Statistics

Ford Motor Co. rules the sport-utility and light-truck markets in the United States but has stumbled in the luxury-car arena, letting its Lincoln division suffer with stodgy, outdated cars that appeal mostly to the over-60 crowd. Now, in what it says is the most expensive product launch campaign in its history, the company is taking aim at that profitable luxury market with the Lincoln LS.

Banking's latest merger wave gained strength Wednesday as two big Midwest banks, First Chicago Corp. and Detroit-based NBD Bancorp Inc., announced the second-largest union in U.S. banking history. The $5.3-billion deal would create the nation's seventh-largest bank-holding company, with assets of $120 billion. The new company is expected to be called First Chicago NBD Corp. and would clearly be the dominant banker in Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.

The emerging-markets crisis is supposed to be over, but the signals from Latin America suggested otherwise Monday as rumors of a currency devaluation in Argentina accelerated across the region and sent stocks down sharply. Economists insisted that a devaluation and an abandonment by Argentina of the peso's peg to the U.S. dollar are unlikely, but several warning signs--including provocative comments last week by financier George Soros--have rattled much of Latin America.

WASHINGTON Like a centenarian on steroids, America's economic boom is closing in on the longevity record with no sign of slowing down. Unless something goes unexpectedly haywire, next January it will become the longest upswing in U.S. history. Is it a freak, the economic equivalent of a 100-year flood? A growing number of experts think not.

The phones ring incessantly, customers scurry through the showroom--some lured by coupons for free canned hams--and George Hawes Jr. exhorts his troops to move the metal. Wearing a dark plaid sport coat and a patterned tie, the burly, 30-year-old Hawes is a study in perpetual motion--barking into the phone, haggling with buyers, signing off on deals. "Make a deal for me now," one car salesman implores, seeking a high trade-in allowance for an eager customer.

As he ran for the White House, John F. Kennedy assured skeptical Americans that he was "not the Catholic candidate for president," but rather a "candidate for president who happens also to be Catholic." In 1961, the year he took office, Catholics accounted for 18.8% of Congress. On Tuesday, when the 111th Congress is sworn in, about 30% of its membership will be Catholic, according to a recent analysis by Congressional Quarterly and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Think your commute is bad? Others have it worse -- unless you happen to live in Lake Elsinore. The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday released new data showing how long it takes people to get to work. In Southern California, Lake Elsinore in Riverside County topped the list, with residents taking an average of 41.8 minutes to get to work. Palmdale and Adelanto were just behind at 40.5 minutes. The report, which examined data collected between 2006 and 2008, confirms something veteran commuters know well: The worst drives to work are often shared by residents who live in far-flung suburbs.

Editor's note: The following home sales were filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder's Office Jan. 31-Feb.6. The information was provided to The Times by First American Real Estate Solutions. ACTON Houses 2654 W. Bent Spur Dr., 2 BR, 2 BA, $205,000 AGOURA HILLS Houses 28655 Bamfield Dr., 4 BR, 3 BA, $395,000 3938 Cottonwood Grove Trail, 4 BR, 3 BA, $387,272 5503 Hartglen Pl., 4 BR, 3 BA, $485,000 5370 Lewis Rd., 4 BR, 4 BA, $580,000 5810 Rainbow Hill Rd., 3 BR, 3 BA, $655,000 4957 Vejar Dr.

A list of things that cost less now than they did 3 years ago might be pretty short--especially if it was limited to Orange County items. However, the price of at least one thing has dropped here: rented office space. According to Coldwell Banker, the county's average monthly lease rate per square foot of vacant existing office space was $1.65 in the fourth quarter of 1988. That's 2 cents less than the average rate in the fourth quarter of 1985, and 8 cents lower than a year ago.

Workers' compensation payments rose 8% in California from 1996 to 1998 while payments fell nearly 1% nationwide, according to a study to be released today. The report from the nonpartisan National Academy of Social Insurance comes as political pressure grows to boost workers' compensation benefits in California. In addition, a five-year price war among insurance companies has left some workers' comp carriers in shaky financial health.

