Wendell August to make Penguins items

Wendell August to make Penguins items

PITTSBURGH

The Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation is teaming up with a nationally known maker of hand-hammered giftware to turn parts of the stainless-steel roof from the team’s former home — the Civic Arena — into Christmas ornaments.

Team officials say Wendell August Forge is making at least 6,000 of the ornaments, which come in two styles.

Wendell August Forge, based near Grove City, has purchased part of the 170,000-square-foot igloo-shaped roof and is cutting and cleaning the thin sheet- metal into pieces that its artisans are using for the ornaments.

The ornaments will sell for $29 each. One version features the Civic Arena and the city skyline, and the other shows the arena and the Penguins logo.

The team’s foundation benefits various youth charities.

Eurozone ministers beef up rescue fund

BRUSSELS

Eurozone ministers offered Greece a $10.7 billion Christmas rescue package Tuesday to stem an immediate cash crisis yet failed to resolve fears that the common euro currency might be doomed.

The 17 finance ministers insisted they found a veneer of credibility to coat the euro’s rescue fund with enough leverage to deal with potential financial crises much bigger than the one facing peripheral Greece. And they called on the International Monetary Fund for resources to help further protect Europe’s embattled currency.

Consumer confidence surges in November

NEW YORK

Americans are beginning to feel more confident about the U.S. economy just as the all-important Christmas shopping season begins. But their optimism may be short-lived.

Consumer confidence surged in November to its highest level since July, a sign that Americans may be more willing to spend, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.

“Consumers appear to be entering the holiday season in better spirits,” Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.

But confidence still is painfully below what is typically seen during a healthy economy. And Americans could start to feel more skittish if the debt crisis in Europe deepens and stokes fears of another recession in the U.S.

Facebook settles over deception charges

NEW YORK

Facebook is settling with the Federal Trade Commission over charges it deceived consumers with its privacy settings to get people to share more personal information than they originally agreed to.

The FTC had charged that the social network told people they could keep the information they share private, then allowed it to be made public.

The charges go back to at least 2009, when Facebook changed its privacy settings so that information users may have deemed private, such as their list of friends, suddenly became viewable to everyone.

From wire reports