Dow rises for 8th-straight week

Dow rises for 8th-straight week

NEW YORK

Strong profits at General Electric sent industrial stocks higher Friday and helped the Dow Jones industrial average notch its eighth- straight week of gains.

General Electric Co. gained 7.1 percent, leading the 30 stocks that make up the Dow. The conglomerate’s earnings rose 52 percent on growth in equipment orders and lending.

The company’s results helped send industrial companies in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index up 1.2 percent. 3M Co., another industrial conglomerate, gained 1.4 percent and Textron Inc. rose 2.2 percent.

The Dow rose 49.04 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 11,871.84.

Report on blast: Defects in pipe welds

SAN FRANCISCO

Federal investigators probing the cause of a deadly natural-gas pipeline explosion in Northern California said Friday they found dozens of defects and cracks in welds that held together segments of the pipe.

The decades-old welds could have failed after being weakened over the years by increases in pressure made to accommodate growing consumer demand, engineering experts who read the report told The Associated Press.

The National Transportation Safety Board previously determined the pipeline had experienced a spike in pressure just before the Sept. 9 blast in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes in a quiet neighborhood south of San Francisco.

IMF OKs credit line of $30B for Poland

WASHINGTON

The International Monetary Fund approved Friday a two-year flexible credit arrangement for Poland worth $30 billion, extending credit lines granted in 2009 and 2010.

The IMF board said the Polish government planned to use the line as a precaution with no intention to draw from it.

“Poland’s macroeconomic performance was strong in the decade leading up to the global crisis, supported by sound economic policies,” John Lipsky, the board’s acting chairman, said in a prepared statement. He praised policies that led to low inflation and limited government deficits.

$2.6M to settle mobile-home claims

NEW ORLEANS

Companies that manufactured mobile homes for FEMA after Hurricane Katrina have agreed to pay $2.6 million to resolve thousands of claims that the temporary shelters exposed Gulf Coast storm victims to potentially dangerous fumes.

Attorneys for plaintiffs and roughly two dozen mobile- home makers and their subsidiaries on Friday asked a federal judge in New Orleans to approve the proposed class-action settlement, which could benefit thousands of families.

The settlement doesn’t involve claims for residents who lived in FEMA travel trailers, which housed the majority of storm victims. Government tests found that travel trailers had significantly higher average formaldehyde levels than mobile homes, which are larger and sturdier.

Associated Press