Inflation worries pressure stocks, which fall
NEW YORK (AP) - Investors concerned about inflation after a surprise jump in labor costs sent stocks skidding lower yesterday, with unfounded rumors of a terror threat compounding the selling. The decline came despite a drop in oil prices and positive employment news.

U.S. ambassador: Beef inquiry to end soon
TOKYO (AP) - The U.S. investigation into a veal shipment containing backbone that prompted Japan to close its market to American beef should be finished and presented to the Japanese government in about a week, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said today.

State avoids losing tax credit
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - Missouri businesses have avoided tax penalties because the state has successfully gone three months without borrowing from the federal government to pay out unemployment benefits.

Hurricanes deal ‘wild card’ to tax preparers
KANSAS CITY (AP) - Five months after Hurricane Katrina chased Yolonda Prevost from her New Orleans neighborhood to her sister’s place in Kansas City, she spends her days trying to get back home - searching for apartments and arranging for repairs to her drowned house.

Regulators allow test run for stinky fuel plant
SPRINGFIELD (AP) - State regulators are giving a Carthage plant that converts turkey waste into fuel oil two weeks to prove that new equipment will put an end to foul odors that prompted Gov. Matt Blunt to shut down the operation in December.

EPA late with study on small engines
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency missed a deadline yesterday for a study on regulating air pollution from lawn mowers and other small engines, raising concerns that emissions standards for the high-polluting engines, in California and nationally, could be further delayed.

Unemployment rate falls to 4.7
WASHINGTON (AP) - Employers stepped up hiring in January, boosting payrolls by 193,000 and lowering the nation’s unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, the lowest since July 2001.

Hooters tries luck off Las Vegas Strip with hotel-casino
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Hooters, the tongue-in-cheek eatery that parlayed spicy chicken wings and busty waitresses in skimpy outfits into an international restaurant chain, is opening its first casino and hotel a stone’s throw from the Las Vegas Strip.

Del Monte to stop Hawaii pineapple-growing
HONOLULU (AP) - After 90 years in the islands, Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. has said it will cease pineapple operations in Hawaii in a little more than two years.

Ex-General Re execs charged with conspiracy
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government charged three former executives at Berkshire Hathaway’s General Re insurance unit and a former American International Group executive with conspiring in an audacious fraud to burnish AIG’s finances for Wall Street.