Former Hummer Factory Presents First Mass-Produced Car for Wheelchair Users

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(MIAMI) -- Marc Buoniconti, paralyzed in a freak football accident 16 years ago, said he felt like a “proud parent” when the first mass-produced car built for wheelchair users rolled off the line this week at a Mishawaka, Ind., factory that once made H2 Hummers.

In 1985, Buoniconti, the son of former Miami Dolphins star Nick Buoniconti, suffered a severe spinal cord injury playing for South Carolina’s military institution, the Citadel.

Since then, he has raised money for spinal injury research and over the last few years helped design a new car for wheelchair users.

This week, he received the first MV-1, made for Miami-based Vehicle Production Group (VPG) by AM General, which also builds military Hummers at its Indiana plant.

Until now, disabled Americans who use wheelchairs had to rely on public transportation or expensive vehicle conversions.

“The problem with conversions,” Buoniconti told ABC News, “is basically they’re an afterthought.”

The new MV-1, which starts at $39,950, has a 3-foot-high door that is wide enough to allow a person in a wheelchair to use a built-in ramp to get in alone.

A key selling point for disabled users, Buoniconti believes, is safety -- considering most spinal cord injuries are suffered in auto accidents.

“It’s a solid chassis, like the Hummer frame, so you can imagine how strong that vehicle is,” he said.

VPG initially plans to build 1,000 cars this year and as many as 30,000 by 2013.  It’s offering models powered by gasoline or compressed natural gas.

Buoniconti, president of the Miami Fund to Cure Paralysis, is convinced the disabled community will respond, particularly since wheelchair-accessible conversions can add $15,000 to $25,000 to the price of a car or van.

“Bottom dollar:  it’s inherently more expensive to live life with a disability than a normal life.  So any time you can buy a vehicle for less, that’s what you’re going to wind up doing,” he said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Woman Uninsured After Paying with Credit Card

PRNewsFoto/Blue Cross and Blue Shield(LOS ANGELES) -- Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross, based in California, announced this year it no longer allows monthly automatic online bill payments, attracting complaints from longtime customers. And consumer finance watchers warn this may be one of the first of many cases of merchants reigning in credit card use.

Anthem Blue Cross initially announced it was charging a $15 convenience fee on credit card payments in the spring, much to the dismay of policyholders accustomed to auto-paying with credit cards.

A spokesman said at the end of May the company first notified customers by mail of the surcharge but waived that fee indefinitely within a week. He said customers were informed they could no longer make auto-payments via credit, and calls were made to policyholders who were still paying premiums by recurring credit card each month reminding them of the restriction.

He said the outbound calls reminded policyholders of the other payment options, including automatic checking deduction, online bill payment, payments by mail, and one-time payments, with no fee until further notice, through customer service. Anthem now offers for free an automated telephone payment option to make a one-time credit card payment, according to the spokesman.

Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director of the Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG, said Anthem did a "terrible" job informing customers of the change though credit card companies are "part of the problem."

"The fees they impose on companies that collect credit cards is very high," he said, saying a credit card company can charge three percent.

Though Mierzwinski said no consumer group would advocate for a merchant to surcharge customers for using a credit card. The Federal Reserve capped debit card fees for merchants at 21 cents for each transaction, after initially proposing a cap of seven to 12 cents in December.

Lynda Gledhill, spokeswoman for the California attorney general's office, could not comment about Anthem but said California law prohibits private companies from requiring a credit card payment surcharge from customers, though they can offer discounts if paying with cash.

Beverly Harzog, credit card expert at Credit.com, said consumers should be aware if merchants limit or no longer accept credit card payments to try to decrease the transaction fees.

"When I see something like this, it's not long before I see similar situations," she said. "Accepting credit card payments is a little more expensive. Given how the economy has been, my guess is other companies may try to trim expenses."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Stocks Plunge on Jobs, Gloomy Fed Statement

ABC News(NEW YORK) -- The U.S. stock market plummeted after a rocky of day of trading on Thursday.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 391.01 points, or 3.51 percent, closing at 10,733.83. The NASDAQ ended the day down 3.25 percent at 2,455.67.

