"Some of the seals [used by lenders] looked very similar to those of the federal government," said Alex Detrick, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

The distinction is important because federal loans have fixed interest rates that are often lower than private loans.

The student loan companies also misled consumers at times about the best loan options on the market, he said.

This group of direct-to-student lenders sends advertising material by mail or market to students online, but does not necessarily have a presence on campus. Students are sometimes offered iPods or gift cards as an incentive to sign up, Detrick said.

The attorney general’s office is also preparing to sue student lender Goal Financial LLC for deceptive practices, Detrick said. Unlike the lenders currently negotiating settlements, Detrick said Goal Financial did not signal a willingness to reform its practices. He did not know how many, if any, of the companies would reach a settlement.

Calls to Goal Financial’s headquarters in San Diego went to voicemail Friday and were not immediately returned. The company’s attorney, Lewis Rose of Kelley Drye & Warren, did not return requests for comment.

Goal Financial was the sixth largest lender of consolidated student loans in the country in 2006, according to Student Marketmeasure, which tracks the student loan industry. Goal Financial made 111,426 loans worth $2.5 billion that year, according to the group.

The attorney general’s office sent a letter to Goal Financial in July notifying the company of its intent to sue.

The letter said Goal Financial enlisted students to promote loans on campus and offered incentives for students who secured applicants.

The letter also said Goal Financial’s advertising materials gave misleading examples of monthly payment amounts and annual savings.

In addition, the company referred students to a comparison Web site, www.eStudentLoan.com, which is operated by a Goal subsidiary, according to the letter. The site does not disclose that it only lists lenders that pay Goal Financial a fee, Detrick said.

Last year, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office helped bring about reforms in the student lending industry when he investigated deals that gave colleges "kickbacks" in exchange for being listed as a preferred lender.

At least 22 schools agreed to adopt codes of conduct with regard to their financial relationships with lenders as a result of the investigation. Several of the lenders targeted in that investigation, including Sallie Mae (SLM, Fortune 500), formally SLM Corp., and Citibank, a unit of Citigroup Inc. (C, Fortune 500), agreed to reforms and to pay a combined $6.5 million into a national fund to educate families and students about loans.

The attorney general’s office is now investigating other possible conflicts of interest on college campuses - including deals with credit card, textbook and catering companies, Detrick said. 

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JetBlue (JBLU) flights arrived on-time 64.7% of the time in August, FlightStats said on Wednesday. This was the worst percentage among the leading airlines.

Only one carrier had a worse record: Freedom Airlines, a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group (MESA), with an on-time arrival rate of 58.1%

Northwest Airlines (NWA, Fortune 500) was the top-performer among the leading carriers, with an on-time arrival record of 85.3% in August, FlightStats said. Four regional carriers had a better rate, with Hawaiian Airlines taking the lead with an on-time arrival record of 91%.

The industry average for being on-time was 77.3%, according to FlightStats.

Among airports in North America, FlightStats found that Salt Lake City International was the most efficient, with an on-time arrival rate of 87.3% in August. Detroit Metro was second-best, with a success rate of 86.4%

Three of the bottom four airports in terms of on-time arrivals were in the New York City area, according to the research group.

John F. Kennedy International came in dead last, with an on-time arrival rate of 55.2%. Newark Liberty International, with an on-time rate of 64.2%, and LaGuardia Airport, at 64.5%, were the third and fourth worst airports for timely arrivals. Miami International was the second worst, with 64% of flights arriving on time in August.

The on-time average for North American airports was 76.5%.

The Department of Transportation released similar findings on Wednesday for the month of July, pointing to the New York-area airports and JetBlue as having some of the worst rates for on-time flights.

New York City is a major hub for JetBlue, which is preparing to open a new terminal at JFK. When asked about the DOT report, JetBlue spokesman said the reliance on New York was part of the airline’s problem in terms of delays, but said that JetBlue has made improvements.

Pasquale DiFulco, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said his agency had made numerous requests to the Federal Aviation Authority and the DOT to alleviate the severely congested New York-area airports by adding capacity. 

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The Austin nonprofit says it was forced to make cut the seven employees because of the slumping economy’s effect on its budget.

“We are tightening our budget belt on the operations side to avoid impacting our agency grant commitments,” says David Balch, president of United Way Capital Area. “We greatly regret the loss of valuable staff and thank them for being part of our family here, and will do all that we can to assist our colleagues in finding other positions.”

