Manufacturers

Jennifer Taggart's testing gun seems an anomaly in this California Market Center room filled with pink tutus and flowery white baby gowns. She holds a laser gun, called the XRF Analyzer, to a tiny dress and waits. The scanner beeps: The garment doesn't contain any lead. Its designer sighs in relief. On Friday, clothing buyers from retail boutiques start pouring into the downtown Los Angeles garment emporium to decide which items to stock.

Manufacturing in the U.S. unexpectedly expanded in January, showing that business investment is holding up even as other parts of the economy weaken. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index rose to 50.7 from 48.4 in December, the Tempe, Ariz.-based group said Friday. Fifty is the dividing line between contraction and expansion. "There's still reasonable growth in the manufacturing sector.

The "Made in Italy" label conjures images of little old men and women in aprons and spectacles, stooped over wooden tables, cutting leather and sewing by hand in workshops that dot the hills of Tuscany. It certainly doesn't make you picture Chinese immigrants toiling long hours in ramshackle, poorly illuminated sheds, and then sleeping in small rooms behind thin plywood right there in the factories.

Sometimes, what happens in Vegas can stay in Los Angeles. Or, more specifically, in a vacant industrial building in Sylmar. That will be the new home of a 25-year-old Calabasas business named Drapes 4 Show Inc., which has made linens for Air Force One, swanky hotels, exclusive celebrity weddings and Hollywood movie sets. The company had been leaving for Las Vegas, where many of its products are used, because it couldn't find a suitable site for growth.

U.S. mid-Atlantic factory production slumped to its lowest level since the last recession, while an index of future economic activity pointed to even tougher times ahead. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's business activity index slumped to negative 24.0 this month -- the lowest since February 2001 -- from an already weak negative 20.9 in January.

The company that built the first mass-produced, all-electric car will keep its manufacturing plant in California, thanks to a new tax break. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer worked out the deal for Tesla Motors Inc. after learning that the Silicon Valley company intended to build its second-generation vehicle in New Mexico. The financial break, announced Monday, allows Tesla to avoid paying state sales tax on equipment it buys to build its Model S.

Ford Motor Co.'s F-150 pickup is the top-selling vehicle in America with more than 436,000 purchased through October. But when people stop buying the F-150 -- and 26% fewer have been sold this year than last -- it's not just Ford and its workers that suffer. Falling sales dry up orders for antifreeze made in Illinois by a division of Honeywell International Inc.

Is that laundry soap truly "environmentally friendly"? Was that mattress treated with toxic chemicals? Is that sweatsuit fashioned from organic cotton? Is that lipstick "natural"? California officials launched a sweeping green initiative on Tuesday to inform consumers exactly how hundreds of thousands of products sold in the state are manufactured and transported and how safe their ingredients are.

Not since the days of Rosie the Riveter have the nation's military aircraft been built on an assembly line. For almost as long as anyone can remember, fighters and bombers have been built like houses: one by one, each taking weeks, if not months, to come together. But if all goes well, the newest jet in the nation's arsenal will be assembled more like a car: on a moving line in a process that the Pentagon hopes will dramatically cut costs and speed production.

At a 170-acre complex dotted with more than two dozen hangars, Korean Air operates a little-known aerospace division that develops rockets and satellites and makes parts for commercial and military aircraft. It is the only airline in the world that also has an aircraft manufacturing business. Even within the U.S.