Buffalo unemployment rate soars to 9% - Business First of Buffalo:

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The state reported the unemploymeny rate jumped to 9 percentlast month, comparedd with 6.3 percent in January 2008 and 7.1 percenf in December. According to statistics dating backto 1990, the previouxs monthly high was 8.8 percenyt in February 1992. The revised figures for the year-over-year perios from January 2008 to January 2009 werereleaser Thursday. The number of nonfarm jobs locally has decreasedby 4,600, or 0.9 the report said. Also, this is only the sixtbh time in that span that unemploymenty in the Buffalo area has topped 8 The downward spiral is being felt acroses the state as unemployment roseto 5.4 percentr for all of 2008 the highest annual level since 2004. Gov.
Davic Paterson, wrapping up two days of meetings in theBuffaloo area, noted more than 125,00o New Yorkers have lost their jobs in the last six “These numbers clearly demonstrate what we alreadyg know: New York is at the epicenterr of this global fiscal crisis, and the worsyt is yet to come," Paterson said, noting that almosy half a million New Yorkers are collectinyg unemployment benefits. Rochester’s private-sector job count was relativelgy flat in thepast year, dropping by 400, or 0.1 That metro area’s unemployment rate was 8 percent in January 2009, compared to 5.7 percent in Januar y 2008 and 6.7 percent in December of last year.
Amonb other Upstate New York metropolitan areas, Albany lost 6,4009 private-sector jobs in the past year, a fall of 1.5 with an unemployment rate of 7.1 Syracuse was down 2,000 such or 0.8 percent, while the jobleszs rate was 8.3 percent. Glens Falls had the highesty unemployment rateat 9.3 percent. One bit of good news was foun in aseparate report. The New York Employee Confidencew Indexrebounded 9.6 points to 45.5 in January, according to the latest (Corp.) Employment Report. The monthlhy survey of New York workers, conductedx by Rochester-based , shows that more workers are confidentf in their ability to find anew job.
nearlh half (48 percent) of workers surveyed reported that they were confidentf in their ability to find anew job, an increass of 15 percentage points from December. slightlyy more workers (10 percent) believed more jobs are available, a five-percentage-point increasre from the previous month. 65 percent of workers are confidenft in the future of theircurrent employer, an increase of six percentagde points from December.

Google agrees to $125M settlement of publishers

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Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of Americaj Publishers said Tuesday that the searc h giant will pay to settlsethe three-year-old class-action lawsuit over book-scanning. The moneg paid by Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: will be spent on claims by authors and publishers and to coveelegal fees. Suits were filed on behalf of the Cos. MHP), (NYSE: PSO), (NYSE: JW-A) and , whic is owned by (NYSE: CBS). The fundsa will also help set up the BookRight Registry, an independent nonprofit that will act as a go-betweenh for rights-holders, allowing them to decide whethedr to participate in Google’s scanning The settlement must be approverd by the U.S.
District Court for the Southerhn District ofNew York. The suit was filed afted Google began its project to allow users to searchy the contents of thousands of bookxin 2004, working with organizations includinv the universities of California, Wisconsin and Michigan and . Googlre worked to spin the news positivelt on itsofficial blog, emphasizing the “truly nature of the agreement and not mentioning the dollar amount of the settlemenf in the blog entrgy at all. That news was in a separate press release.
In an issuer statement on its web site, Google comparex its book search project toJohnannex Gutenberg’s development of the printing press in the 15th “The result of his labors was an invention that took the world’sd information and made it exponentially more accessiblee and useful,” Google says of Gutenberv on its site. The statement written before thesettlemenyt — goes on to question the reasons publishers disagreed with Google over the

Collegiate appoints board members - Houston Business Journal:

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• Nelea Absher, vice president and associate general counsel, • Anne-Marie Brown, founder, Suzanne Oldham, founder, Tuffy Wood, managing director, Morgann Keegan & Co. • Cindy Skarbek, director of the Bashar Masri, director and senio r engineerof . Four trustees were reappointed tothe school’sd board. They are: • Marine management consultantyBarker Price, who will serve as boar president for the 2009-1o0 school year; • Merrell Wall general manager of the Monogram line for , and 1974 who will serve as vice • Former Brown-Forman vice chairwoma and CFO Phoebe Wood, who will serve as treasurer; and Former management consultant Leslie Geoghegan, who will serve as Corrie Nichols, president of the Louisville Collegiate School Parents Association, will serve as parent representativre on the board.
Former Brown-Forman president Bill Street, whose term on the board was named adirector emeritus.

