Dominion East Ohio announces cost decrease

REGION

Dominion East Ohio
announces cost decrease

CLEVELAND — Dominion East Ohio customers who buy their natural gas from the utility will see a slight decrease in gas costs starting Jan. 17. The company’s Standard Service Offer rate will be $8.61 per thousand cubic feet of gas, down 3.1 cents from the December rate. The new SSO is $1.33 per thousand cubic feet, 18 percent, higher than the rate that was in place for January 2007.

Under the new rate, the average residential customer’s bill for January 2008 would be $232, up $39, from January 2007. The delivery or transportation rate of $2.93 per thousand cubic feet is the same for all customers, whether they buy gas from the utility, a marketing company or an aggregation group.

NATION

Studios: Striking writers
have suffered big losses

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood studios said Friday that striking writers have now lost more in salary and benefits than they had hoped to gain by walking off the job.

In the message posted on its Web site and YouTube, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers claimed losses by writers in the eight-week strike have exceeded $151 million.

That’s the price tag the Writers Guild of America put on its proposed three-year deal with studios.

Wal-Mart pulls plug
on online movie service

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — 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.

From Vindicator staff and wire reports