SAN JOSE — Apple Inc. will have plenty of room to eventually reduce the retail price of its upcoming iPhone, according to preliminary gross margin estimates by a market research company.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc.’s hard-charging promotion of its Checkout online-payment feature is hurting the company, according to analysts and Internet-industry watchers.

WASHINGTON — The crash of a commuter jet that took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., last summer has thrown a spotlight on the FAA’s “sterile cockpit” rule — a commonly violated and difficult-to-enforce prohibition against extraneous conversation between the pilots.

WASHINGTON — Art Buchwald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist, made a career out of skewering Washington’s elite, then won even wider fame when he chose to let himself die rather than fight for every ounce of life. Now he’s had the last laugh.

WASHINGTON  — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Thursday that the economy could be gravely hurt if Social Security and Medicare aren’t revamped, and he urged lawmakers to tackle the nation’s thorny fiscal issues sooner rather than later.

SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is renewing its effort to support free access to the Internet in U.S. libraries by providing new computers and high-speed connections to those that have struggled to keep up with technology.

SAN JOSE — With iPod sales still soaring, Apple Inc. reaped record profit during the holiday quarter and stands to remain a Wall Street darling despite issuing a second-quarter forecast that fell below analyst expectations.

ATLANTA — Birth defects lead to more than $2.5 billion a year in hospital costs alone, according to the first national studies to estimate their financial burden on U.S. families.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Rite Aid Corp. shareholders on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a deal worth almost $3 billion to buy more than 1,800 Brooks and Eckerd stores and become the largest drugstore operator on the East Coast.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Consumer Reports was forced on Thursday to retract a damning report on infant car seats after the federal government said test crashes on the seats were conducted at drastically higher speeds than the magazine had claimed.