Business Briefs

VIRGINIA

Thanksgiving meal costs in Va. dip 3.5%

SAN DIEGO -- A Thanksgiving meal will cost Virginians less than usual this year.

The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation says it'll cost about $4.37 per person for a typical Thanksgiving meal.

The informal price survey of basic items found on Thanksgiving tables puts the average cost of a traditional meal for 10 adults this year at $43.72. The menu includes turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, rolls, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

Officials say this year's average price is about 3.5 percent less than last year, when the average total price was $45.30.

According to the survey, the highest average cost for a meal was in Amherst County at $50.45. The county with the lowest cost was Rockingham at $37.

Verizon extends DSL in five Va. localities

Verizon has extended high-speed Internet access to about 3,600 customers in Hanover, Cumberland, Powhatan, Charles City and New Kent counties.

The digital subscriber line (DSL) technology allows Verizon to offer high-speed Internet over copper telephone lines in areas not served by the company's fiber-optic FiOS services.

Verizon is offering a six-month-free promotion for new high-speed Internet customers. The company will charge $19.99 per month for the entry-level 1-megabitsper-second service.

Rappahannock co-op cuts electric bills

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative is cutting members' electric bills by $5.80 for every 1,000 kilowatt-hours used, beginning with this month's bills.

The Fredericksburg-based cooperative said it is passing on a drop in the wholesale price of the electricity.

Rappahannock usually adjusts its rates twice a year, in the spring and fall, to reflect changes in the wholesale price of power. But the cooperative said the slow economy is continuing to push wholesale prices down. The November reduction follows a $4 per 1,000-kilowatt-hour cut in September. Together, the two reductions have lowered Rappahannock's rates 7 percent since the summer.

THE NATION

Realtors project rise in home resales in'10

Home prices are expected to grow modestly next year and sales will keep rising as the housing market continues to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.

Home resales are projected to total 5.7 million next year, up from an estimated 5 million this year. Prices will climb about 4 percent after a projected decline of 13 percent this year, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the trade association.

"Going into 2010, I anticipate that prices will also begin stabilizing or begin to modestly improve," Yun told the audience at the association's annual conference and expo in San Diego.

That should help ease buyers' anxiety. "I don't think the fear factor will be at play in 2010," Yun said.

His forecast calls for sales of newly built homes to surge by about 38 percent from 2009 levels. That translates to about 549,000 homes, still well below historical trends.

Foreclosures, meanwhile, should peak in the first half of the year, he said.

Elsewhere

• Two former employees for Bernard Madoff programmed an old IBM computer to generate false records that concealed the crooked financier's massive Ponzi scheme and were given hush money when they threatened to stop lying, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Madoff gave orders to pay the pair "whatever they wanted to keep them happy," a criminal complaint said.

• Federal health regulators have found tiny particles of trash in drugs made by Genzyme, the second time this year the biotechnology company has been cited for contamination issues. The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that bits of steel, rubber and fiber found in vials of drugs used to treat rare enzyme disorders could cause serious adverse health effects for patients, but the products would remain on the market, because there are few alternative treatments.

• The FDA is challenging makers of alcohol-infused energy drinks like Joose and Charge to prove their beverages are safe, citing complaints that the products can cause risky behavior and injury.

• Small-car sales will continue to grow in the U.S. and likely will become the largest segment of the market by 2013, according to Ford Motor Co.'s top sales analyst. George Pipas told the Automotive Press Association in Detroit yesterday that downsizing baby boomers and millennials entering the market, looking for compacts and subcompacts, will drive increased sales.

• Oil slid yesterday to its lowest price in a month as investors started to pay more attention to a yearlong slump in American energy demand. For most of the year, oil prices surged as investors pumped money into crude contracts to protect themselves from a weakening dollar. Oil was thought of as a safe bet with demand expected to rise next year.

-- Staff and Wire Reports