a transition to a company more fully focused on the Internet. The job cuts are designed to save McClatchy about $70 million a year, as part of a larger plan to reduce total operating costs by $95 million to $100 million a year. McClatchy, like other publishers, has been ramping up its online operations, and Web ad revenue has grown 12 percent this year. The Web now accounts for about 11 percent of McClatchy's ad revenue.

NONPROFITS

Bali bank to offer loans for the poor

Portland, Ore. —- Nonprofit Mercy Corps is buying a commercial bank in Bali, Indonesia's tourist paradise, in a novel $33 million deal than could move tens of millions of people out of poverty in the next decade —- and create a new economic-development model. Using a $19.4 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mercy Corps will head a consortium to create Indonesia's first microfinance wholesale bank —- provisionally titled the "Bank of Banks," nicknamed BoB. The deal, announced Sunday, capitalizes on Mercy Corps' experience with microfinance programs, which typically extend small-business loans to people too poor to be served by regular banks.

ONLINE

Icahn tones down

Yahoo rhetoric

San Francisco —- Yahoo Inc.'s dissident shareholders appear to be toning down the rhetoric in the proxy campaign to change its leadership. Sunday, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who is leading the campaign to boot out the Yahoo board, told Reuters he was studying Yahoo's search outsourcing deal with Google Inc., and the partnership "might have some merit." Yahoo unveiled the deal last week shortly after announcing that Microsoft was no longer interested in buying the beleaguered Web portal. Under the agreement, Yahoo will outsource some of its Web search activities to Google in exchange for cash; the company says the deal could eventually generate $800 million in annual revenue. Icahn kicked off a proxy campaign against Yahoo last month after Microsoft pulled its $47 billion buyout offer. His publicly stated goals have been to revive merger talks with Microsoft and to remove Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as CEO. Shares of Yahoo have fallen more than 11 percent since the company announced last week that it has concluded talks with Microsoft over a potential merger or any alternative agreement.

Myspace awarded $6M in spam case

MySpace can collect $6 million from a notorious Internet marketer accused by the popular online hangout of spamming its users. An arbitrator has ruled that Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Media Breakaway LLC of Westminster, Colo., must pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in attorney's fees for barraging MySpace members with unsolicited advertisements. Thursday's arbitration ruling pales next to a $230 million verdict MySpace won last month against two Internet marketers, butMySpace hopes the Richter case will rachet up the pressure on spammers.

Online sales to play in Moody's ratings

New York —- Moody's Investors Service said it has begun to consider merchants' online sales when determining their credit ratings amid a boom in e-commerce. In a report released Monday, the New York-based credit rating agency said that in terms of raw dollars, Internet retailing "is beginning to live up to its promise," even though Internet sales still account for a small percentage of the overall retail business —- about 6 percent, according to Forrester Research Inc.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Lily can expand use of Cymbalta

Indianapolis —- Eli Lilly and Co. said Monday it received Food and Drug Administration approval to expand the use of its fastest-growing drug, the antidepressant Cymbalta. Regulators approved Cymbalta to treat fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder. The drug already is approved for diabetic nerve pain, major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Lilly launched Cymbalta in 2004. Cymbalta's $1.3 billion in 2007 sales represented a 60 percent increase over 2006 and a 94 percent increase over 2005. Fibromyalgia affects about 5 million Americans.

PRODUCTS

DuPont says Kevlar innovation lighter

Wilmington, Del. —- The DuPont company says it has developed a new way of using its Kevlar fiber to design body armor that weighs less and provides better bullet-stopping power. The company said Monday its new Kevlar XP can stop bullets within the first three layers of an 11-layer body armor vest, resulting in less trauma to the wearer. DuPont says Kevlar XP also provides at least a 10 percent lighter weight vest design against one of the most challenging handgun threats, a .44-caliber Magnum bullet. DuPont says it new Kevlar material will be available initially to provide protection against handguns for law enforcement officers.

PUBLISHING

Business-success books to stay hot

Publishers say even more books are on the way by consultants, real-estate moguls and retailers about how they made it. "In this economy, everybody wants to be in command of their career and destiny. These books are hot, and will be even hotter," says Rick Wolff, executive editor of French media company Lagardere SCA's Grand Central Publishing and editorial director of its Business Plus business-books unit. Over the past six years, the number of books written by entrepreneurs or about entrepreneurship has risen steadily, to an estimated 312 in 2007 from 188 in 2002, according to Books in Print, which is owned by R.R. Bowker, a provider of bibliographic information.

TECHNOLOGY

Broadband phone device sales rocket

New York —- The fastest-growing fixed-line phone company in the United States is not Verizon Communications Inc. or AT&T Inc. —- they're losing lines. Even cable company Comcast Corp., which is raking in subscribers for its phone service, is being beaten by a small West Palm Beach, Fla., company called YMax Corp., judging by its own figures. TV ads promote the YMax product, the MagicJack, which works with a broadband connection. It's about the size of a matchbox and plugs into a PC. After plugging a regular phone into the MagicJack, the user can make and receive calls much like using a regular landline. In January, just after the broad advertising campaign started, YMax was selling a few hundred MagicJacks per day, said Jim Donlon, its chief marketing officer. Now, it's selling 8,000 to 9,000 per day, and the company is on track to have half a million subscribers by the end of June. That's a meteoric trajectory in the phone business, propelled by the pricing: The MagicJack costs $39.95, including one year of free calls to the U.S. and Canada. Another year of service costs $19.95. "It's extremely low-risk. Most people I know are willing to gamble on 40 bucks," said TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert, who follows voice-over-Internet providers. Unlike most voice-over-Internet Protocol —- or VoIP —- providers, YMax is licensed as a phone company in the continental U.S. and operates a wide network of servers to carry its calls. VoIP providers generally outsource that side of the business.