In brief: State spending cuts slow U.S. growth in Q4

WASHINGTON – Deeper spending cuts by state and local governments weighed down U.S. economic growth in the final three months of last year.

The government’s new estimate for the October-December quarter illustrates how growing state budget crises could hold back the economic recovery.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that economic growth increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the final quarter of last year. That was down from the initial estimate of 3.2 percent.

The weaker figure was disappointing and prompted some economists to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the current January-March quarter.

Associated Press

Google tweak will trim ‘low-quality’ websites

NEW YORK – Google says it has tweaked the formulas steering its Internet search engine to take the rubbish out of its results. The overhaul is designed to lower the rankings of what Google deems “low-quality” sites.

That could be a veiled reference to such sites as Demand Media’s eHow.com, which critics call online “content farms” – that is, sites producing cheap, abundant, mostly useless content that ranks high in search results.

Sites that produce original content or information that Google considers valuable are supposed to rank higher under the new system.

The change announced late Thursday affects about 12 percent, or nearly one in every eight, search requests in the U.S.

Associated Press

Mark Jucht tapped to run Salem airport

SALEM, Ore. – A former deputy director at Spokane International Airport has been named the new Salem airport manager in Oregon.

Salem’s Urban Development Department recently named Mark Jucht the new airport manager, the Statesman Journal reported.

Salem’s 751-acre airport serves general-aviation aircraft and the Oregon Army National Guard’s Army Aviation Support Facility.

Jucht is responsible for coordinating and maintaining the development and growth of the Salem Municipal Airport as well as managing day-to-day operations.

Associated Press

U.K.’s Q4 contraction worse than thought

LONDON – The British economy shrank more than previously thought in the final quarter of 2010, according to revised figures released Friday, dealing a further blow to the country’s shaky recovery from recession.

The Office for National Statistics reported that gross domestic product declined by 0.6 percent between October and December. It had previously put the contraction at 0.5 percent.

The agency said that severe winter weather in December, when Britain was hit by heavy snowfalls, is still largely to blame for the plunge in the final three months of the year.

But the data also showed that household spending declined 0.1 percent – the first drop since the second quarter of 2009.

Associated Press