Business Briefs

VIRGINIA

MG's Ashe elected to post at media group

NORFOLK -- O. Reid Ashe Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer of Media General Inc., was elected president-elect of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association yesterday.

Ashe assumed his present role at Media General in 2005 upon the retirement of J. Stewart Bryan III as chief executive of the Richmond-based media company. He previously was president and COO; he was named president in 2001 after four years as publisher of The Tampa Tribune.

Media General owns 21 daily newspapers, including the Tribune and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, plus more than 200 specialty publications, 18 television stations and associated Web sites, mostly in the Southeast.

The Southern Newspaper Publishers Association was established in 1903. Members include about 400 daily and nondaily newspapers.

Steve Brandt, president and publisher of The Greenville News in Greenville, S.C., was elected president of the association, succeeding Donna Barrett, president and CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings in Birmingham, Ala.

Norfolk mall adds rule on visits by youths

A shopping mall in Norfolk is barring those younger than 18 from visiting after 5 p.m. without a supervising adult older than 21.

MacArthur Center's "Adult Supervision Program" went into effect yesterday.

About three dozen teenagers protested the policy on Sunday, holding signs that read "Mall Should Be For All." The group members said they were punished for the actions of a few bad apples and that they would stop shopping at MacArthur altogether.

Mall general manager Jim Wofford has said the staff has noticed an increase in the number of unsupervised teens congregating at the mall at night and that it has the potential to turn into an unsafe atmosphere.

THE NATION

Fed chief urges deficit cuts, foreign spending

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called yesterday for the United States to whittle down its record-high budget deficits and for countries such as China to get their consumers to spend more.

Bernanke said those moves would help reduce "global imbalances" -- uneven trade and investment flows among countries that contributed to the financial crisis. The Fed chief's remarks yesterday came after the government said Friday that the U.S. budget hit a $1.42 trillion deficit for the 2009 budget year that ended Sept. 30. The previous year's deficit was $459 billion.

Bernanke's comments also followed pledges made by leaders of the Group of 20 nations at their summit last month in Pittsburgh to reduce global imbalances, such as Asians saving too much and Americans saving too little. Some improvement has been made in this area, but more progress is needed, he said.

Bernanke said the best way for the United States to increase savings is to steadily reduce the federal budget deficits. He didn't suggest ways to do so.

Interest rates rise on short-term T-bills

WASHINGTON -- Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in yesterday's auction, with rates on six-month bills climbing after nearly two months at record lows. The Treasury Department auctioned $30 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.08 percent, up from 0.07 percent last week. Another $30 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.17 percent, up from a record low of 0.15 percent last week.

The three-month rate was the highest since those bills averaged 0.115 percent on Sept. 28. The six-month rate was the highest since those bills averaged 0.19 percent, also on Sept. 28.

Separately, the Federal Reserve said yesterday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes to adjustable-rate mortgages, was unchanged at 0.36 percent last week, the same as the previous week.

Elsewhere

• The price of first-class stamps will not go up next year. The U.S. Postal Service has been implementing rate increases annually in recent years, with increases announced in January to take place in May. The rate went from 42 cents to 44 cents this year. But Postmaster General John E. Potter announced in an internal postal memorandum that there will be no rise in prices next year.

• U.S. home builders are growing less optimistic about their fortunes as a temporary tax credit for first-time homebuyers that boosted home sales this year nears its end. The National Association of Home Builders said yesterday that this month's housing market index, which tracks industry confidence, slipped by one point to 18, the first dip since June when the reading fell to 15. Builders also are feeling less positive about the likelihood of sales between now and the next six months.

• In another sign that CIT Group Inc. is struggling to restructure its debt, billionaire investor Carl Icahn offered the lender a $6 billion lifeline. Icahn, who is a CIT bondholder, said the loan would save the company $150 million in fees. He also criticized the board for pushing an exchange offer that he said unfairly favors large bondholders at the expense of smaller investors and that also undervalues the company.

• IBM Corp. put a top executive on leave yesterday after he was charged in an insider-trading scandal for allegedly leaking secrets about IBM's earnings and financial dealings with corporate partners. The company said Robert Moffat, a senior vice president and cost-cutting maven who was considered a possible candidate to succeed CEO Sam Palmisano, no longer serves as an officer of the company.

-- Staff and Wire Reports