IN BRIEF

ELY

Ely-Las Vegas flights seen to start in 2008

Nonstop flights between Ely and Las Vegas are expected to begin sometime this year, but first funding needs to be found to install security equipment at the rural Northern Nevada airport, a White Pine County official said.

Airport Manager Ron Williams said that until then, flights from Ely to Las Vegas will continue to stop at Cedar City, Utah, for mandatory security screening.

Great Lakes Airlines, of Cheyenne, Wyo., the new carrier coming to Ely, will begin offering nonstop flights between Ely and Las Vegas six days a week when the screening equipment is installed in the Ely terminal.

For now, Air Midwest, a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group, is providing service between Ely's Yelland Field and McCarran International Airport with the federally mandated stop at Cedar City, for security screening by the federal Transportation Security Administration.

DETROIT

Tata has top bid for Jaguar, Land Rover

An Indian carmaker that will unveil the world's cheapest car next week may soon produce two of the world's premier brands, too.

Ford Motor Co. named Tata Motors Ltd. the top bidder for its Jaguar and Land Rover brands Thursday and entered into "focused negotiations at a more detailed level," meaning Tata was named preferred bidder for the storied British automakers.

Ford executives have said they expect to sell the two British automakers early this year.

BOSTON

State Street raises earnings outlook

State Street Corp. cleaned house on Thursday after investments tied to subprime mortgages soured, but its shares surged to an all-time high as the trust bank raised earnings expectations amid booming business serving institutional investors.

Boston-based State Street set aside $618 million to cover expected legal fallout and other costs from investments that deteriorated over the summer, and replaced the head of the investment management unit that oversaw those bond funds. William Hunt resigned as chief executive of the State Street Global Advisors investment unit after three years and was replaced on an interim basis by Executive Vice President James Phalen.

However, State Street's increasingly bullish fourth-quarter earnings expectations sent shares to a split-adjusted record high. Shares rose $6.49, or 8.23 percent, Thursday to close at $85.37 after reaching as high as $86.46 earlier in the session.

LOS ANGELES

U.S. album sales drop for another year

U.S. album sales plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, as the beleaguered recording industry marked another weak year of sales despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, figures released Thursday show.

In all, 500.5 million albums were sold as compact discs, cassettes, LPs and other formats were purchased last year, down 15 percent from 2006's unit total, said Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks point-of-purchase sales.

The shortfall in album sales drops to 9.5 percent when sales of digital singles are counted as 10-track equivalent albums.

The number of digital tracks sold, meanwhile, jumped 45 percent to 844.2 million, compared with 588.2 million in 2006, with digital album sales accounting for 10 percent of total album purchases.

NEW YORK

Oil futures rise to record before slipping

Oil futures retreated from a record over $100 a barrel set Thursday after the government reported a larger-than-expected decline in crude oil inventories and an unexpected increase in heating oil supplies.

One day after oil prices briefly touched $100 for the first time, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude inventories fell by 4 million barrels last week, much more than the 1.7 million barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, had expected.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery fell 44 cents to settle at $99.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to $100.09, a trading record.

DETROIT

Accused spammer charged in Detroit

A man described as one of the nation's most prolific senders of spam e-mail was among 11 people accused in an indictment unsealed Thursday of defrauding people by manipulating Chinese stock prices.

Alan Ralsky, 52, of suburban West Bloomfield Township, made about $3 million through the scheme in summer 2005 alone, U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy said.

In a 41-count indictment, Ralsky and the other defendants were accused of sending tens of millions of e-mail messages to computers worldwide, trying to inflate prices for Chinese penny stocks. The defendants then sold the stocks at inflated prices, Murphy said.

The defendants used a variety of illegal methods "that evaded spam-blocking devices and tricked recipients into opening, and acting on, advertisements in the spam," Murphy said in a news release.

Spam is the sending of unwanted bulk e-mails touting goods and services.

Ralsky is considered to be one of the nation's most prolific spammers, sending tens of thousands of e-mails to Internet users every day, authorities said.

NEW YORK

Treasury prices mixed amid uncertainty

Treasury prices gave a mixed performance Thursday as investors tried to come to terms with an uncertain economic outlook for the new year.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 0.16 points to 102.81 with a yield of 3.90 percent, down from 3.91 percent late Wednesday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The 30-year long bond lost 0.06 points to 110.34 with a yield of 4.37 percent, up from 4.35 percent late Wednesday.