The nonprofit says it’s offering severance pay and associated benefits to the employees that have been laid off.

United Way also said Friday that its grants for upcoming 2008-2009 fiscal year will total $3.9 million to 36 Central Texas nonprofits, up from $3.4 million this year. The group says it wants to “assure the community that our proposed investment … is paramount.”

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Everything is being sold at Saturday’s auction at the gym at 768 South St. in Honolulu— from treadmills and stairsteppers to free weights and circuit machines, according to auctioneer Joe Teipel.

Teipel said memorabilia includes pieces from the original Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, Calif., and items with the distinctive Gold’s logo.

Teipel will hold auction previews on Friday and Saturday mornings; the auction begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Gold’s Gym International announced last month that it would close the popular gym at the end of August. Approximately 1,500 active memberships were transferred to the Powerhouse Gym at 432 Keawe St. in Kakaako.

The gym has donated some of its equipment to local high schools, which also will be the beneficiary of any unsold items.

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The University of South Florida, Nova Southeastern University, DeVry University, Walden University, the University of Phoenix and other educational institutions will provide information about admission to graduate programs, financing a masters in business administration and scholarships.

The expo’s diversity partners include the National Black MBA Association, the Association of Professional Latinos in Financing and Accounting, Hispanic Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs, Tampa Bay Higher Education Alliance, CENTRO, National Association of African-Americans in Human Resources and Jobing.com.

The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Carrollwood Cultural Center in Tampa.

The National Society of Hispanic MBAs has 32 chapters and more than 7,000 members in the United States and Puerto Rico. Its mission is “to foster Hispanic leadership through graduate management education and professional development,” said a release.

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Atkinson most recently was director of sales.

“Paul has helped grow Southend Building Products into the company that I envisioned when I started it in 2001,” Dellinger says. He notes the company’s sales in the first half of the year were up 27 percent from a year earlier. The business declines to disclose revenue figures.

Atkinson will continue to lead the company’s sales operations.

Southend Building specializes in reclaimed and green building materials. The company focuses on finding old mills and factories and extracting building materials for resale. The products it sells include lumber, flooring and antique bricks. Southend Building, based at 2130 S. Tryon St., has 10 employees.

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In an open letter to grocer Darrell Corti and residents of East Sacramento, Good Eats partners Michael Teel — the former chief executive of the Raley's Inc. grocery chain — and Michael Ashker said they reached the decision after meeting with Corti last Friday.

"We have always held Mr. Corti and Corti Brothers in highest regard and our intention remains to find ways to work together with Darrell Corti," the letter states.

The partners said the possibility of opening their own store at the Corti site at 5810 Folsom Boulevard began when approached by a real estate broker last October about leasing there and were told that Corti Brothers would not be renewing its lease. Negotiations began in earnest in April after the landlord confirmed that Corti wasn’t renewing, they said. They signed a lease agreement in July.

Corti, president of Corti Brothers, has said that he learned without warning in early July that he had lost the month-to-month lease for the store. He said he planned to close the Folsom Boulevard location Sept. 30, but that the store was profitable and would seek a new location.

It's unclear, however, whether the decision by Ashker and Teel means the Good Eats deal for that site is dead or on hold.

A separate Good Eats kitchen is opening at Folsom Boulevard and Seville Way, the partners stated.

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• The industry with the biggest job loss was construction, down 8.3 percent in 2007. The biggest gainers were services such as personal services and health care.

• Unemployment was 4.1 percent in 2007, up from 3.2 percent in 2006.

• Hispanics, and men, were the groups that saw the largest increases in unemployment in 2007.

• Underemployment, including people who are not working enough hours and who are discouraged from looking for work, was 8 percent in 2007, but for African-Americans the figure was 11.3 percent and 10 percent for Hispanics.

• Fifteen percent of the unemployed have been without work for at least half a year.

• In the U.S. as a whole fewer people are in the labor force now than in 2000, before the last recession. However, in Florida, labor force participation has increased. The exception was African-Americans, who never recovered the labor force participation rates they had in 2000.

• Job growth, unemployment, and related statistics have worsened in 2008, so the current situation for workers is much worse than indicated by these annual figures for 2007. As of July 2008, Florida unemployment was 6.1 percent, which was 2 percent higher than a year earlier.

• Workers wages in Florida did not grow at all in 2007, and for the nation actually fell.

