Workers and management at Boeing's commercial airplane division hammered out a tentative agreement that could allow the airline giant to resume production quickly.
Thousands of machinists will vote on whether to approve the new three-year deal, providing a potential end to a three-week strike. Approval would let Boeing immediately make airplanes again.
The union's leadership urged its 18,400 members to accept the agreement, saying it will address key issues including health care premiums and pension payouts.
The deal calls for Boeing to make no changes to its current health care plan -- despite huge increases in health care costs nationwide. That's a major change from the premium and other increases Boeing previously demanded.
If the agreement is ratified, workers will receive an 8 percent signing bonus -- or about $5,000. They also will receive $3,000 payouts in the second and third years of the contract. There is no general wage increase.
But the workers no longer will be offered participation in an incentive pay program that would provide five days of pay if the company meets financial targets and up to 15 days' worth if the targets are exceeded. That was in the previous offer.
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TRL to go: MTV said it would license Warner Music's (WMG) music video catalog to create programming for mobile phone networks worldwide featuring videos by such acts as Green Day, Sean Paul and Twista.
MTV plans to create short programs based on shows like Driven and You Oughtta Know on VH1, and programming designed for high-speed internet users.
The pricing for the service will be determined by the mobile network and will be available either by subscription or on a fee per download or stream.
The music industry is putting a big bet on the mobile sector as an engine for growth. The industry already derives about half its digital revenue from ringtones. While labels have often allowed online services access to videos for promotional purposes, labels have been turning to their video catalogs as another potential source of revenue.
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Puttin' on the Brits: O2 is preparing the largest marketing campaign since the launch of its own brand four years ago to bring to Britain the first i-mode internet phones pioneered by Japanese partner NTT DoCoMo.
British-based O2, which will start selling the handsets about three years after some of its peers on the continent, said it planned a "provocative and intriguing" multimillion-pound poster, print and TV advertising splash.
O2's own brand has proved a runaway success across its British, Irish and German businesses and some analysts believe it has now leapfrogged that of Orange, the mobile phone rival owned by France Telecom, whose brand was once considered the most successful in cellular history.
The new phones -- two handsets made by NEC and two from Samsung -- will be available beginning Oct. 1 and offer what is billed as the first true internet on a mobile phone at the touch of a button.
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Old enemies make new friends: Palm is teaming up with Microsoft to launch a Windows-based version of the Treo smart phone, marking the first time the handheld computer pioneer will sell a device based on its former rival's software.
The new Treo 700 will be offered through Verizon Wireless.
The new device will run on Windows Mobile 5.0, the latest version of the operating system that has been challenging Palm OS for years.
Though the Palm OS dominated the industry, its lead has steadily lost ground to Microsoft's offering, which is based on that company's ubiquitous Windows desktop PC software and thus familiar to more people.
Users, especially in the corporate world, have been lured to Windows-based handhelds because they can run several programs at once and offer better support for documents created on Windows PCs and for Microsoft e-mail.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
