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Business

• Exxon Mobil posts lowest annual profit since ’02

  EW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil’s earnings were cut by more than half to $19.3 billion in 2009, the lowest total in seven years, as company refineries struggled with a plunge in fuel consumption around the world.

  But the world’s largest publicly traded oil company remains the profit champ among U.S. public companies. Wal-Mart is expected to earn $14 billion for the year ended Jan. 31, and Microsoft earned $14.6 billion in the fiscal year ended in June 2009.

  Exxon’s results have swung with the price of oil and the impact of the global recession. When oil spiked above $147 a barrel in mid-2008, Exxon set ever-higher marks for earnings by a U.S. company. Then oil prices plummeted, and Exxon suffered a yearlong hangover that included its smallest quarterly earnings in several years.

  February 1, 2010

• Toyota tells dealers parts on way to fix pedals

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday its dealers should get parts to fix a sticky gas pedal problem by the end of this week as the automaker apologized to customers and tried to bring an end to a recall that has affected 4.2 million vehicles worldwide.

  The company said in a statement that it has begun shipping parts and is training dealers on the repairs. Some dealers will stay open around the clock to fix the 2.3 million cars and trucks affected by the recall in the U.S.

  Technical bulletins on how to install the new parts should arrive at dealers by midweek, the company told dealers in an e-mail. It was not clear exactly when repairs would start, although dealers have said they’ll begin as soon as possible.

  The automaker also said Monday it would suspend production of eight U.S. models affected by the recall this week, with factories restarting on Feb. 8.

  February 1, 2010

• Apple introduces new $499 iPad tablet computer

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company’s much-anticipated iPad tablet computer Wednesday, calling it a new third category of mobile device that is neither smart phone nor laptop, but something in between.

  The iPad will start at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting. But Apple must still persuade recession-weary consumers who already have other devices to open their wallets yet again. Apple plans to begin selling the iPad in two months.

  Jobs said the device would be useful for reading books, playing games or watching video, describing it as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.”

  January 28, 2010

• Dealers swamped by worried Toyota drivers

  NEW YORK (AP) — Toyota dealers across the country were swamped with calls Wednesday from concerned drivers but had few answers a day after the company announced it would stop selling and building eight models because of faulty gas pedals.

  Toyota insisted the problem — sudden, uncontrolled acceleration — was “rare and infrequent” and said dealers should deal with customers “on a case-by-case basis.” But drivers of Toyotas and those who share the road with them were left with uncertainty.

  In an unprecedented move, the company said late Tuesday it would halt sales for the eight models — which make up more than half of Toyota’s U.S. sales volume — to fix the gas pedals. Last week, Toyota issued a recall for the same eight models, affecting 2.3 million vehicles.

  A private firm said it had identified 275 crashes and 18 deaths because of sudden, uncontrollable acceleration in Toyotas since 1999.

  In North Palm Beach, Fla., Clare Roden showed up at a Toyota dealership worried about the 2010 Camry she purchased recently. She was relieved when she was told her accelerator was not a problem part.

  January 28, 2010

• Apple unveils $499 tablet, $629 with AT&T data

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple Inc. will sell the newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting.

  The iPad, which is larger in size but similar in design to Apple’s popular iPhone, was billed by CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday as “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone.”

  January 27, 2010

• Toyota U.S. sales halt deals blow to image, earnings

  NEW YORK (AP) — Toyota’s suspension of U.S. sales on an unprecedented scale to fix faulty gas pedals deals a blow to the automaker’s reputation for quality and endangers its fledgling earnings recovery.

  The suspect parts are made by a U.S. supplier, but they are also found in its European-made vehicles, an official with the automaker said Wednesday. Toyota said it hasn’t decided what to do there.

  Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. announced late Tuesday it would halt sales of some of its top-selling models to fix gas pedals that could stick and cause unintended acceleration. Last week, Toyota issued a recall for the same eight models affecting 2.3 million vehicles.

  Toyota is also suspending production at six North American car-assembly plants beginning the week of Feb. 1. It gave no date on when production could restart.

  January 27, 2010

• Halliburton asks high court to block trial

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Halliburton Co. is asking the Supreme Court to block a Texas woman’s lawsuit alleging she was raped by military contractor co-workers in Iraq.

  The company wants the justices to reverse a lower court ruling that Jamie Leigh Jones’ case can go to trial. Jones sued Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR, saying she was raped while working for KBR at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005.

  The trial is set to begin in February 2011.

  January 25, 2010

• Wal-Mart cuts about 11,200 Sam’s Club staffers

  NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.

  The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club and comes on top of a decision to close 10 underperforming warehouse locations, which cost 1,500 jobs.

  The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit new members.

  Employees were told the news at mandatory meetings on Sunday morning.

  January 25, 2010

• Entrepreneur seeks algae-to-fuel conversion key

  BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — And God said, “Let there be light: and there was light,” according to the Book of Genesis, although He might have added, “especially in South Texas.”

  The Lower Rio Grande Valley is sunshine-rich, a major factor behind Brad Bartilson’s decision to relocate to Brownsville from New Jersey. Bartilson is not working on his tan. He’s president and CEO of Photon8, a start-up company researching economically feasible methods for turning algae into biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuel. For algae to produce the oily “lipids” required for biodiesel, it’s got to be bombarded by sunlight — lots of it.

  “From a photonic standpoint, New Jersey had 30 percent less photons per square meter falling than here,” Bartilson says.

  January 25, 2010

• Report: $997M in highway funds don’t help traffic

  FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Nearly $1 billion in transportation funds have been used over the past 18 years on Texas projects that had little to do with improving traffic flow, a newspaper reported Sunday.

  A Fort Worth Star-Telegram analysis of state and federal records found that $997 million worth of work in Texas has fallen under a federal transportation enhancement program that started in 1991.

  The spending includes $42.7 million for the first phase of a 5-acre park being built on top of a freeway in downtown Dallas and $16.1 million to restore the Battleship Texas in the southeast Texas town of La Porte.

  The newspaper reported that state legislators often require the Texas Department of Transportation to fund pet projects through last-minute additions to the department’s appropriations.

  January 25, 2010

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