• Florida’s median wage, $14.70 per hour in 2007, fell from 27th place in the nation’s states in 2006 to 30th place last year.

• African-Americans and Hispanics have been losing ground compared with non-Hispanic Whites. In 1979, African-Americans and Hispanics made over 80 percent of what Whites made, but by 2007 the figures dropped to less than 77 percent.

• Wage inequality is still extremely high in the state. In 1979 a high wage earner at the 10th percentile earned 2.92 times what the bottom a low-wage worker at the 20th percentile earned. In 2000, the ratio grew to 3.48 and in 2007 it was 3.55.

• Median household income in Florida in 2007 ($45,794) was 91 percent of the corresponding U.S. figure, and the median four-person family income ($68,494) in Florida was 93 percent of U.S. norms. This is in line with historic Florida performance on these measures.

• Official poverty in Florida in 2007 was 12.5 percent, up one percent from the year before, and identical to the U.S. poverty rate of 12.5 percent.

• In 2007, Florida had the 3rd highest percentage (20.2 percent) of residents without healthcare coverage among the 50 states. It ranked 46th in private sector employer-provided health insurance. The state ranks extremely badly on these measures.

• In 2007 Florida ranked 50th of the 50 states in private sector pension coverage.

• Private sector unionization of Florida workers was only 2.5 percent in 2007, contributing to lower wages, wage inequality, and lower rates of healthcare coverage and pension benefit coverage.

• From 2000 to 2007 the Miami-Ft.Lauderdale and Tampa Bay metropolitan areas had the 2nd and 3rd highest rates of inflation among major metropolitan areas in the nation.

• Miami-Ft. Lauderdale ranked 9th in the country for cost of living in 2007.

• Floridians pay an average of 7.4 percent in state and local taxes, ranking 47th in the nation. However, because so little of Florida’s taxes can be deducted on a federal tax return, the total tax burden for Florida residents is actually higher than it is for a typical U.S. resident.

• Ninety percent of Floridians drive a car, truck or van to work, and almost 80 percent commute alone. With rising gas prices, this puts a heavy financial burden on working people.

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The tentative deal on health coverage breaks a year-long stalemate between the newspaper and the unions, which have been working under contract extensions while talks continued.

The Advertiser had insisted that any contract enable the company to cut its health insurance costs, either by having workers pay more than the 10 percent of medical premiums or scaling back benefits.

In a statement issued Friday, the Hawaii Newspaper and Printing Trades Council said workers will continue to pay 10 percent of the premium and “receive benefits nearly identical to current ones,” but that HMSA will be dropped for Summerlin.

Coverage by Kaiser Permanente, Hawaii’s largest HMO, will continue to be offered, but the union said workers “who choose to keep Kaiser will pay a substantially higher premium that will be based on the cost difference between Summerlin and Kaiser rates."

The unions say the switch will save the newspaper $164,000 a year.

If workers approve the deal at a meeting Sept. 14, the unions will then move forward on other contractual issues, including pay.

"I'm pleased we've reached this juncture and I agree that we have more work to do," said Lee Webber, the Advertiser's president and publisher.

In another development, the unions said the Advertiser had agreed to share information about its finances, something the newspaper, owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), has never done before.

The newspaper recently fired 54 workers and last week announced the layoffs of 27 more, all part of an effort to cut costs as its advertising revenue has declined. Company-wide, Gannett’s print advertising revenue plunged 17 percent in July from the previous year.

Once one of Gannett’s most profitable newspapers, the Advertiser “recently said it has been losing money,” the statement by the printing trades council said. An auditor hired by the unions will review the company’s financials.

The deal with the Advertiser and its 600-plus employees marks a big win for Las Vegas-based Summerlin, which came into Hawaii in 2004 and has aggressively gone after customers of HMSA and smaller insurers.

HMSA, a licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is Hawaii’s largest insurer.

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King-Shaw will be responsible for leading the durable medical companies’ strategic growth while addressing changing market conditions and patient demand.

Raul Rodriguez, who founded both companies, will serve as executive chairman.

King-Shaw has more than 20 years of experience in health care, including a two-year stint as deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services between 2001 and 2003.

Prior to joining the Bush administration, King-Shaw was the secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

"All-Med Services and Clinical Medical are top-tier organizations with a wealth of opportunities for growth," King-Shaw said. "It's a great responsibility, and I am excited for the opportunity to lead the companies moving forward."

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