Briefly

Flights return to main runway

Commercial flights in and out of Spokane International Airport returned to the main runway this week, following a four-month resurfacing project.

During the work project, traffic was diverted to the alternate runway, which affected some residents on Spokane’s South Hill, who found themselves under the flight plan near 40th Ave.

Inland Asphalt Company of Spokane had the $3.6 million contract to do the runway project.

WestCoast revenues reach $56 million

WestCoast Hospitality Corp. of Spokane on Thursday reported third-quarter revenues of $56 million, up from $54.5 million in the third quarter a year ago.

The company had net income of $3.5 million in the third quarter compared with income of $3.2 million a year ago. Earnings per share for the quarter were 27 cents, compared to 20 cents in the third quarter of 2003.

The company’s quarterly revenue per available room — a common measurement of financial health in the hospitality industry — increased 7 percent to $52.71.

Mortage rates drop again

Washington Mortgage rates declined again this week, with 30-year mortgages dropping to the lowest level since early April, providing more of a boost to the housing industry.

Rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.64 percent for the week ending Oct. 28, Freddie Mac said in its weekly survey. That was down from 5.69 percent last week and was the lowest level since they averaged 5.52 percent for the week ending April 1.

Rates on 30-year mortgages hit a high this year of 6.34 percent the week of May 13 before starting to head lower as markets responded to various signals that rising energy prices were acting as a drag on economic growth.

The lower mortgage rates have spurred sales of both new and existing homes, which climbed in September to the third-highest levels in history. Analysts believe sales for all of 2004 will set records as well.

SEC opens probe of DaimlerChrysler

Berlin DaimlerChrysler AG disclosed Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation after a fired employee told labor officials he was dismissed for complaining that the company was using secret bank accounts to bribe government officials.

The automaker released the news in its third-quarter earnings statement, without naming the employee or putting a financial amount on the company’s possible exposure.

“The investigation follows the filing of a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act by a former DaimlerChrysler employee whose employment was terminated earlier this year,” the company said in its earnings release.

DaimlerChrysler said in a statement released Thursday evening that the lawsuit and the employee’s claims that he was improperly dismissed have no merit. The company said it is cooperating with the SEC’s investigation.

David Bazzetta, a former employee in the automaker’s corporate auditing department who lives in suburban Detroit, claimed in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit that he was fired in January after he notified senior company officials about the use of secret bank accounts to bribe government officials.

Bazzetta claims that during a corporate audit executive meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, Hubertus Buderath, DaimlerChrysler’s vice president of corporate audit in Stuttgart, explained that bribery was a common practice dating to before Daimler-Benz’s 1998 merger with Chrysler Corp.

Bazzetta claims in the suit that during the meeting he learned business units within DaimlerChrysler continued to maintain the secret bank accounts despite knowing the practice was illegal under U.S. law.

AOL sues IM spammers

Seattle America Online Inc. said Thursday it had filed a federal lawsuit accusing numerous unnamed defendants of violating federal and state laws by sending bulk messages known as “spim” to instant message accounts and Internet chat rooms.

The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., marked the first time AOL has expressly targeted spim in a legal action.

AOL and its Anti-Spam Alliance partners — EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. — also said Thursday that they had filed another series of lawsuits targeting spam, the bulk e-mail messages that can clog e-mail inboxes and annoy some users. The lawsuits were filed in courts in Georgia, Virginia, Washington and California.

The lawsuits accuse defendants of violating laws including the federal CAN-SPAM Act. The law prohibits senders of spam from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line, and it bars senders from collecting addresses from Web sites.

CNNfn financial network to shut down

New York CNN said Thursday it will shut down its struggling CNNfn financial news network in mid-December, giving up its attempt to compete with CNBC after nine years.

A handful of programs will be shifted to the main network. CNN also said it is planning changes for its Headline News offshoot, offering prime-time programming instead of a constantly repeating 30-minute newscast.

CNNfn is only available in about 30 million of the nation’s 110 million television homes. With the coming expiration of its deal with the DirecTV satellite system, it faced the prospect of losing more distribution.

It launched in December 1995 when business, and business news, was hot. CNBC’s ratings plunged when the Internet bubble burst on Wall Street, and CNNfn failed to gain footing, too.