IN BRIEF
DALLAS
Regulators investigate airline over repairs
Federal regulators are investigating American Airlines over structural repairs to its aging fleet of MD-80 series aircraft.
A Federal Aviation Administration official said Friday that the investigation centered on 16 planes.
The Wall Street Journal reported FAA officials suspect American rushed to retire one of the planes to keep it away from inspectors.
A spokesman for American denied the accusation.
FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford declined to say whether inspectors believed the airline had tried to hide the plane or whether they had examined it in the New Mexico desert, where it is now parked.
Lunsford said the investigation centered on repairs to the rear bulkhead of the MD-80 series aircraft. As of May, American had 270 MD-80 series jets, or 44 percent of its fleet, according to the company's Web site.
INDIANAPOLIS
Officials want Chrysler case objections reheard
Indiana officials are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider hearing their objections to the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings that resulted in the sale of the bulk of the automaker's assets to Italy's Fiat.
The Supreme Court in June rejected an appeal by a trio of Indiana pension and construction funds to block the automaker's sale. The court at that time did not consider the merits of the opponents' arguments, only whether to hear their full-blown appeal.
Indiana officials claim the sale unfairly favored Chrysler's unsecured stakeholders such as the United Auto Workers ahead of secured debtholders like the pension funds.
SAN FRANCISCO
Lost Orwell books net deal for Kindle users
Amazon.com Inc. is offering free books or $30 to Kindle customers whose copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" were deleted from their electronic reading devices in July.
When Amazon erased the books from Kindles, citing a problem with the rights to the books, the company issued refunds to the buyers.
In an e-mail sent Thursday to Kindle owners whose books were erased, Amazon offered to redeliver the titles to their e-readers for free, along with any annotations users had made. Or the customers can get a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $30 check -- which could be worth much more than two Kindle books, because many of them cost $10 or less.
NEW YORK
Regulator shut down three more banks
Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Missouri, Illinois and Iowa, pushing to 87 the number of banks that have failed this year under the weight of the soured economy and rising loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over three banks: First Bank of Kansas City, based in Kansas City, Mo., with $16 million in assets and $15 million in deposits; Oak Forest, Ill.-based InBank, with $212 million in assets and $199 million in deposits; and Sioux City, Iowa-based Vantus Bank with $458 million in assets and $368 million in deposits.
The FDIC said First Bank of Kansas City's deposits will be assumed by Great American Bank based in De Soto, Kan.
Nearly all of InBank's deposits will be assumed by MB Financial Bank in Chicago.
Vantus Bank's deposits will be assumed by Great Southern Bank in Springfield Mo.
