Staff/Wire reports

RICHMOND, Va. - Consumer-electronics chain Circuit City Stores Inc. on Monday said it plans to close 19 stores by the end of the month as it struggles with falling sales.

The 19 stores, which include two in Indiana and two in northern Ohio, were closed Monday, but will reopen today for a close-out sale. The stores will be closed permanently Feb. 23.

The cost of the closings will lower earnings for the company's latest quarter by $35 million, Circuit City said.

Circuit City still plans to open 65 to 70 stores in the coming fiscal year. As of Nov. 30, it operated 623 stores.

Feds close search for more mad cow cases

WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department is ending its search for additional cases of mad cow disease even though officials have not found several animals suspected of having eaten the potentially infectious feed believed to have caused the only known U.S. case.

"Our investigation is now complete," Dr. Ron DeHaven, the department's chief veterinarian, said Monday. "We feel very confident the remaining animals, the ones we have not been able to positively identify, represent little risk."

Officials don't know what happened to 11 head of cattle among 25 that authorities say were most likely to have eaten the same feed. The likelihood of finding more cases "is pretty slim at this point," DeHaven said.

PeopleSoft again says no to Oracle offer

SAN FRANCISCO - Business software maker PeopleSoft Inc. rejected rival Oracle Corp.'s $26-per-share takeover bid Monday, maintaining a defiant stance likely to keep the bad blood boiling in a battle that started eight months ago.

PeopleSoft directors decided that Oracle's latest all-cash bid of $9.4 billion remains inadequate and might be blocked by antitrust regulators.

It's the third time PeopleSoft's board has spurned Oracle since the unsolicited bidding started at $16 per share in early June.

Embraer introduces 100-seat jet to market

SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil - Betting that airlines will continue their aggressive cost-cutting drive, Embraer SA inaugurated a new mid-sized jet Monday aimed at grabbing a market share now served by larger planes that frequently cost carriers more money to fly.

The 100-seat Embraer 190, developed by the world's fourth-largest jetmaker for $850 million, was doused with champagne by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva while an orchestra played.

The first delivery of the $30 million jet is to go next year to low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways Corp., which has ordered 100 of the planes to help it expand its U.S. presence in the Midwestern and the mid-Atlantic states.

Three-month T-bill rate is unchanged

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities were mixed in Monday's auction.

The Treasury Department sold $19 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.920 percent, unchanged from the previous week. An additional $17 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 0.990 percent, down from 1.000 percent.

In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year constant maturity Treasury bills, the most popular index for adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 1.28 percent last week from 1.25 percent the previous week.

Purchase expands Juniper's market

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Juniper Networks Inc., a rival of networking gear giant Cisco Systems Inc., is buying security technology company NetScreen Technologies Inc. for about $3.5 billion in stock.

The deal, announced Monday, expands Juniper's product portfolio so that it can better compete for business from service providers, government agencies and enterprises, analysts said.

Juniper reported last month that its quarterly sales surpassed $200 million for the first time since September 2001. Its fourth-quarter profit was $14.7 million on sales of $207 million.

NetScreen, founded in 1997, sells firewall and virtual-private-networking technology for large corporations and carriers.

Franklin warns of potential SEC action

WASHINGTON - Franklin Resources Inc., the parent of Franklin Templeton Investments, Monday said that the Securities and Exchange Commission intends to recommend charging the company and two unnamed executives over mutual fund trading practices.

Last week, Massachusetts regulators charged the mutual-fund company with civil fraud, alleging it let a Las Vegas businessman make $45 million worth of improper mutual fund trades.