Business News

Ink expert pleads innocent

New York Secret Service ink expert Larry Stewart pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges that he lied repeatedly on the witness stand while testifying for the government at the Martha Stewart trial.

A federal judge set a Sept. 20 trial date for Larry Stewart, who was indicted earlier this month on two counts of perjury.

Martha Stewart and former stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, both convicted in March of lying about a stock sale, have asked for a new trial based on the charges against Larry Stewart — who is not related to the homemaking icon.

Prosecutors say Larry Stewart lied when he testified that he had participated in ink-analysis testing of a stock portfolio worksheet prepared by Bacanovic that was used as evidence in the case.

The government contends that Larry Stewart also lied when he said he was familiar with a proposal for a book about ink analysis that was to be written by two other Secret Service workers.

Martha Stewart and Bacanovic were convicted March 5 of lying about why she sold 3,298 shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in December 2001, just before the price plunged.

Workshops scheduled to protect teenagers

The state Department of Labor & Industries and the Washington Restaurant Association are sponsoring workshops in Spokane today to help restaurant owners and managers prevent on-the-job injuries to teenage workers.

The restaurant industry employs up to half of all teenage workers, and teens as a group are injured on the job twice as often as adults, the department said. The most common workplace injuries in restaurants are slips and falls, cuts, bruises, burns, and sprains, it said in an announcement of the workshops.

The session will be held from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and repeated from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Red Lion Hotel at the Park, at 303 W. North River Drive. Admission is free.

For more information call (800) 225-7166.

Economic activity still on upswing

Washington Big industry production surged by 1.1 percent in May, the strongest performance in nearly six years, and a nationwide survey of business activity showed widespread strength, fresh signs the economy possesses good momentum.

The sizable increase in industrial production reported Wednesday by the Federal Reserve came after a strong 0.8 percent rise in April. The 1.1 percent advance — better than the 0.6 percent rise that some economists were expecting — represented the biggest gain since August 1998.

Factory production — the biggest slice of industrial activity tracked by the Fed — rose by 0.9 percent in May, up from a 0.7 percent increase the month before.

In a second report, the Fed said economic activity continued to expand across the nation in April and May, with manufacturing, retailing, residential real-estate markets and bank lending activity faring well.

The job climate also improved, with hiring increasing at a faster pace in most of the Fed’s 12 regions, the report said.

Consumers still not expressing confidence

New York U.S. consumer confidence in the economy is still close to its low for the year, according to the latest ABC News/Money Magazine poll.

The consumer comfort index slipped one point to negative-20 in the week ended June 13, from negative-19 a week earlier.

It stands just two points above its 2004 low of negative-22, reached in March.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three points.

Internet outage’s damage limited

San Jose, Calif. A purported Internet attack that affected some of the world’s most popular Web sites was “large scale” and “sophisticated” yet had only minimal impact, according to the targeted company.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which aims to make Internet browsing more reliable, said Wednesday that no more than a dozen of its 1,100 customers suffered a significant impact. Akamai defined “significant” as traffic being slowed for more than 20 percent of a site’s users.

The company did not name the sites, though third-party monitoring services and user reports have identified them as big Internet destinations, including sites belonging to Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Symantec Corp., FedEx Corp., Apple Computer Inc., AltaVista and Lycos.

Akamai spokesman Jeff Young said Tuesday the incident was a “large scale, international attack on Internet infrastructure.” But it appears only to have affected the company’s systems. No other companies confirmed the claim that the Internet’s infrastructure was targeted.

Earnings roundup

“Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. postponed Wednesday’s release of its first-quarter financial statements and instead issued a summary projecting record first-quarter sales of about $4.3 billion and a sharply narrowed loss of $75 million to $85 million. Goodyear had sales of $3.5 billion and a loss of $196.5 million in the first quarter of 2003.

“Best Buy Co. Inc. reported first-quarter earnings of $114 million as the nation’s biggest consumer electronics chain saw its revenue climb 17 percent on strong sales from high-end televisions and notebook computers.

“Bear Stearns Cos. on Wednesday posted a 24 percent jump in profit for its latest quarter as its bellwether bond business continued to perform well amid rising interest rates.