The nation's two busiest cargo container ports -- Los Angeles and Long Beach -- ended a terrible year in international trade with strong December numbers that might signal the beginning of a long-awaited economic rebound. The Port of Los Angeles, which ranks first in the U.S., handled 562,990 cargo containers last month, a tiny increase of 0.35% over the 561,033 recorded in the same month a year earlier. The increase was driven by a huge 40.2% increase in exports, which climbed to 153,836 containers from 109,704 a year earlier.

The nation's largest airlines posted a record on-time arrival rate of 88.6% in November, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Thursday. During the same month, the airlines also set a record for the lowest rate of mishandled baggage in a single month since the data were first collected in September 1987. The November on-time rate for the country's 19 largest carriers compared with a 83.3% rate for November 2008 and a 77.3% rate for October 2009, according to the agency.

If you're lucky enough to have a job in this economy, chances are that you dislike it. Just 45% of employees are happy in their positions, the lowest level in 22 years, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Conference Board. In 1987, when the New York nonprofit group first began collecting the data, more than 61% said they were satisfied. The recession, and the extra work that many employees who survived layoffs have been saddled with, play a role in the decline -- but not as much as some might think.

California's employment misery continued in November, as employers sliced 10,200 more workers from their payrolls. The statewide unemployment rate fell slightly to 12.3% last month from 12.5% in October, according to figures released Friday by the Employment Development Department, but only because thousands of discouraged workers have left the labor force or even moved out of state. In some areas of California, including depressed urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles, 1 in 5 people in the labor force is out of work.

Los Angeles County sent more people to death row this year than Texas, Florida or any other state in the nation, condemning 13 convicted murderers -- the highest number in a decade, according to a Times review of justice statistics. The increase comes as a national report projects that the number of death sentences issued across the country this year will reach its lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Los Angeles County helped California buck that trend, boosting the state's death sentences from 20 last year to 29 so far this year, more than a quarter of the nationwide total of 106, according to a report released Friday by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

On a chilly Saturday morning this month, the future soldiers of the U.S. Army huffed and puffed through push-ups, sit-ups and stretches in Whittier Narrows Regional Park in South El Monte. There was the gangly white kid with the blond buzz cut and the buffed-out Latino dude, head draped in a black bandanna. And then there was Jennifer Ren, small, slight and bespectacled, an immigrant from China who gamely kept up with the guys and sees the Army as a ticket to U.S. citizenship and a job in accounting and finance.

About 50 million Americans had contracted pandemic H1N1 influenza through Nov. 14, according to the newest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday -- meaning that about 15% of the entire country has been infected, about 1 in every 6 people. "That still leaves most people not having been infected and still susceptible," CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said at a news conference. The agency also reported that more than 200,000 people had been hospitalized and nearly 10,000 had died.

In an unexpected step backward, the nation's leading retailers suffered a sales slump in November -- a poor start to the holiday season and an ominous sign for the fragile economic recovery. After two months of positive sales reports that spurred hopes that an industry turnaround was at hand, major chain stores posted a 0.3% decline from a year earlier, the International Council of Shopping Centers said Thursday. Department store giant Macy's Inc., teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and luxury seller Saks Inc. all reported declines.

The estimated number of new HIV infections each year has declined about 17% since 2001, but for every five people infected, only two begin treatment, according to a report from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS released Tuesday. About 2.7 million people were newly infected with the virus that causes AIDS last year, compared with about 3.3 million in 2001 -- although direct comparisons are difficult because the numbers are counted differently now. The biggest gains were in sub-Saharan Africa, where there were 400,000 fewer infections, even though the region still accounts for 67% of all new infections.

California employers added workers to their payrolls in October for the first time in more than a year, but the state's unemployment rate ticked higher as more job seekers entered the labor pool amid hopes that companies are finally hiring again. The state gained 25,700 jobs last month, marking the first time it has added workers since April 2008. Government, financial activities, education and health were among the sectors posting gains, probably with the help of the massive federal stimulus package, analysts say. But the jobless rate continued to inch up, as the positions added couldn't keep up with the expansion of the labor force.