BROADCAST

INTEL URGES FREEING UP TV AIRWAVES FOR WIRELESS NETWORKS

Intel urged American lawmakers to free up some vacant television airwaves to be converted for wireless networks. An Intel executive, Kevin Kahn, testified yesterday in Washington to support two Senate bills that would allow TV spectrum to be used to increase wireless high-speed Internet services. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is among technology companies pushing for access to the unused TV airwaves, known as white spaces. Intel, Microsoft, and Dell are pitting themselves against broadcast networks such as CBS and ABC.Their efforts to lobby for the bills step up pressure on Congress and push the Federal Communications Commission to implement a rule that former Chairman Michael Powell proposed in May 2004.

– Bloomberg News

RETAIL

WAL-MART HAS MOST EMPLOYEES ON STATE HEALTH PLANS IN 19 STATES

Wal-Mart Stores has more workers and dependents using state-funded health coverage than any other employer in 19 of 23 states where figures were available, according to a study compiled by a labor federation released yesterday. The report comes amid a union campaign for legislation in several states that would require the world’s largest retailer to pay a fixed amount for employee health coverage. Wal-Mart said it has made its coverage more accessible and that rising health care costs need to be addressed nationally. The study was released by the AFL-CIO.

– Associated Press

TELEVISION

‘SOPRANOS’ PREMIERE DRAWS SMALLER AUDIENCE THAN 2004 OPENING

“The Sopranos” season premiere on Sunday drew a smaller audience than the series’ last opening night, in 2004. Home Box Office’s television show about a fictional crime family attracted 9.47 million viewers, data released yesterday by Nielsen Media Research show.

– Bloomberg News

DEPARTMENT STORES

FEDERATED TO PAY $725,000 IN SETTLEMENT WITH SPITZER

The New York State attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said yesterday that Federated Department Stores will pay $725,000 in civil penalties and other costs to resolve a probe into allegedly misleading advertising practices and phony sales promotions.

– Dow Jones Newswires

IN THE COURTS

FORMER ENRON EMPLOYEE BOLSTERS FASTOW’S TESTIMONY

A former Enron employee offered some indirect support to claims by the government’s star witness that former company president Jeffrey Skilling had been involved in secret deals to manipulate the onetime energy giant’s financial statements.

Christopher Loehr testified that, while employed by Enron, starting in 1999, he had done most of his work on behalf of two outside partnerships, known as LJM1 and LJM2, which were being run by the company’s then-chief financial officer,Andrew Fastow. Those partnerships did hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions with Enron, the government contends. What made the deals illegal in large part were secret promises that Fastow received from Mr. Skilling that the LJM partnerships wouldn’t lose any money. Mr. Loehr said that “at least a dozen times” Fastow told him that Enron had promised LJM wouldn’t lose money on the transactions. He said Fastow never said Mr. Skilling made that alleged guarantee. “I understood that it was a senior executive” who had made the promise, Mr. Loehr testified.

– Dow Jones Newswires