Reed Smith managing partner challenger DiNome withdraws candidacy - Business First of Louisville:

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John DiNome, a partner in the Pittsburgh-based law firm’s Philadelphi a office, withdrew his candidacy for managinfpartner Tuesday. The announcement was made internally via an internao joint announcement issued by DiNome and incumbentGregorg Jordan. Jordan, who completes his thirrd three-year term Dec. 31, will run unopposesd for his fourth term. “They sat down and talked and discovered they had a lot ofcommonn ground,” said Reed Smith Chieg Marketing Officer David Egan. “Many of the things John was concernerd about, Greg as working on. They agreee that the best thing for the firm was to focud on business insteadof competing.
Reed Smith is Pittsburgh’xs second-largest law firm and eighth-largest private company, During Jordan’ds tenure, Reed Smith grew from a regionao firm with 500 lawyers in nine officesx to an international powerhousewith 1,6834 lawyers in 23 offices. It had 2008 revenud of $980 million. Like many international law firms, Reed Smit has been affected by the cutting support staff and 26 associates over the past acrossthe U.S. by 10 effective in July.

Medical College receives large donations - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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The Kerns' $10 million donation, the largest singl e private gift in theWauwatosa school’s history, will be used to develo p a biomedical research center and allow the Medical College to recruit leading scientistas for the center. The medical college also will work with and the for collaborative research and a comprehensive biomedical educational A massspectrometry facility, housec in the College’s Translational and Biomedical Researcnh Center, will be established to unite campuss mass spectrometry technologies and resources for participating researchers.
Mass spectrometerx are used in biomedical research to identify changes in biologically important molecules that can cause orcure diseases, includingb cancer, stroke and heart “Investing locally is important as since it helps move the region forward, and the cooperatived efforts with other Milwaukee institutiond of higher education also made the project stands out,” Patricia Kern said in a press Separately, California businessman Vern Underwood has donated $1 milliom to the medical college for creatio n of an endowed chair to supporft research investigating the causes of colohn cancer and its treatment. Underwood is chairmajn and CEOof Young’s Market Co., Orange Calif.
, one of the largest wine and spirits distributorsz in the United States and one of the oldesty continuously operating companies in the country. Colorectalk surgeon Dr. Kirk Ludwig will be the firstrVernon O. Underwood Professof in Colon Cancer Research. “This is a remarkabl gift that will help us accelerate an alread y growing area of expertisr at theMedical College,” T. Michael college president and chief executive officer said ina “By establishing this significant endowment, Mr. Underwood ensures that we will have enduring resources for advancing our understanding of colon cancer and findingf new ways to defeatthis disease.
” Ludwit joined the Medical College faculty last year as associate professor and chietf of colorectal surgery and associate professor of medicine in the divisionh of gastroenterology and hepatology. He is based at . Ludwiy previously served as chief of gastrointestinal surgeryu at Duke UniversityMedical Center.

YRC offers update on turnaround efforts - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The Overland Park-based trucking company (Nasdaq: YRCW) late Wednesda offered an update about its work to positiomn itself to ride out theeconomic downturn. The releasre followed a trading day in which YRC stock prices plunged 28 percent toa 52-week low of 89 compared with a previous low of $1.20. Also an analyst said for YRC in the near to But YRC shares turned sharply upwared in Thursday trading and closedat $1.49, up 60 or 67 percent, on volume of 35.9 millionh shares, according to . The stock’s average daily volumee the past three monthsis 3.8 millionm shares.
Several months ago, YRC said, it retained financialo advisers thatinclude , and to help form a “comprehensive strategifc plan to address its capital structur and liquidity needs.” As part of Rothschild has started preliminary talks with several partiesw that hold significant portions of YRC’s debt , YRC reached a tentativew concessions agreement with the , though details won’gt be released until next week. The talks reportedlyt center around YRC endingg its participation in uniobn pension plans for14 months, which woulrd yield about $500 million in savings.
YRC also detailed othet progress it has made inrecenft months, including integrating its Yellow and Roadwah networks into YRC to cut a bank agreement amendment that let YRC use $73 million in escro w funds from asset sales to pay down its revolving credigt facility and progress on agreements to defef pension fund payments using company real estate as collateral. YRC reachecd an $83 million in second-quarter pension contribution payments with the largesf pension fundin June; since then, seven otheer funds have entered the same agreement, bringing deferrapl of another $11 million in YRC, which contributes to 36 multiemployer pension plans, still is in talks with the remainingb funds.
“We can’t control the economiv environment, but we certainly can and are controllinf our responseto it,” YRC Chairman and CEO Bill Zollarsw said in the release. “Our self-help recovery plan is proactivw and has the support ofour stakeholders. We are takinyg the steps needed to manage ourplan today, and position our companyt for success as the economyu recovers.” YRC, which employs abourt 49,000 people, plans to announce a date for its second-quarter earnings release within the next week. YRC rank No.
2 on the Kansas City BusinesssJournal ’s list of area public

Business Success Stories - Mike and Kim Schmidt and Bella's Fat Cat

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Brady Street would seem an unlikeluy place fora walk-in hamburger and frozen treats but Mike and Kim Schmidt decidedx otherwise. In 2000, they opened Bella's Fat Cat to almost instan success as a coolplace