Business briefs

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Delta, pilots may avert strike

CINCINNATI — The chairman of Delta Air Lines' pilots union said nearly two years of contract negotiations should end with a couple more days of talks.

Chuck Giambusso told The Cincinnati Enquirer in a story published yesterday that the two sides are "48 hours ... two long, hard days of negotiation away from an agreement."

Delta chairman and chief executive Leo Mullin told reporters last week that he was confident a contract could be reached without a strike, which could come as early as 12:01 a.m. April 29.

That's the end of a 30-day cooling off period which was called after the pilots union rejected binding federal arbitration. If no agreement is reached by then and the National Mediation Board doesn't recommend that President Bush intervene, the pilots could walk out, shutting down the airline.

Yahoo! hurt by advertising drop

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Yahoo! Inc., owner of the most-used Web site for searching the Internet, is expected to report a first-quarter loss on Wednesday because sales of advertising declined.

Advertisers have reduced their spending as the U.S. economy has slowed, cutting growth at media companies including Yahoo, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. The decline in the shares of Internet companies also has reduced Yahoo's sales. Many of its advertisers were dot-coms, some of which are now short of cash or out of business, analysts said.

Animal disease dominates talks

OESTERSUND, Sweden — European Union agriculture ministers started three days of talks yesterday with a debate on how to make food safer, but worries over foot-and-mouth disease followed them to their Swedish lakeside retreat.

Tensions over the disease continue to mount in some countries, and on Saturday about 200 farmers angry about the precautionary slaughtering of animals, clashed with police in Kootwijkerbroek, Netherlands. One man was arrested after he tried to run over a policeman with a bulldozer, said a town official.

Gas prices up nationwide

CAMARILLO, Calif. — Gas prices at the pump shot up 7 cents in the past two weeks, the first such increase since early January, an oil industry analyst said yesterday.

The average price of gasoline was about $1.54 a gallon, up 7.1 cents from March 23, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide.