Post Falls city administrator named COO of Ground Force

Post Falls City Administrator Eric Keck is leaving to take a job with Ground Force Worldwide, a Post Falls-based manufacturer of truck bodies and accessory equipment for the mining and construction industries.

Keck will be chief operating officer for Ground Force, parent company of Ground Force Manufacturing and Underground Force. He will remain in his city post until the end of August.

“Eric brings years of exceptional leadership, planning, and management experience and has earned a reputation as a trusted and respected leader of our community,” Ron Nilson, president and CEO of Ground Force, said in a news release.

“I am very humbled and excited to be able to join the Ground Force Worldwide team,” Keck said in the release. “This is an incredible opportunity to make a difference in the global economy and I look forward to the challenge.”

Keck took the city job in 2006. Before then he was a private development consultant in Utah.

Barnes & Noble, independent stores unite on antitrust case

NEW YORK – Longtime rivals Barnes & Noble Inc. and the country’s independent booksellers have united in New York to support publishers being sued by the government over antitrust claims.

The superstore chain and the independent trade group the American Booksellers Association announced Tuesday they had filed a motion in federal court in Manhattan against a proposed settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and three publishers over allegations the publishers colluded to set e-book prices.

Apple Inc. and five publishers were sued in April over e-book agreements reached in 2010 with Apple, which publishers hoped would cut into Amazon.com’s dominance of the e-market.

Barnes & Noble and the booksellers association allege dismantling the agreements will “hurt competition” and “ultimately harm consumers.”

Dollar falls ahead of meetings of the Federal Reserve, ECB

NEW YORK – The dollar fell against the euro Tuesday ahead of key meetings of the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank. The meetings may shed light on how the central banks plan to help their slowing economies.

The Fed began its two-day policy meeting Tuesday. Traders are looking to see if the central bank will hint at any additional moves to boost the U.S. economy.

The ECB is holding its policy meeting on Thursday. The bank’s president, Mario Draghi, said last week that the bank will do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. Traders will watch Draghi’s press conference after the meeting to see if he offers any specific details of his plans.

Amazon tops iTunes Match offer with more song storage

SEATTLE – Amazon.com Inc. has updated its cloud music player to mimic Apple Inc.’s iTunes Match, but is offering 10 times more storage space for the same price.

Songs purchased on Amazon.com have always been stored for free on its servers for playback on mobile devices. Now the online retailer will scan a person’s computer and automatically match songs found there on the person’s storage space in the cloud.

Like iTunes Match, Amazon will upgrade songs of lesser quality found on computers or existing cloud lockers to files encoded at 256 kilobits per second.

The price is the same as iTunes Match at $25 a year. But Amazon.com offers free storage for 250 songs bought elsewhere and will store 250,000 songs for paying customers.