News and Finance

Scheduled airlines seats to Hawaii are expected to drop 11.2 percent.
According to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, 2.3 million seats are scheduled on nonstop flights to Hawaii from July through September.
U.S. Mainland flights are expected to decrease 11.2 percent to 1.6 million, led by a nearly […]

AniBoom.com, an Internet home for animators to create and share their work, has raised an additional $10 million in funding led by venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Other investors in its second round of financing, due to be announced on Friday, include Israel’s DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures and existing stakeholder Evergreen Venture Partners, which […]

South Korea's economy is slowing at the worst possible time for President Lee Myung Bak.
The softening comes amid a slump in Lee's popularity as consumers protest U.S. beef imports and higher oil costs. Already, plans to sell state-owned companies and cut red tape to spur business investment have been delayed.
Growth will slow […]

Asian economies are in store for a “bleak time'' in the next 18 months as surging inflation erodes corporate earnings, Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd. said.
“The majority of companies are facing rising costs: rising property costs, rising wage costs, rising raw material or energy costs,'' said Aberdeen's Hugh Young, who helps manage $47.8 […]

The manufacturing sector in the Philadelphia area - a bellwether for the rest of the nation - showed continued weakness in June as businesses struggle with rising prices for raw materials, according to a report released Thursday.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s June Business Outlook Survey index weakened to minus 17.1 from minus 15.6 […]

President George Bush, saying the United States "must produce more oil," called Wednesday for a lifting of the ban on offshore drilling.
"Congress must face a hard reality," Bush said. "Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today’s painful prices or even higher, our nation must produce more oil, and we must start […]

Malaysia's inflation accelerated to a 22-month high on rising food and transport costs, stoking speculation the central bank will increase interest rates.
Consumer prices rose 3.8 percent in May from a year earlier, after a 3 percent gain in April, Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad told reporters today in Putrajaya, […]

Embattled mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage reported a $3.31 billion loss for the first quarter, and said loan delinquencies are likely to continue to increase "modestly" for the rest of the year.
Before paying preferred dividends, Santa Fe, N.M.-based Thornburg Mortgage Inc. lost $3.31 billion, or $20.64 per share, for the quarter ended March 31. That […]

Americans took 10.3 billion trips on public transportation last year, marking the highest ridership level since 1957, according to a new study.
The rate of ridership continued to climb at a quarterly rate of 3.3% through the first three months of 2008 to 2.6 billion, according to research from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). […]

Senate Republicans blocked a proposal Tuesday to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address America’s anger over $4 a gallon gasoline.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies and […]