Early in the day the Dow was down more than 500 points. U.S stock markets started a sell-off Wednesday after the Fed announced its latest effort to boost the economy but also said that there are "significant downside risks" to the global economy. Things went from bad to worse as global stock markets followed the negative trend that then continued in trading in New York on Thursday.

Thursday was the biggest one-day point and percentage drop on the Dow since Aug. 10, 2011. It was also the biggest two-day point drop on the Dow since November 2008, when the economy was in the depths of the recession.

Investors are clearly panicking about the threat of another recession in the U.S. and Europe.

European leaders cannot seem to come up with a bold consensus to deal with the crisis in their economies, while there was yet another example of the bickering in Washington as GOP leaders failed to pass a stop-gap bill in Congress.

The Labor Department announced earlier in the day that applications for unemployment claims fell 9,000 last week to 423,000, higher than the 420,000 claims economists expected.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Retailers Expect More Sales, Fewer Shoppers During Holidays

Sean Gallup/Getty Images(CHICAGO) -- This holiday season, shoppers are expected to buy a little more and show up a little less at their favorite stores.

ShopperTrak, a Chicago market-research company, says that based on figures compiled so far in 2011, foot traffic is expected to drop 2.2 percent during November and December compared to the same period last year.

The reasons for the drop-off? High unemployment, higher gas prices and the convenience of shopping online.

ShopperTrak also predicts that sales over the holidays will likely increase three percent compared to November and December 2010 when sales growth was 4.1 percent more than what shoppers spent in 2009.

Taking into account the more conservative attitude toward spending, ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin said, "Every shopper in a store will be more valuable than last year, and retail stores should be ready to convert their holiday shoppers into sales."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

House Republicans Look to End Solyndra Loan Program

Ken James/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In an attempt to win support from the 48 House Republicans who voted against the stalled stopgap funding bill Wednesday night, the House Republican leadership is considering slashing the remaining $100 million from the loan program that granted a $535-million loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar company.

GOP aides said the Department of Energy loan program cuts would help offset disaster relief funding. The House is expected to vote on the tweaked continuing resolution Thursday evening.

Earlier, at a House Oversight Committee hearing, the loan program was blasted by Republicans for failing to create the jobs President Obama claimed it would when he promoted the Recovery Act program in 2009.

The Republican committee members released a report during the hearing that claimed the $41.7 billion allocated to green initiatives as part of the 2009 Recovery Act “has done little to create jobs or speed recovery.”

“In fact,” the report noted, “by many accounts it has destroyed jobs. This is a dangerous strategy that will drastically increase the price consumers pay for energy, hurt economic growth and restrict job creation.

Democratic committee members fired back with their own report that detailed the number of people currently employed by the green jobs sector in each Republican member’s district along with the federal loans given to green industries within both their district and state as a whole.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Steve Jobs' Words Rushed Into Print

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(EVANSTON, Ill) -- Steve Jobs, who brought the world the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod and so much more, has left a rich history, both of technological innovations and of thoughts about what people want from them.

Agate Publishing of Evanston, Ill., has assembled a 160-page volume of Jobs' quotations, culled from interviews, public appearances and writings after he co-founded Apple Inc. The book, edited by George Beahm, is due out in November. Its full title: I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words.

Now it so happens that Jobs' authorized biography, by Walter Isaacson, was at one time going to be titled "iSteve." It was due out next year, but it was retitled Steve Jobs: A Biography, and its publication was moved up to this fall, shortly before Jobs announced in August that his health would force him to step aside as Apple CEO.

Doug Seibold, Agate's publisher, said he moved up the publication of I, Steve too, and thinks of it as a companion to Isaacson's bio.

"I very much see the book as an homage to Steve Jobs," he said in an email, "and what really drew me to the project was the realization that Jobs is indisputably the most remarkable business figure of the past three decades, and that there was real value in collecting his public statements.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Jobless Claims Drop by 9,000

Spencer Platt/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- After rising for two straight weeks, claims for unemployment benefits dropped in the week ending Sept. 17, according to the Labor Department's latest report released Thursday.

The department said claims decreased that week by 9,000 to 423,000.  The previous week, claims stood at 432,000.

