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HAWAII

Verizon Wireless expands Big Island, Kauai coverage

Verizon Wireless has added two new cell phone sites on the Big Island and Kauai, expanding coverage for residents and visitors.

A new site on the Big Island establishes service at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and another site on Kauai covers the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands.

"This network expansion allows us to meet he growing needs of local residents and visitors for reliable voice calls and data applications as they travel around the islands," said Mark Yamauchi, director of Hawaii sales for Verizon Wireless.

The company invested more than $31 million in Hawaii to expand and enhance service in 2004. A spokeswoman declined to say how much the company spent on the two new sites.

NATION

Lea Fastow completes sentence

HOUSTON » The wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew Fastow was released yesterday from a halfway house, ending a year's prison term for failing to declare her husband's illegal kickbacks as income, her attorney said.

Lea Fastow left the center shortly after midnight and was greeted by her husband and sister. She did not comment before she was driven away.

Lea Fastow pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor tax crime for failing to report on joint tax returns the gains from kickbacks the couple pocketed from Andrew Fastow's illegal dealings at Enron, an energy company that collapsed in late 2001..

She began serving her yearlong sentence at the 11-story federal detention center in downtown Houston on July 12, 2004, and was transferred to the Leidel Comprehensive Sanction Center a few blocks away last month to finish the last six weeks.

Dollar strengthens against yen

The dollar capped a third straight weekly gain against the yen as reports showed U.S. job growth accelerated and services industries expanded last month.

Yesterday's labor report, while below economists' forecasts, still underscored that the U.S. economy is outpacing that of Japan and Europe and kept intact expectations for further Federal Reserve interest-rate increases. A report in Japan yesterday showed machinery orders fell in May.

"We continue to see dollar strength throughout the year," said Lara Rhame, a currency strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York and a former Fed economist. "The Fed is confident enough to continue tightening; that is going to underpin dollar strength."

California nurses plan 1-day strike

SACRAMENTO, Calif. » Unionized nurses plan a one-day strike on July 21 at five University of California teaching hospitals.

The California Nurses Association represents the 8,300 nurses at the hospitals and about 700 nurses at campus clinics. The previous contract between UC and the union expired April 30 but had been extended through yesterday as talks continued and nurses voted on a tentative deal. Yesterday, the union announced that nurses had voted down the proposed contract and authorized the strike.

Morgan Stanley's new CEO rejects guaranteed pay

Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack said he's changing his employment agreement with the firm and no longer will accept a guarantee of $25 million a year in pay.

Mack's pay will be based on the firm's performance, instead of being pegged to the compensation received by his four Wall Street counterparts, he said in a letter to employees yesterday. He would have received a minimum of $25 million this year and again in 2006, provided the CEOs of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. made an average of at least that much.

"I don't want anyone to think that I am entitled to something that others are not," Mack said in the letter, a copy of which was sent to Bloomberg. "This is a business built on trust."

DuPont paying for screenings for poisoning

CHARLESTON, W. Va. » Tens of thousands of Ohio and West Virginia residents could be tested over the next year to determine if their health has been affected by drinking water containing a chemical used to make the nonstick substance Teflon.

DuPont Co. agreed in February to pay for the screenings to settle a class-action lawsuit. Teflon is one of the company's most popular products; the substance can be found in everything from cookware and clothing to car parts and flooring.

The tests will begin this month for residents who receive their drinking water from six public water districts, or from private wells within the districts, where concentrations of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, also known as PFOA and C8, have been found.

The water supplies are near DuPont's Washington Works plant, along the Ohio River near Parkersburg. About 80,000 residents live in the districts, and it is hoped at least 60,000 will participate in the screening.

Oil drops below $60 a barrel on profit-taking

WASHINGTON » Oil prices fell below $60 a barrel yesterday, reversing course late in the day as traders booked profits following a runup predicated on the fear of hurricane-related supply disruptions.

Early on, crude futures prices rose as high as $61.90 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, with traders shrugging off the shock of the London bomb blasts and focusing instead on Hurricane Dennis' approach in the Gulf of Mexico. Traders fear a repeat of last year's Hurricane Ivan, which damaged oil platforms and resulted in months of lost production in the region.

But the rally lost steam amid speculation that the power of Dennis might not be as intense as originally feared, leading traders to take some chips off the table.

"People got scared heading into the weekend," said oil broker Mike Fitzpatrick at Fimat USA in New York. "I wish I could give you a better explanation."

Light, sweet crude for August delivery dropped by $1.10 to settle at $59.63 per barrel on Nymex.

Unleaded gasoline futures declined by 4.22 cents to $1.7634 a gallon, while heating oil futures plunged 5.68 cents to $1.7181 a gallon.