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• Georgia carpet maker a leader in climate change awareness
  Ray Anderson built his $1 billion Georgia-based carpet business by, as he describes it, plundering the earth: using lots of fossil fuels and water, and creating mountains of carpet scraps in landfills. Now he's got Interface Inc.'s 4,000 employees climbing Mount Sustainability and working on Misson Zero, a multi-faceted goal to make the company environmentally neutral by 2020. Time International magazine recently named Anderson one of its "Heroes of the Environment." He and former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart also are co-chairing a committee that advises the University of Coloroda-Denver-based Presidential Climate Action Project, an organization of academic, political and business leaders coming up with 300 ways the next president can combat global warming.
• Delta sets shareholder meeting for June
  Delta Air Lines' board has set the carrier's 2008 annual meeting of shareholders the first since it emerged from bankruptcy last spring and got a new CEO in New York City, the place where Delta is trying to vastly expand its international operations. The June 3 meeting will be held at 8:30 a.m. in the auditorium at AXA Equitable Center, 787 Seventh Ave., New York. Atlanta-based Delta came out of bankruptcy this spring and later named Richard Anderson, a former Northwest Airlines leader, as its new chief executive officer.
• More baby boomers head to the Rocky Mountain West
  John Kerr wasn't dreaming of palm trees and balmy winters when he retired from WGBH, the Boston public TV station known for producing such hits as "Antiques Roadshow." His thoughts had gone West. The 69-year-old put on a green uniform and Smokey Bear hat and became a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone National Park, where snow can fall every month of the year, including July. "That's why they have wood stoves and furnaces," Kerr said. "Warm weather isn't the issue for me. It's keeping vital and interested and involved."
• Gas prices rise back to $3 a gallon
  Gas prices rose back to $3 a gallon at the pump Friday, following rising oil futures on concerns about tight inventories and potential supply disruptions. Retail gas prices, which typically lag the futures market, are widely expected to rise to new record highs in the spring. Analysts think futures investors are anticipating big gains by buying now, driving futures — and thus pump prices — higher. "They're all jumping on the gasoline bandwagon," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, who predicts pump prices will peak between $3.50 and $3.75 a gallon in the spring. The Energy Information Administration recently predicted prices will peak above $3.40 a gallon.
• New-home sales fall to lowest level in more than 12 years
  Sales of new homes plunged last month to their lowest level in more than 12 years, a grim testament to the problems plaguing the housing sector. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales tumbled by 9 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000. That was the worst showing since April 1995, when the pace of sales was 621,000. The sales pace for November was much weaker than economists were expecting. They were predicting sales in the weakest sector of the economy to drop by around 1.8 percent, to a pace of 715,000.
• Wal-Mart abandons online movie service
  Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed an online movie download service it launched less than a year ago. The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company's 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world's largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc. Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.
• Economy fears, Bhutto assassination deflate stocks
  Wall Street skidded Thursday after the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and after the Commerce Department's durable goods orders exacerbated concerns about the U.S. economy. The major indexes each lost well over 1 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 192 points. Bhutto's assassination raised the possibility of increasing political unrest abroad, always an unsettling prospect for investors who have already been contending with domestic economic concerns for months. Oil prices rose following the news, and that unwelcome inflationary trend only added to Wall Street's uneasiness. Meanwhile, the government said orders for durable goods -- big-ticket items from commercial jetliners to home appliances -- rose by just 0.1 percent last month. Economists had been looking for a rise of 2.2 percent. Still, November saw the first rise in durable goods orders in the last four months.
• DeKalb Medical hiring 125 new employees
  A $21 million expansion at DeKalb Medical is prompting the hospital to hire 125 workers, including 72 registered nurses. DeKalb Medical is currently expanding and renovating its three campuses, North Decatur, Lithonia and downtown Decatur. New facilities at the three locations will include six additional labor and delivery rooms as well as a nursery at North Decatur, 13 patient rooms at the Hillandale campus in Lithonia and long-term care rooms in the downtown Decatur location. DeKalb Medical also has partnered with radiation oncologist Dale McCord for construction of a new $5.4 million cancer treatment center at the Lithonia location. Now under construction, the new cancer center will be open for patients late next year or in early 2009, according to medical center spokesman Mike Tu.
• Wachovia chief foresees another tough year
  As a brutal year in the financial services industry comes to a close, Ken Thompson says he believes Wachovia Corp. is prepared to weather the ongoing storm in the nation's housing and credit markets. But the chief executive of the nation's fourth-largest bank admits his industry is in for another rough year. "I'm expecting a slower-growth year than we've experienced anytime over the last five or six years," Thompson said Thursday in an interview. "We're still in the midst of a housing correction, which is impacting the real economy, but I do not expect a recession."
• Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday's old interior decor
  Atlanta locations of casual dining chain Ruby Tuesday are ditching the kitsch in favor of an updated, contemporary look. The Maryville, Tenn.-based company, which has 35 restaurants in metro Atlanta, has launched a nationwide makeover of its more than 600 locations that will include the retirement of its signature decor — Tiffany-style lamps, polished brass and walls of curios — for a design that includes commissioned paintings, upholstered seats and earth-tone color schemes. Thirty of the metro Atlanta stores have been remodeled, with the remaining locations to be completed soon, said Mike Roder, vice president of operations for the company.