Timken, union try to save jobs

CANTON, Ohio - Timken Co. and the steelworkers union have agreed to discuss the possibility of renegotiating its labor agreement to try to save jobs.

The Canton-based steel and bearings maker said May 14 that it planned to close three Canton area bearings plants over the next three years. A shutdown would eliminate 1,150 union jobs and 170 salaried positions, about a third of the company's local work force.

The company and union said they would focus on bargaining a new contract that could lead to lower labor costs, which is what the company has said it needed.

Russian gas firm invests $1B in field

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - Russia's Lukoil signed a 35-year deal Wednesday to invest $1 billion on a gas field in Uzbekistan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the gas monopoly giant Gazprom was pursuing similar plans in the Central Asian nation's energy sector.

Russia has sought to reassert its influence across Central Asia through deals with the former Soviet republics and its state-affiliated energy powerhouses, including Gazprom.

Stewart ink expert pleads not guilty

NEW YORK - Secret Service ink expert Larry Stewart pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges that he lied on the witness stand while testifying for the government at the Martha Stewart trial.

A federal judge set a Sept. 20 trial date for Larry Stewart, who was indicted earlier this month on two counts of perjury.

Martha Stewart and former stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, both convicted in March of lying about a stock sale, have asked for a new trial based on the charges.

Low-cost carrier takes to the skies

CHANTILLY, Va. - Independence Air, the nation's newest discount airline, welcomed its first paying customers Wednesday, launching a modest schedule of flights serving five cities out of the airline's base at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Newark, N.J., and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., are the first cities served by the airline, with one-way fares starting at $49. New destinations will be added beginning next week, said spokesman Rick DeLisi.

Independence hopes to appeal to travelers who are unable to meet advance reservation requirements for other carriers' discount fares.

"I needed a quick flight, and it was either $400 or $70, this was an easy choice," said Mike Lillis, 30, of Leesburg, Va., who was bound for Chicago.

Akamai: Net crash impact minimal

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A purported Internet attack that affected some of the world's most popular Web sites was "large scale" and "sophisticated" yet had only minimal impact, according to the targeted company.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which aims to make Internet browsing more reliable, said Wednesday that no more than a dozen of its 1,100 customers suffered a significant impact. Akamai defined "significant" as traffic being slowed for more than 20 percent of a site's users.

The company did not name the sites, though third-party monitoring services and user reports have identified them as big Internet destinations, including sites belonging to Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Symantec Corp., FedEx Corp., Apple Computer Inc., AltaVista and Lycos.

Akamai spokesman Jeff Young said Tuesday the incident was a "large scale, international attack on Internet infrastructure." But it appears only to have affected the company's systems. No other companies confirmed the claim that the Internet's infrastructure was targeted.

Goodyear delays 1st-quarter results

AKRON - Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. postponed Wednesday's release of its first-quarter financial statements and instead issued a summary projecting record first-quarter sales of about $4.3 billion and a sharply narrowed loss of $75 million to $85 million.

Goodyear had sales of $3.5 billion and a loss of $196.5 million in the first quarter of 2003.

The tire maker said it needs more time to complete its financials statements and expects to release them by June 30 as required by creditors.