IN BRIEF

Debt downgraded for Golden Nugget hotels

Tilman Fertitta talked, but Wall Street didn't like what it heard.

Moody's Investors Service on Friday downgraded debt on the Golden Nugget hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and Laughlin.

The move came two days after Tilman Fertitta, president and chief executive officer of Golden Nugget parent company Landry's Restaurants Inc., released second-quarter financial reports that showed revenue in the company's gaming division was down more than 15 percent.

Moody's downgraded the debt, covering $545 million worth of upgrades and the addition of a yet-to-open hotel tower, incurred since Landry's took over in 2005.

"This (downgrade) is due to the company's persistently weak operating performance and increasing debt levels, which have resulted in deterioration in liquidity and debt protection measures," senior analyst Bill Fahy said in a statement.

Best Buy testing sales of discounted laptops

Best Buy Co., the world's largest electronics retailer, is testing sales of discounted laptops with Internet contracts as it expands higher-margin services to fend off Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and online outlets.

Customers at selected stores can buy laptops at lower prices if they sign up for two years of Internet service, Chief Executive Officer Brian Dunn said Thursday in Las Vegas. The chain has tested selling laptops, with contract, for nothing to $399, he said. Best Buy already sells mobile phones and notebook computers with plans from outside carriers such as AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. The retailer gets a commission.

NEW YORK

CIT Group sweetens buyback-offer terms

Small-business lender CIT Group Inc. said Friday it has sweetened some terms of a buyback offer for $1 billion of debt and repeated that it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if enough noteholders don't agree to it.

The New York-based financial company said in a regulatory filing that if the offer is successful it won't file for bankruptcy and will pursue a restructuring through other unspecified ways.

CIT Group, one of the nation's largest lenders to small and midsize businesses, has been scrambling to find new funding as it wrestles with liquidity pressure and maturing debt. The government had refused to save the company last week.

Earlier this week, major bondholders agreed to provide CIT with a $3 billion rescue loan, but it cautioned that the loan might not be enough to head off a cash squeeze.

WASHINGTON

Treasury secretary bids for protection agency

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that a new agency focused on protecting consumers is necessary because the mission is too scattered among regulators.

The administration's plan to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency has bumped up against opposition from Republicans, industry and federal regulators.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has argued that the Fed is best suited for the role. Monitoring risk and protecting consumers are "closely related, and thus entail both informational advantages and resource savings," Bernanke said in prepared testimony.

BRUSSELS

Microsoft will offer choice of Web browsers

Microsoft Corp. will offer computer users a choice of rival Web browsers to ward off new European Union antitrust fines, EU regulators and Microsoft said Friday.

Microsoft said its proposal, if accepted by the European Commission, would "fully address" antitrust worries over its browser and "would mark a big step forward in addressing a decade of legal issues."

The EU has charged the company with monopoly abuse for tying the Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system installed on most of the world's desktop computers.

It welcomed Microsoft's suggestions and said it will evaluate the proposal and seek ideas from other browser makers and computer companies before making a decision. If approved, the proposal could be legally binding for five years.

ATLANTA

Major airlines likely to cut capacity this fall

Airline passengers will see fewer nonstop flights, less convenient travel options and possibly higher ticket prices and fees in the coming months as major carriers make big capacity cuts this fall season for the second year in a row.

Earnings reports for the April-June quarter this week showed airlines are desperate to raise revenue as they head into their traditionally slow period.

Six of nine major U.S. airlines reported profits in the quarter, but sales were down for most thanks to weak demand and lower fares. For seven U.S. airlines and their regional affiliates, the June yield -- or average price a person pays to fly one mile -- was almost 19 percent lower than a year earlier, according to the Air Transport Association.

NEW YORK

Retail gasoline prices rising despite supplies

Retail gasoline prices are increasing around the country even though U.S. supplies have swelled for six weeks in a row.

Pump prices rose the final three days this week, including a half-cent Friday, to a new national average of $2.47 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of gasoline is still more than 20 cents cheaper than it was a month ago, and it's priced at a major discount to last year, when the national average was above $4.02.

SAN FRANCISCO

Palm's Pre will relink with Apple iTunes store

Palm's Pre smart phone just can't stay away from Apple's iTunes software.

Palm Inc. says the Pre can again connect to iTunes -- only a week after Apple Inc. shut it out. A software update delivered automatically to the phones re-enables the transfer of music, photos and video from iTunes to Pres, a Palm blog post made late Thursday shows.

The question now is how long the function will remain before Apple stops it again.

The $200 Pre launched in early June as a rival to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and became the first non-Apple device that could link directly to iTunes. Apple crippled that function with an iTunes update last week.

Palm's latest workaround is similar to the original trick it performed. When a Pre is connected to a computer through a USB port, the device gives out a hardware vendor code that Apple has been assigned by an industry standards group, the USB Implementers Forum. ITunes then recognizes the Pre as an Apple device and lets users transfer content to it.