Filed under: Company News It takes a lot of dirty boots to make sure the lettuce leaves are clean. This year in spinach, lettuce and kale fields throughout California and Arizona, state inspectors hired by the leafy greens industry are auditing fields to make sure pickers are washing hands and rinsing...

Filed under: Company News When we hear of pharmaceutical companies’ ventures it’s usually either a straight merger & acquisition or a collaboration on a drug or two in their pipelines to share costs and, of course, potential profits. But Pfizer Inc. ( PFE ) and GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK...

Filed under: Company News An interesting article crossed my desk this morning. Turns out Fidelity Investments may cut bonuses and profit-sharing this year , if the recession continues. Fidelity’s president, Rodger Lawson broke this news to his employees in a memo. That said, Fidelity spokeswoman...

Filed under: Company News On Thursday, Starwood Hotels and Resorts sued Hilton Hotels, including two former employees who now work for the massive chain. Starwood’s claim is that Hilton has stolen confidential information that it intended to use in the launch of its new Denizen “lifestyle...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings Citigroup ( C ) surprised Wall Street today, reporting a lower than expected loss of 18 cents per share and higher than expected net income of $1.6 billion, further fueling sentiment that a recovery in the banking sector may be underway. Citi reported revenues of...

Filed under: Economy Don’t look now but the U.S. economy is set to record another decent week. The stock market is about to post a weekly gain after surmounting the psychologically important Dow 8,000 level. The Q1 earnings season has, so far, not produced any “just dreadful” reports...

Filed under: Economy As I wrote earlier, some of the largest recipients of Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) money want to pay it back. TARP was originally designed to buy toxic waste from banks, but it turned into a plan to put capital into banks in exchange for senior preferred stock. Since TARP...

Filed under: Company News , Economy , Earnings Filene’s Basement, the Boston-based discount chain that claims to be the very place where bargains are born , is on its deathbed. Vendors, who have been stiffed for months, have threatened to push the 25-store chain into bankruptcy, according to the...

Filed under: Company News There’s no doubt eBay Inc. ( EBAY ) has been refocusing itself on its core market of e-commerce. Only this past week, eBay announced its intention to unload Skype in an IPO, sell StumbleUpon back to its founders, change and tweak its marketplace Website and buy Korea’s...

Filed under: Company News , Columns After letting his two young children play with and watch movies on his Apple ( AAPL ) iPhone, Arizona game developer Justin John Sullivan wondered if he could provide them more educational fare. Thus, the first applications or apps for what Sullivan calls the “toddler...