Business briefs 6/16/04

Official: Gas prices are 'turning a corner'

WASHINGTON -- Gasoline prices, which dipped under $2 a gallon for the first time in weeks, "may be turning a corner" and should continue declining this summer, though motorists shouldn't expect dramatic decreases at the pump, the Energy Department said Tuesday. