Ford chairman pushes tax breaks for hybrids

Ford Motor Co. chairman and chief executive Bill Ford Jr. said the government should offer $3,000 tax breaks or possibly boost taxes on gasoline to spur consumer interest in gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

Ford’s comments Wednesday were a reaffirmation of views he has previously expressed and come as his company is investing heavily in more fuel-efficient vehicles.

He said incentives like tax breaks or rebates of, say, $3,000 per vehicle, would be most effective.

Ford’s remarks wer made at the New York International Auto Show. The firm announced it would begin manufacturing the Mercury Mariner, pictured above, as a hybrid in 2007.

Labor

SBC gets strike notice

The union representing 100,000 workers at SBC Communications Inc. on Wednesday gave the company a 30-day notice for a possible strike.

Contracts between the Communications Workers of America and SBC expired last week with no new agreements as the two sides disagreed on health-care benefits and job security.

The CWA said its members would begin voting on whether to authorize a strike, with the results due April 29. If workers vote to strike, the CWA would then set a strike date.

The union also said it would consider other tactics to increase pressure on SBC to settle, such as asking union members to change their local and long-distance phone service to another company.

SBC spokesman Walt Sharp said the company expected to reach agreements with the CWA without a strike.

The union represents about 100 workers in the Lawrence and Ottawa area.

Investigation

Interstate Bakeries trading case settled

A former director at Interstate Bakeries Corp. and his stockbroker son agreed to settle charges they traded on inside information about weak financial results at the Kansas City, Mo.-based company, the maker of Wonder bread and Twinkies.

E. Garret Bewkes Jr. allegedly tipped off his son, Robert Bewkes, then a UBS PaineWebber broker, in February 2003 after IBC directors got a confidential report on the company’s crumbling finances, officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission charged.

The Bewkes agreed to pay a penalty equal to three times the avoided losses with interest and admitted no wrongdoing.

Earnings

Yahoo! reports profits

Yahoo! Inc.’s first-quarter profit more than doubled, propelled by advertisers eager to have their products promoted on the Internet’s most popular destination.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said Wednesday it earned $101 million, 14 cents per share, compared with $46.7 million, 8 cents per share, at the same time last year.

The results topped the mean estimate of 11 cents per share among analysts polled by Thomson First Call.