Ticker, Apr. 15

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $440,000 to settle afederal harassment lawsuit by employees who said they endured ethnicslurs and derogatory remarks on a daily basis while working in aFresno store. Nine plaintiffs were of Mexican descent and one wasmarried to a Mexican. The alleged harasser was a Mexican-American co-worker at a Sam's Club, which Wal-Mart owns and operates. Theplaintiffs say they first complained in April 2006 but managersfailed to address the harassment. After the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission filed a complaint in October of that year,the harasser was fired two months later. The EEOC announced thesettlement Thursday. The settlement also calls for Wal-Mart toreview its policies and provide training on discrimination at Sam'sClub locations in Fresno and Bakersfield.

More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, thefirst increase in three weeks. Still, the broader trend points to aslowly healing jobs market. The government says applications forunemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000for the week ended April 9. That left applications at their highestpoint since mid-February. Applications near 375,000 are consistentwith a sustained increase in hiring. Applications peaked during therecession at 659,000. The four-week average of applications, a lessvolatile measure, rose to 395,750. However, applications havedropped about 6 percent over the past two months. At the same time,businesses have stepped up hiring.

Ford bowed to pressure from regulators on Thursday and widened arecall of America's top-selling vehicle, the F-150 pickup, becauseits air bags can deploy at the wrong time. The recall now coversnearly 1.2 million F-150s built for the 2004 and 2005 model yearsand some built for 2006. An electrical short can cause the air bagsto inflate without a crash and could injure drivers. Ford Motor Co.in February said it would fix the problem in 150,000 trucks but hadresisted the government's wishes to expand the recall. The widenedrecall shows how regulators have become more aggressive since beingcriticized last year for a slow response to unintended accelerationproblems in Toyota vehicles. It's also a sign that it will be harderfor Ford and other automakers to limit the size of future recalls.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulatescar safety, knows of 269 cases in which the air bags have deployedinadvertently, resulting in 98 injuries, some serious.

Postage rates are going up starting Sunday, but the changesmostly affect businesses. Mailing that recipe to Aunt Mary orbirthday card to Uncle Joe won't cost any extra. Among the changes,it will cost advertisers more to flood your mailbox with salesoffers and publishers will face higher charges to send you theirmagazines. But the basic 44-cent first-class letter rate will staythe same, even though postage overall goes up about 1.7 percent asthe price of many other mailings rises. The post office has beenstruggling financially as the Internet siphons off a lot of letters,bills and payments that it used to handle. And that has beencomplicated by the nation's economic slump, which reducedadvertising mail. The agency lost $8.5 billion last year and therate increases - estimated to bring in an added $340 million thisfiscal year - won't make much of a dent in that.

The Associated Press