Franklin Covey sets

Q3 conference call

Franklin Covey Co., a Utah time management and consulting company, said a conference call to review the company's third-quarter financial results will take place on Thursday at 3 p.m. Those interested in listening in can participate by dialing 866-277-1882 and using the access code 62391847.

Tech firms form

Microsoft group

A group of technology companies has launched a Utah chapter of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners. Channel partners are companies that strike deals with manufacturers or producers to market and sell their products. The chapter will be led by Kevin McMillen, CEO of RyanTech in Park City, and Ryan Redmond, CEO at Customer Dynamics in Salt Lake City.

American may drop

pilot furlough plans

American Airlines is offering to drop plans to furlough pilots as it seeks union approval for a long-term cost-cutting deal. It disclosed the offer after a federal judge granted a one-week delay in ruling on a request to throw out existing labor contracts. The offer could help American emerge from bankruptcy.

Internet company

picks new CEO

A businessman with experience in building consensus, Fadi Chehade, will be the next CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is pushing through a major change in the way Web and email addresses are assigned. He will replace former U.S. cybersecurity chief Rod Beckstrom.

Calif. voters nix

new tobacco tax

An effort to impose a new tax on tobacco to pay for cancer research in the nation's most populous state has failed by six tenths of a percent. The Associated Press determined Friday that California's Proposition 29, backed by cycling legend Lance Armstrong, had failed by about 27,000 votes out 5 million cast.

Buffett to buy

Waco paper

Billionaire Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is expanding its newsprint division, buying the Waco Tribune-Herald, its second in Texas. For Buffett, Berkshire's CEO, acquiring the paper fits his stated interest in buying small and medium-sized newspapers in places with a strong sense of community.

Sugar workers

consider pact

For nearly 11 months, they picketed in sub-zero temperatures, marched on company headquarters, prayed with religious leaders and traveled 200 miles on a hay wagon. Now, the locked-out union workers at American Crystal Sugar Co. in Fargo, N.D., will decide whether they're tired of walking and talking. The union has scheduled a third vote Saturday on a contract that triggered the first labor impasse in 30 years at the largest sugar beet processor in the country.