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HAWAII
State must inspect all Oahu taximeters

Note to all Oahu taxi drivers: The state Measurement Standards Branch must register and inspect your taximeters for accuracy before the end of May.

The branch will begin inspecting taximeters Monday near Sand Island at 1851 Auiki St. during regular business hours. Taxis will be driven through a premeasured course to see if the meter is working properly to come up with an accurate charge.

Mililani leasehold owners buy fee

Condominium owners at the Mililani Terrace recently bought the fee interest to 65 leasehold condos in a bulk purchase from Castle & Cooke Realty Inc.

The deal was completed a few months after an initial offer, Castle & Cooke said.

The condos were built in the early 1990s and 115 leasehold condo owners bought their fee interests in the mid-1990s.

Windward college to hold job fair

Windward Community College's Employment Training Center will sponsor a job fair 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 7 at Hale Akoakoa Atrium on the college campus in Kaneohe.

Companies and agencies that will be seeking employees include Bank of Hawaii, Macy's, the Honolulu Police Department, the FBI, Seven-Eleven Hawaii and Zippy's.

For more information, visit windward.hawaii.edu on the Web or call 844-2357.

NATION
Arthur Andersen alleges jury bias

A lawyer for Arthur Andersen LLP, facing a fraud trial Monday for its role as WorldCom Inc.'s accountant, said an "extraordinary amount" of the pool from which 10 jurors will be selected is biased against the firm.

About 260 potential jurors filled out questionnaires this week in preparation for jury selection in New York federal court. Many answered that they owned WorldCom stock while others displayed "deeply felt" bias against Andersen and WorldCom, defense lawyer Eliot Lauer told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in a pretrial hearing yesterday.

"There seems to be an extraordinary amount of deeply felt views, bias if you will, against my client and WorldCom," Lauer said, attributing much of it to "publicity from the Ebbers trial and from the settlements over the past several weeks."

Former WorldCom Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers was convicted March 15 of directing the largest securities fraud in U.S. history and could receive up to 25 years in prison.

Mutual funds in red for quarter

NEW YORK » The stock market's retreat over the past three weeks has eroded the value of mutual funds, the vast majority of which posted negative returns for investors for the quarter, according to a preliminary survey released yesterday by mutual fund watcher Lipper Inc.

U.S. diversified equity funds -- the most common mutual funds found in 401(k) and other savings plans, with more than $3 trillion in assets -- posted an average 3 percent negative return for the first quarter, Lipper said.