Briefly

Wal-Mart withdraws bid for banking license

Stymied by a phalanx of opponents from big banks to unions and dogged by conflicting messages about its intentions, Wal-Mart withdrew a bid for a banking license Friday and said it would find other ways to serve customers' financial needs. The world's largest retailer withdrew its application to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for a bank charter after nearly two years of what it called "manufactured controversy."

CVS acquires Caremark RX Inc. with higher bid

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Caremark shareholders approved a $26.5 billion acquisition by CVS on Friday, creating one of the largest competitors in the prescription drug industry, the company said. The combined forces of the second-largest U.S. pharmacy benefits manager and the nation's largest retail pharmacy chain are expected to increase their bargaining power with drug makers and edge out competitors like Walgreen's, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and also Medco Health Solutions Inc., the largest benefits manager. Express Scripts Inc. and CVS Corp. have been in a bidding war for months to acquire Caremark Rx Inc.

--From wire reports

But increased antitrust scrutiny of the Express Scripts' proposal and the decision earlier this week not to increase its offer turned the bidding war in CVS' favor, some analysts said.

Prices are up, but so is factory output

WASHINGTON -- Consumers paid more for energy, food and a host of other items in February as a sluggish economy failed to extinguish inflation pressures. But in a hopeful sign for growth, factory output posted a better-than-expected increase. The Labor Department reported Friday that the Consumer Price Index rose by 0.4 percent last month, double the January increase, as energy prices shot up and adverse winter weather in Florida and California sent citrus prices soaring. The increase was larger than the 0.3 percent rise analysts had expected, although core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose by just 0.2 percent, in line with forecasts. But even there, economists saw problems with widespread increases in a number of categories including clothing, housing, education and medical care. The Fed, which meets next Tuesday and Wednesday, would like to cut interest rates to give the sluggish economy a boost, analysts said, but the central bank cannot do so because of the stubborn persistence of inflation pressures.

More flight cancellations from JetBlue Friday

NEW YORK -- JetBlue canceled 215 flights Friday because of a winter storm on the East Coast, aiming to avoid the days of cancellations and criticism that followed a storm last month, an airline spokesman said. The cancellations affected about one-third of all JetBlue flights. More than 200 of them involved flights to or from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, said airline spokesman Sebastian White. Other airlines also reported cancellations. American Airlines had canceled about 120 flights to or from New York and other Northeastern airports as of Friday morning, said spokeswoman Sonja Whitemon. Northwest Airlines canceled about 35 flights to or from the East Coast, all but a handful of them at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International, spokeswoman Tracy Carlson said. A few JetBlue flights also were affected at LaGuardia, Newark and Boston's Logan International Airport, White said. In addition, the airline had canceled 15 flights Thursday night, he said.

CHICAGO -- Shares of Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. lost more than half their value Friday after the struggling fitness center operator said it may file for bankruptcy. The slide accelerated a steep decline in the company's stock that began last year amid questions about management and failed efforts to sell the company. Its stock plummeted $1.24, or 62 percent, to an all-time closing low of 75 cents a share on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have fallen more than 90 percent in the past year. Bally said late Thursday it might file to reorganize its operations under Chapter 11 because it has $827 million in outstanding debt, with an additional $300 million coming due in October, and just $45 million in cash.

NEW YORK -- Oil prices slipped Friday, weighed down by the front-month contract's expiration next week and the stock market's continued weakness, a possible harbinger of an economic slowdown. Light, sweet crude for April delivery fell 44 cents to settle at $57.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped as much as $1.38 to $56.17 a barrel in late afternoon trading. "This is a market hitting the skids going into the April contract's expiration on Tuesday," said Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. "All the speculative activity is in May and June. That's why you see a larger drop in the April contract than in May," Evans said. The May contract settled at $59.58 a barrel, down 38 cents. It fell as much as $1.16 to $58.80 a barrel during the sell-off, while the June contract lost as much as $1.01 to $60.22.

TOKYO -- The guilty verdict in the biggest white-collar-crime trial in Japan in years was as much a message about cracking down on wayward startups as it was a ruling for disgraced dot-com kingpin Takafumi Horie. Horie, who came to symbolize the rise of a new generation of entrepreneurs, was convicted on securities laws violations and sentenced to an unusually harsh 21/2 years in prison Friday. Some expressed worries that an emerging innovative corporate culture may have stifled in this notoriously conformist harmony-loving nation, which tends to frown upon aggressive career moves that would be fairly standard in the West. But others said Horie, 34, a millionaire who tumbled from idol status after his arrest last year, had merely gotten a deserved taste of justice for deceiving investors about the value of Livedoor Co., the Internet portal site business he founded.