BlackBerry readies

touch-screen model

Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry e-mail mobile phone, will start selling a model with a touch screen in the third quarter, taking on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, the Wall Street Journal said.

Verizon Wireless will have exclusive rights to sell the handset in the U.S., the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The device, known as the Thunder, will run on wireless networks globally, the Journal said.

Since the iPhone's debut last June, Apple has seized the No. 2 spot in the U.S. market for phones with Internet functions, challenging BlackBerry's lead. Research In Motion is updating its designs to expand beyond corporate users and fend off a new faster iPhone that may emerge next month, said Pablo Perez- Fernandez, a Global Crown Capital analyst in San Francisco.Toys

FAO Schwartz plans

stores inside Macy's

FAO Schwarz will open toy stores in close to 700 Macy's department stores over the next two years, the companies said Friday.

About 75 full-size FAO toy stores will open across the country in the fall, along with about 200 smaller shops that will be up to 300 square feet, the companies said.

Macy's shareholders were told of the venture during their annual meeting Friday. CEO Terry Lundgren said that the retailer's financial performance hasn't been what he would like, but that Macy's has outperformed most of its large competitors in terms of same-store sales.

FAO Schwarz gave its first Macy's store-within-a-store a trial run in Chicago late last year. Macy's, formerly known as Federated Department Stores, operates more than 850 department stores in 45 states, including Utah.

Gambling

Hoopster Barkley

owes big casino debt

Hall of Fame basketball player Charles Barkley told an Alabama radio station he will repay the $400,000 he owes Wynn Resorts Ltd. for gambling debts.

Wynn Resorts, a casino company founded by billionaire Stephen Wynn, sued Barkley, 45, in Nevada state court May 14. Barkley, a National Basketball Association analyst for Turner Sports, could be charged with a felony, Clark County district Attorney David Roger said Thursday.

''It's my fault. I screwed up. I got to take responsibility,'' Barkley said in a radio interview.

The former basketball player said he was given a certain amount of time to pay off the debt and that he let it lapse. He said he doesn't have financial problems and that he has the money to pay the debt.

''Obviously, I'm going to pay them. I'm not going to run,'' Barkley said.

Energy

Interior issues new

Alaska lease plan

The U.S. Interior Department issued a revised leasing plan to expand oil and natural-gas production on 4 million acres in Alaska, more than a year after a court rejected an earlier plan.

The department's Bureau of Land Management issued the plan Friday to open land in the northeastern portion of the National Petroleum Reserve. A lease sale would be held this fall for an area that could yield about 3 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas, the department said.

The new area available for lease doesn't include 219,000 acres of Teshekpuk Lake and defers leasing for 10 years on 430,000 acres north and east of the lake. Environmental groups challenged the earlier plan for leasing in that area and in September 2006 won a federal court ruling blocking the lease sale.

Banking

Citibank may sell

unit in Germany

Citigroup Inc., reeling from record losses, may sell its consumer-banking unit in Germany as part of Chief Executive Vikram Pandit's plan to replenish capital.

Citigroup is exploring ''a variety of options for our retail banking business in Germany,'' Bjoern Korschinowski, a spokesman for Dusseldorf-based Citibank Privatkunden AG, said Friday. The German unit could fetch at least $7.8 billion, said an analyst in Frankfurt.

Earlier this month, Pandit said he plans to get rid of about $400 billion of assets over the next three years. Citibank, with about 340 branches and the biggest consumer-lending business in Germany, had 2007 net income of 365 million euros, down 16 percent. Citigroup's German unit has about 6,800 employees and 3.2 million customers.