Ex-head of Wal-Mart pleads guilty to fraud
A former top-ranking executive at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges Tuesday, admitting that he stole money, gift cards and merchandise from the world’s largest retailer.
Tom Coughlin, 57, and once a protégé of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, faces a maximum of 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. He also could be fined $1.35 million.
The judge ordered a presentencing report that will take up to 14 weeks to prepare.
Liberty Lake
Spokane chamber opens office for Liberty Lake
The Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce has opened a satellite office to serve business members in Liberty Lake, the group announced Tuesday.
The chamber’s new office is in the Isothermal Systems Research building, at 23321 E. Knox. The chamber opened a satellite office in north Spokane in 2003.
An existing employee of the chamber will be based in the Liberty Lake office.
Nearly 17 percent of the Spokane chamber’s 1,400 members are located in Liberty Lake and the greater Spokane Valley area, the chamber said in a news release.
New York
Protect your computer from latest worm
If you have computer files you’d rather not lose, now is a good time to make sure your anti-virus software is up to date.
A worm set to activate Friday will corrupt documents using the most common file types, including “.doc,” “.pdf” and “.zip.”
Hundreds of thousands of machines are believed to be infected, mostly in India, Peru, Turkey and Italy, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for Finnish security company F-Secure Corp.
The worm, known as “CME-24,” “BlackWorm,” “Mywife.E” or a number of other monikers, even tries to disable anti-virus software that is out of date, he said.
Thus, users should make sure their software is turned on and has the latest definitions, generally available for free from the software vendor’s Web site. F-Secure also has created a free removal tool.
Microsoft Corp. issued an advisory Tuesday warning customers about the worm, which affects most versions of its Windows operating system.
New York
New phone is take two for iTunes service
Motorola Inc. and Cingular Wireless LLC are out with their second cell phone with Apple Computer Corp.’s iTunes music service, and they hope it’s better received than the first iTunes phone.
The new phone, the SLVR L7, is a thin non-folding phone, styled similarly to Motorola’s best-selling RAZR clamshell phone.
Cingular is selling it for $199.99 with a two-year contract.
The first phone that allowed owners to transfer music from their computer’s iTunes library, the Motorola ROKR E1, launched in September.
“It kind of came out of the chute with some real flaws in it,” said Neil Strother, wireless analyst at research firm In-Stat. “I wouldn’t say it was a complete disaster, but they clearly had some real problems.”