Houston

New Enron trial begins today

A criminal trial scheduled to start today involving former Enron Corp. executives may shine a rare and potentially harsh spotlight on the inner workings of the investment banking business on Wall Street.

The trial’s focus is a single alleged sham transaction involving Merrill Lynch & Co. that closed almost two years before the one-time energy giant collapsed into bankruptcy.

“It’s significant because this calls into question Wall Street practices in dealing with corporate America,” said Philip Hilder, a former federal prosecutor who represents several Enron-related clients in Houston.

The six defendants — four former Merrill Lynch executives and two former midlevel Enron executives — are charged with conspiracy and fraud.

Los Angeles

AOL to launch shopping service

In a bid to expand its audience beyond its shrinking subscriber base, Time Warner Inc.’s America Online is expected today to introduce an online shopping service available to surfers across the Web.

With InStore, AOL joins a crowded field. Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and dozens of smaller companies already offer similar services that let shoppers search for products and bargains among many online retailers.

But it highlights AOL’s efforts to become a broader Internet portal. Most of AOL is accessible only to the 23.4 million subscribers who pay the company a monthly fee of $4.95 to $23.90.

Reaching out to the Web “is quite a step forward for us,” said Bob Hayes, vice president and general manager of AOL’s e-commerce group.

The service will be located at www.in-store.com.

Seattle

Station denies firing host for Rather criticism

A radio station Sunday denied a talk show host’s claim that he was fired because he criticized CBS journalist’s Dan Rather’s handling of challenges to the authenticity of memos about President Bush’s National Guard service.

KIRO-AM Radio, a CBS affiliate here, canceled “The Brian Maloney Show” because of scheduling conflicts, the station’s general manager said Sunday.

“The primary reason Brian Maloney’s show was canceled is because KIRO’s broadcasts of the Seattle Seahawks football games significantly reduces our Sunday talk lineup and we felt the remaining time slots would be better filled by other hosts,” Ken Berry said in a statement.

He said several hosts on the station “have criticized and continue to criticize Rather and CBS with no interference from management.”