The four-week average, however, saw a slight increase, climbing by 500 to 421,000.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

HP CEO May Be Ousted for Former eBay Boss

Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Rumors of the ousting of Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker drove the tech company’s stock up over seven percent when deliberations among the company’s board of directors leaked in published reports.

The notion of ousting Apotheker and potentially replacing him with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman seemed to please investors Wednesday, who along with a number of analysts believe that the company is in dire need of a shake-up.

Apotheker has been head of the struggling Silicon Valley company since November of 2010, and since he took control, HP’s stock has slipped nearly 50 percent.

Before his current position heading HP, Apotheker was the CEO of business software engineer SAP AG, beginning in April 2008, but he was forced out of that position less than two years later.  When he came on board as CEO at HP it was theoretically to steer the company away from controversy that included the departure of former CEO Mark Hurd, which was tinged with a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Apotheker has said that during his reign HP has been hindered by Hurd’s under-investment.  Still, Apotheker received wide criticism for his decision-making in selling HP’s personal computer division.  Many feel that Apotheker waffled over selling the business outright or holding it after an auction to gauge interest.

Potential HP replacement Whitman’s back story could prove controversial as well.  The former eBay CEO resigned in 2008 after 10 successful years with the company.  She did, however, just spend well over $100 million in an unsuccessful Republican campaign for California governor in 2010 -- shelling out more than any candidate for a statewide office in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, HP shares rose $1.65, or 7.3 percent, to $24.12.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Poll: Americans Very Pessimistic about Economy's Direction

Comstock Images/Thinkstock(PRINCETON, N.J.) -- If you believe the country's headed for another recession, here's a bulletin: most Americans think the first recession isn't over yet.

According to a new Gallup poll, eight in 10 respondents say the U.S. is still in a recession, a number basically unchanged since 2008.  Economists say that the recession -- the worst economic downturn since the 1930s -- actually ended more than two years ago.

Sixty-one percent of Americans either think that the economy will not have improved one year from now or that it actually will get worse.

It's that type of sentiment that could lead to another recession because consumers will likely keep saving instead of spending if they have no confidence things will get better.

Only 37 percent of Americans believe the economy will improve by September 2012.

In September 2009, there was a greater sense of optimism with two in three respondents saying the economy would be better in a year and one-third saying it was on track to get worse.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Dow Jones Drops More than 300 Points after Fed's Announcement

Comstock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Stocks plunged and bond yields fell Thursday morning after the Federal Reserve's announcement of a $400 billion securities swap and a disappointing initial jobless claims report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 350 points to 10,769, or 3.2 percent, after trading began in New York. The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq index fell about 3 percent.

The Labor Department announced Thursday that applications for unemployment claims fell 9,000 last week to 423,000, higher than the 420,000 claims economists expected.

Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist with Federated Investors, said 400,000 claims or lower would indicate a healthier economic environment for employment.He said the claims figures and a drop in stocks in European and Asian markets - mostly related to fears of a Greek default - contributed to the stock market's tumble.

Stock trading also responded to the Federal Reserve's announcement that "economic growth remains slow" on Wednesday. The Federal Open Market Committee announced the intent to purchase $400 billion of long-term securities by the end of June 2012 and the sale of an equal amount of short-term securities.

"Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labor market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending has been increasing at only a modest pace in recent months despite some recovery in sales of motor vehicles as supply-chain disruptions eased," the committee said in a statement at the conclusion of its two-day meeting.

Orlando said the stock markets had rallied after the Federal Reserve completed its annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming late August when chairman Ben Bernanke expressed some optimism about the economic recovery. The rally started to falter until about two days ago, in part over rumored action by the Federal Reserve.

Orlando said the Federal Reserve did a good job "telegraphing" its "Operation Twist," which aims to decrease long-term interest rates further than already low levels.

And the Fed's move is already working, at least according to the 10-year Treasury yield. The yield fell below 1.8 percent, the lowest level since the 1940s. But will the low yield help stimulate the economy?

"The point is: how much incremental economic activity are we going to see with the 10 year yield at 1.75 versus 2 percent?" he asked.

"The problem is the reluctance of banks to lend money to credit-worthy small businesses and personal borrowers," Orlando said. "Yes, you have lower interest rates but is that going to increase lending to credit borrowers?"

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio