Jobless Recovery Indicated
Orders for durable goods unexpectedly jumped last month and first- time claims for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest in a year, adding to evidence that a jobless economic recovery is under way. Orders for items made to last at least three years increased 2 percent, to $173.6 billion, after dropping 1.5 percent in February, the Commerce Department said. The Labor Department reported states received 455,000 applications for jobless benefits, up from 447,000 in the prior week.</br></br>The Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to conduct an in-depth study of Iraqi debts and said they "stood ready to engage on Iraq's debt." Baghdad owes the club's 19 members, including the United States, Japan, Germany and Russia, an estimated $26 billion. But that includes only principal, not interest that has gone unpaid on most of the debt since the 1970s.</br></br>President Bush plans to nominate Harvey Rosen, a Princeton University economics professor and a deputy assistant Treasury secretary in the first Bush administration, to serve on his Council of Economic Advisers. If confirmed by the Senate, Rosen will replace Mark McClellan, who was named in October to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.</br></br>Johnson & Johnson won FDA approval to sell its drug-coated stent called Cypher, a device expected to revolutionize the treatment of clogged arteries in heart patients by preventing them from later re- clogging with scar tissue.</br></br>The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimouslyvoted to prohibit executives, creditors, customers and others from trying to misrepresent a company's finances by manipulating or coercing the auditor. The new rule gives the SEC greater latitude to prosecute cases in which an attempt to derail an audit wasn't successful.