Checklist

National

U Securities regulators charged Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli with falsifying the company’s reported income, leading to what is thought to be the largest accounting restatement to date because of backdating stock options. A civil complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission also charges former Chief Financial Officer William J. Ruehle and general counsel David Dull. It seeks injunctions, unspecified monetary penalties as well as removing Messrs. Samueli and Dull from their positions.

U Delta Air Lines Inc. pilots voted overwhelmingly in favor of changes to their contract that will give them pay raises, an equity stake and other benefits, but also will give management more leeway as part of a proposed combination with Northwest Airlines Corp.

U Mesa Air Group Inc. will shut down subsidiary carrier Air Midwest, cutting off service to 16 small cities in 10 states because of soaring fuel prices, the company said. The cities belong to the federal government’s Essential Air Service program, which subsidizes flights on routes that would otherwise be unprofitable.

U Standardizing the use of external lights on jetliners would help prevent runway collisions — an increasing risk with global air traffic expanding at record rates, an international pilots’ group said. Passenger jets routinely use lights while taxiing on the tarmac at airports, but there has been no attempt to standardize the use of external lighting, the London-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations said.

U The Smart Fortwo, the smallest car for sale in the United States, scored well in safety tests, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported. The diminutive two-seater earned top ratings for front and side crashes and acceptable ratings — the second-best rating — for protection against rear-impact whiplash, the report said.

U Embarq Corp. could hand over its wireless customer base to another carrier next year, the company’s chief financial officer said. Gene Betts said the company would continue serving those customers until at least 2009.

U AstraZeneca PLC said U.S. regulators approved its anti-psychotic drug Seroquel as a maintenance treatment for patients with a type of bipolar disorder. Seroquel, already on sale to treat schizophrenia and depressive or manic episodes, is AstraZeneca’s second-biggest-selling drug, generating $4 billion of sales last year, but it is facing strong potential generic competition.

U Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 655,000 Ford F-150 and Lincoln Mark LT pickup trucks to fix a hose that could affect the vehicles’ braking power, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

U Google said it is blurring the faces of people in street scenes pictured at its free online mapping service. The Internet colossus said it was testing the technology in updated “street view” pictures woven into its map of Manhattan, N.Y., and, if successful, would put it to work across its mapping Web site.

International

U The United States topped world competitiveness rankings for the 15th straight year, according to an annual survey. Asian tigers Singapore and Hong Kong ranked just behind the U.S., as they did last year. Switzerland jumped two places to fourth, while Luxembourg rounded out the top five most-competitive economies, according to the IMD business school, Swiss publisher of the World Competitiveness Yearbook.

U Imperial Oil Ltd. failed to persuade a judge to reinstate a key water permit to build a $8 billion oil sands mine in northern Alberta. Federal Judge Douglas Campbell dismissed Imperial’s application to have Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans reinstate the permit at the Kearl oil sands mine. The company has said losing the permit could set the project back by a year.

U The European Union opened an antitrust investigation into ConocoPhillips’s proposed sale of hundreds of gas stations in Scandinavia to Statoil, Norway’s state-controlled oil company.

U Virgin Mobile USA Inc. said it is in preliminary talks with South Korea’s SK Telecom Co. about possible “strategic options,” a phrase that usually suggests a buyout or major investment.

U China has been slow in meeting commitments it made when joining the World Trade Organization more than six years ago, according to a report commissioned by Congress. “Our analysis revealed that China’s progress in resolving compliance issues appears to be slowing over time, especially since 2003 and 2004, when most progress was made,” said the study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

From wire dispatches and staff reports