Costco Wholesale Corp

Leah Brown was happy to oblige when her friend Kathy Russo asked for help in picking out a wedding dress. But she started having second thoughts when she found out where they would be shopping: Costco. "I said, 'Yo, what? Are you kidding me?' " Brown recalled. "Where are you going to try them on ? in the patio furniture section?" But Brown's doubts evaporated as she watched Los Angeles designer Kirstie Kelly and a team of bridal consultants fawn and fret over Russo as she tried on wedding gowns at Costco's Los Feliz store Thursday.

* Costco Wholesale Corp. opened a Web site for business customers, giving an online purchasing option to a group that accounts for more than half the members of the biggest U.S. chain of warehouse clubs. Warehouses in Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco will fill the orders, the company said. The site focuses on office supplies, computers, break-room snacks and corporate gifts.

Retail sales in May took their biggest dive in eight months, raising fresh doubts about the state of the nation's recovery and the pace of long-term economic growth. Sales in categories as varied as building materials and apparel fell 1.2% from April, according to the monthly report released Friday by the Commerce Department. Compared with the same month a year ago, sales rose 6.9%. The results were seen as troubling to economists because they had been expecting a slight increase from April.

* Costco Wholesale Corp. posted a 22% increase in its fiscal fourth- quarter profit from operations to $183.2 million, or 79 cents a share, from the like period of '98. The results for the three months ended Aug. 29 beat forecasts by 3 cents, driven by higher sales of low-price PCs and by food and household goods. Revenue jumped 14% to $8.81 billion; sales at stores open at least a year climbed 12%.

A U.S. court declined a request by Costco Wholesale Corp. to reconsider a decision that backed Washington state rules controlling pricing and discounts on beer and wine. The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January that most Washington state regulations challenged by Costco, the largest U.S. warehouse club, were constitutional. Costco had argued that the rules restricted competition.

Costco Wholesale Corp. reported a 32% jump in its fiscal third-quarter profit Thursday, topping Wall Street expectations, as cash-squeezed customers flocked to its warehouse clubs in search of bargains on food and toiletries. But Costco shares edged down 26 cents to $72.98 after the company said Wall Street's forecast for the fourth quarter might be too high. Costco said net income in the three months that ended May 11 rose to $295.1 million, or 67 cents a share, from $224 million, or 49 cents, a year earlier, which included a $30.3-million charge.

For years a chain-link fence surrounded the contaminated 25-acre lot near the junction of Interstate 5 and California 118 in Pacoima, a daily reminder of the thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs lost to Mexico in the last decade.

Leah Brown was happy to oblige when her friend Kathy Russo asked for help in picking out a wedding dress. But she started having second thoughts when she found out where they would be shopping: Costco. "I said, 'Yo, what? Are you kidding me?' " Brown recalled. "Where are you going to try them on ? in the patio furniture section?" But Brown's doubts evaporated as she watched Los Angeles designer Kirstie Kelly and a team of bridal consultants fawn and fret over Russo as she tried on wedding gowns at Costco's Los Feliz store Thursday.

Costco Wholesale Corp., the largest U.S. warehouse chain, reached a tentative agreement with Teamsters representing 13,000 California workers after four months of negotiation, the union said. The agreement represents "significant gains" in retirement, wages and seniority and maintains current pension and healthcare contributions, the Teamsters said. Voting begins in the next two weeks.

THE ECONOMY Firms cut 22,000 jobs in January Companies in the U.S. cut an estimated 22,000 jobs in January, in line with forecasts, according to data from a private report based on payrolls. The drop was the smallest in two years and followed a revised 61,000 decrease in December, data from ADP Employer Services showed. ADP figures overstated the Labor Department's estimate of private payroll losses by 500,000 in the six months that ended in December. INTERNET Yahoo sells jobs website to rival Yahoo Inc. is selling its online help-wanted site, HotJobs, to rival Monster Worldwide Inc. for $225 million in cash.

Costco Wholesale Corp. says it will start accepting food stamps at its warehouse clubs nationwide after testing them at stores in New York. It's a big about-face for a retailer that has catered to bargain-hunting but affluent shoppers, and it's a sign of the grim reality facing retailers and their customers. The number of Americans relying on government food subsidies to eat recently hit a record 36 million. Executives said they had doubted that many customers in the New York test would use food stamps, but it turned out that new members said they were joining precisely because the Issaquah, Wash.

NEW YORK -- Stocks are rising in early trading, breaking a four-day losing streak after the latest reading on the jobs market and mixed retail sales reports. The gains in stocks come as the Labor Department said the number of people filing for unemployment claims fell last week by 4,000 to 570,000. However, the market had been expecting a bigger drop to 560,000. The market is also sifting through a number of sales reports from retailers. Overall, sales are still weak, but many companies, including Target Corp.

A lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court on Friday accuses Costco Wholesale Corp. of breaking California labor law by routinely keeping employees from going home each night for 15 minutes as managers remove jewelry from cases and check registers. The policy, the suit says, amounts to false imprisonment.

For years a chain-link fence surrounded the contaminated 25-acre lot near the junction of Interstate 5 and California 118 in Pacoima, a daily reminder of the thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs lost to Mexico in the last decade.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has started selling caskets on its website at prices that undercut many funeral homes, long the major seller of caskets. The move follows a similar one by discount rival Costco Wholesale Corp.

Price/Costco to Shut Four Stores: Closing Jan. 30 are a Costco store in Riverside and Price Club stores in Bakersfield; Richmond, Calif., and New Britain, Conn. As many as 350 employees may be affected, said Richard Galanti, Price/Costco's chief financial officer. The stores were targeted for closure because they are in markets that overlap with other stores as a result of last year's $2.3-billion merger of Kirkland, Wash.-based Costco Wholesale Corp. and San Diego-based Price Inc.