Radioshack

The first big weekend of the holiday selling season gave retailers a better-than-expected boost as bargain-hunting consumers crowded stores and malls. Several of the bigger national chains reported yesterday strong sales gains for so-called Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and for the weekend, considered the kickoff to the crucial pre-Christmas period. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 3.8 percent for the three-day weekend, compared with those days a year ago, according to the TeleCheck Retail Index, which is based on a same-store comparison of consumer checks at more than 27,000 locations.

Spring is on the air. Yes, you read that right. Spring-flavored shows and specials will be airing on Home & Garden Television all this week to welcome in the season. What's on? The new series Ground Rules! -- which pits neighbor against neighbor in a competition to make over their yards within eight hours and on a $1,000 budget -- makes its premiere Friday at 10 p.m. Another new series, Mission: Organization, beginning March 31 at 8:30 p.m., features a team of experts reorganizing and restoring order to chaotic and cluttered homes.

NEW YORK -- Like airplanes backed up on a runway, dozens of pending multibillion-dollar corporate buyout deals involving such familiar names as Hilton Hotels and Clear Channel Communications are waiting to take off. But if Wall Street's instincts are correct, the global credit crunch might ground some of them. Plunging stock prices of companies that already have agreed to be bought at higher values suggest that investors believe some deals could be shaky. There's more at stake than big year-end bonuses on Wall Street.

If the future is the personal media viewer, I'm not seeing it. The impregnated-safety-goggle design just won't fly. It doesn't matter what decade, or what century. Why not just call these iPod goggles an eyepod and trim enough fat so they look like otherworldly, rechargeable sunglasses? Then maybe more people will start watching downloads of The Secret Life of the American Teenager flash before their eyes. Myvu Corp. of Westwood, Mass., is halfway there. It still calls its products video eyewear, but the Crystal 701 for iPod is almost sexy enough to wear in public.

Dennis Kozlowski resigned as CEO of Tyco International as he was about to be indicted on tax evasion charges. Scooter Libby resigned as Dick Cheney's chief of staff after being indicted on charges he lied about the leak of a CIA agent's identity David Edmondson lied about academic credentials on his resume and, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, faced charges of driving while intoxicated. He resigned Monday as RadioShack CEO. Steven R. Chamberlain, on the other hand, was indicted this month in Howard County on two felony charges for alleged sexual offenses involving a 14-year-old girl in his Columbia home.

Sales clerks at national retail chains that carry electronics have been misleading broadcast television viewers about the 2009 transition to digital television, directing them toward unnecessary purchases, a report by the Maryland Public Interest Research Group says. The consumer advocacy group, along with counterparts across the country, conducted 132 "secret shopper" surveys in 10 states last fall. The Maryland survey included 10 stores in Baltimore and Baltimore County that belong to five national retail chains.

Retailer Sears has struggled for years to get shoppers to go to its stores for more than drills and refrigerators. But remakes pitching the "softer side of Sears" didn't do the trick So now Sears is trying another tactic -- creating complete Lands' End stores-within-a-store -- in the hope that it can capitalize on the brand. Sears' latest strategy is an expansion of a sales tool that has been used by other retailers for at least two decades. Department store chains such as Macy's were among the first to use the concept, setting up designer brands such as Ralph Lauren Polo in their own sections of a store.

Attracting a throng of reporters and photographers to Ellicott City, New York literary agent Lucianne Goldberg testified for 1 1/2 hours yesterday before a Howard County grand jury, saying later she had turned over tapes of conversations involving her friend Linda R. Tripp.Goldberg, the highest-profile witness to appear before the grand jury investigating allegations that Tripp broke state wiretap law, insisted to reporters that "Linda did nothing illegal" in taping former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The coming debut of the pricey Apple iPhone loomed over the wireless industry's annual show, but executives from its carrier, AT&T Inc., were smiling about a different kind of handset - one that will cost a mere $20. The Motorola C139 is part of the Go Phone line of prepaid cellular handsets, a market that is a "golden opportunity," said Glenn Lurie, president of national distribution for AT&T's Atlanta-based mobile division, which is...

A respectable Hewlett-Packard notebook computer for $398, with no messy mail-in rebates. A Plantronics Bluetooth wireless cell phone headset for $9.99. A Canon digital camcorder for $249.99. These are some of the jaw-dropping bargains that await shoppers on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers lure holiday crowds with "doorbuster" discounts. Consumers aren't supposed to learn about these deep discounts until Thanksgiving Day, when newspapers are stuffed like turkeys with colorful ad inserts.