LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Wall Street again is trying to pass the buck. Instead of criminal prosecutions, we’re talking about something that’s not more than a slap on the wrist.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown,
D-Ohio Article, 1D
High court blocks euthanization law
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a California law that would require euthanizing downed livestock at federally inspected slaughterhouses to keep the meat out of the nation’s food system.
The high court ruled that the 2009 state law was blocked from going into effect by federal law administered by the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Federal law “precludes California’s effort ... to impose new rules, beyond any the FSIS has chosen to adopt, on what a slaughterhouse must do with a pig that becomes non-ambulatory during the production process,” said Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the court’s unanimous opinion.
California strengthened regulations against slaughtering so-called downer animals after the 2008 release of an undercover Humane Society of the United States video showing workers abusing cows at a Southern California slaughterhouse. Under California law, the ban on buying, selling and slaughtering downer cattle also extends to pigs, sheep and goats.
But pork producers sued to stop the law, saying the new law interfered with federal laws that require inspections of downed livestock before determining whether they can be used for meat.
Halliburton quarterly profit up 50%
NEW YORK - Halliburton’s net income spiked 50 percent in the final three months of 2011 as one of the world’s biggest oil-field services companies shifted its focus from natural gas to oil, with a barrel of crude again trading near the triple-digit mark.
The Houston company posted earnings of $906 million, or 98 cents per share, for the fourth quarter. That compares with $605 million, or 66 cents per share, for the same quarter of 2010.
Excluding a $15 million charge for an “environmental related matter,” Halliburton Co. earned $1 per share in the quarter. Revenue increased 36.9 percent to $7.06 billion.
The boom in shale drilling across regions of North America boosted Halliburton’s 2011 earnings to $2.84 billion, or $3.08 per share, compared with $1.84 billion, or $2.02 per share, in 2010. Annual revenue increased 38.1 percent to $24.8 billion.
Mississippi casinos post good month
JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi casinos took more money from gamblers in December, the only month in 2011 that gambling revenue was higher than in 2010.
For the year, gamblers lost $2.24 billion in the state’s casinos, down 6.3 percent from 2010 and the lowest amount since 1998. The take at Gulf Coast casinos dropped only marginally, but the take at river casinos fell 11 percent for the year, in part because of spring flooding.
The state’s casinos took $186.1 million in December, up 1.2 percent from $183.8 million in the same month in 2010.
The 19 river casinos took $99.2 million, up 2 percent from $97.2 million in December 2010, according to Mississippi Department of Revenue figures. The take at the 11 coast casinos totaled $86.9 million, up 0.4 percent from $86.6 million the previous December.
Firm to sell credit reports in Spanish
NEW YORK - Fair Isaac Corp., the company behind the most widely used credit scores, plans to announce today that its consumer website and products are available in Spanish for the first time.
Fair Isaac said the prices and products are the same as on the English version of the site.
The roll out of the site comes as the nation’s Spanish speaking population continues to expand.
Over the past decade, census figures show that Hispanics have accounted for more than half the U.S. population increase and now make up 16 percent of the population, up from 13 percent a decade ago.
Fair Isaac said the site is available at espanol.myFICO.
com or by clicking the “Espanol” tab in the top right corner of the myFICO.com home page.
New CEO sees little change at RIM
TORONTO - The new chief executive officer of Research In Motion said Monday that drastic change is not needed, after the weekend departure of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who stepped down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen.
But as Thorsten Heins takes over as CEO, the maker of the BlackBerry smart phone faces some of the most difficult challenges in its history.
The Canadian company turned the smart phone into a ubiquitous device that many couldn’t live without, but U.S. Blackberry users have moved on to flashier touchscreen phones such as Apple’s iPhone and various competing models that run Google’s Android software.
Research In Motion’s U.S. market share of smart phones declined from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011, according to market researcher NPD Group. The company still has 75 million active subscribers, but many analysts believe the company will lose market share internationally as it has in the U.S.
Heins, a little known chief operating officer who joined Research In Motion four years ago from Siemens AG, replaces the company’s founders after the company has lost tens of billions in market value.
Analysts: Fed won’t raise rates soon
WASHINGTON - Analysts said it could be quite a while before the Federal Reserve starts raising the interest rates it’s kept at record lows for three years.
Maybe not before 2014.
That’s the thinking of many economists as the Fed prepares this week to provide more explicit clues about how long short-term rates will likely stay near zero.
Starting when their policy meeting ends Wednesday, Fed members plan to forecast the direction of those rates four times a year. The clearer guidance will accompany the Fed’s usual quarterly predictions of growth, unemployment and inflation.
The new hints about rates are part of a Fed drive to make its communications with the public more transparent. The more immediate goal is to assure consumers and investors that they’ll be able to borrow cheaply well into the future.
No announcements are expected Wednesday of any further Fed action to try to lift the economy.
Business, Pages 24 on 01/24/2012