BUSINESS BRIEFS
Wal-Mart drops claim for $400K
Advertiser news services
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is dropping a controversial effort to collect more than $400,000 in healthcare reimbursement from a former employee who is confined to a southeast Missouri nursing home since she suffered brain damage in a traffic accident.
The world's largest retailer said yesterday in a letter to the family of Deborah Shank that it will not seek to collect money the Shanks won in an injury lawsuit against a trucking company for the accident.
Pat Curran, executive vice president for human resources at Wal-Mart Stores U.S., wrote that Shank's extraordinary situation had made the company re-examine its stance.
Deborah's husband, Jim, welcomed the news. Family lawyer Maurice Graham of St. Louis said Wal-Mart deserves credit for doing the right thing.
OIL EXECS DEFEND THEIR BIG PROFITS
WASHINGTON — Don't blame us, oil industry chiefs told a skeptical Congress.
Top executives of the country's five biggest oil companies said yesterday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and said their huge profits are in line with other industries.
Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump.
While Democrats hammered the executives for their profits and demanded they do more to develop alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels, Republican lawmakers called for opening more areas for drilling to boost domestic production of oil and gas.
TRUCKERS PROTEST HIGH FUEL COSTS
TRENTON, N.J. — Independent truckers around the country pulled their rigs off the road and others slowed to a crawl on major highways in a loosely organized protest of high fuel prices.
Some truckers, on CB radios and trucking Web sites, had called for a strike yesterday to protest the high cost of diesel fuel, saying the action might pressure President Bush to stabilize prices by using the nation's oil reserves. But the protests were scattered because major trucking companies were not on board and there did not appear to be any central coordination.
ONSTAR PARTNERS WITH MAPQUEST
DETROIT — Ever wish you could just send those online driving directions straight to your vehicle instead of having to keep track of your printout or figuring out where you wrote them down?
If you own a General Motors Corp. vehicle equipped with OnStar turn-by-turn capability, you'll soon be able to do that.
OnStar plans to announce today a partnership with MapQuest that allows customers to send routes to their vehicles.
In addition, the in-car navigation and safety system also announced a new option that will allow OnStar customers with screen-based navigation systems to download their directions straight to the map screen if they choose.
Until now, OnStar turn-by-turn directions were available only as written directions in the instrument panel or on the radio display. They are also broadcast over speakers in the vehicle.
SAMSUNG INSTINCT TO RIVAL IPHONE
WASHINGTON — Sprint Nextel Corp. yesterday unveiled what could be the strongest challenger yet to the popular Apple iPhone.
The new Samsung Instinct, available from Sprint in June, looks somewhat like an iPhone and is supposed to function in a similar way. It's a touchscreen device with a virtual keyboard, capable of surfing the Web, taking photos and playing music and video.
Sprint did not say how much the phone would cost, but customers would have to sign up for a plan that costs $69 a month, which includes unlimited text messaging and Internet access.
