NEW YORK — Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who lost out in Chrysler's 1998 merger with Daimler-Benz, wants to buy the troubled automaker back from its now-unhappy German owners.

Kerkorian's wholly-owned investment company, Tracinda Corp., on Thursday made a $4.5 billion cash offer for DaimlerChrysler AG's U.S.-based Chrysler unit.

A deal would put Kerkorian in charge of Chrysler a decade after he claims he was tricked out of potentially billions of dollars in the 1998 deal in which Germany's Daimler-Benz joined with Chrysler in the so-called "merger of equals."

Long an active investor in automakers, the 89-year-old former movie mogul once offered $22.8 billion for Chrysler in an unsuccessful 1995 takeover bid.

The offer disclosed Thursday from Tracinda is slightly lower than at least one competing bid from Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc., worth a reported $4.7 billion.

ANTI-ROLLOVER TECHNOLOGY TO BE REQUIRED BY 2012

NEW YORK — The government said Thursday it would require all new passenger vehicles to have anti-rollover technology by the 2012 model year, predicting it could save thousands of lives and dramatically reduce rollover crashes.

The Transportation Department said "electronic stability control" could prevent between 5,300 and 9,600 deaths annually and up to 238,000 injuries a year once it is fully deployed into the nation's fleet.

The technology could help motorists avoid skidding across icy or slick roads or maintain control of their car when swerving to avoid an unexpected object in the middle of the road.

Electronic stability control senses when a driver may lose control of the vehicle and automatically applies brakes to individual wheels to help stabilize it and avoid a rollover.

Many vehicles, including sport utility vehicles, already have the technology, and several automakers have outlined plans to make it a standard feature.

SHAREHOLDER ADVISORY FIRM URGES HOLD ON VOTES

NEW YORK — A major shareholder advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, is urging investors to withhold their votes for four directors at The New York Times Co. as a way to push for corporate governance changes.

The ISS report published Wednesday comes amid a campaign from a longtime shareholder, a Morgan Stanley investment fund, to roll back the dual-class share structure which allows the Sulzberger family to maintain control.

ISS recommends separating the chairman and publisher roles, which are both currently held by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., as well as establishing key committees on the board that would be made up solely of directors elected by holders of the company's publicly traded Class A shares.

The Class B shares, which are controlled by the Sulzberger family, have the right to elect nine of the company's 13 directors.

QWEST FOUNDER TESTIFIES ON EXECUTIVE'S BEHALF

DENVER — During the period when former Qwest Communications chief executive Joe Nacchio was accused of illegally selling stock, he wanted to resign from the company because one of his son's attempted suicide, Qwest founder Phil Anschutz testified Thursday.

The publicity-shy Denver billionaire, who hired Nacchio to turn Qwest into a major telecommunications company, said Nacchio took time off but soon returned to work.

The judge agreed earlier Thursday to permit Anschutz's testimony, which is designed to give jurors an idea of Nacchio's state of mind at the time of the $101 million in stock sales that are the subject of the 42 insider trading counts against him.

Defense attorney John Richilano told U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham that Nacchio could have walked away without exercising stock options coming due that year.

CLAIMS FOR JOBLESS BENEFITS RISE

WASHINGTON — Newly laid-off workers signed up for unemployment benefits at a faster pace last week as companies try to cope with sluggish growth in the national economy.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 11,000, to 321,000, for the work week ending March 31.

Although the increase left jobless claims at their highest level since the beginning of March, the report suggested that the labor market is holding up fairly well to strains from the troubled housing market and struggles faced by the automotive industry and other manufacturers.

On Wall Street, stocks rose. The Dow Jones industrials gained 30.15 points to close at 12,560.20.

The showing on new jobless claims filings last week was in line with analysts' expectations. They were forecasting claims to total around 320,000.

EU PUSHING FOR MICROSOFT INFO AT NO COST

BRUSSELS, Belgium — European Union regulators want Microsoft Corp. to give rivals access — at little or no cost — to information that would help their products work better with Windows, according to a published report Thursday. But the software maker says its current charges are fair and the EU has not provided clear guidance on what fair pricing would be.

The Financial Times cited a confidential document the commission sent to Microsoft on March 1 and said the EU was asking the company to set little or no license fee for information it must share with rivals as part of a March 2004 antitrust order. The software information must allow competitors to produce server software that works smoothly with Windows.

The newspaper quoted a statement from Neil Barrett, the computer science professor monitoring Microsoft's compliance, arguing that even a 1 percent royalty rate would be unacceptable to licensees and no fee would be better.

HARRAH'S SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE CASINO BUYOUT

LAS VEGAS — Harrah's Entertainment Inc. shareholders approved a $17.1 billion buyout Thursday by two private equity groups in the largest deal ever to take a publicly held casino company private, officials said.

Harrah announced that shareholders controlling 66 percent of outstanding stock approved the transaction.

The deal still requires approval from gambling regulators in more than a dozen states and several tribal nations where Harrah's operates, said Frank Schreck, a Las Vegas lawyer who represents the company in regulatory matters.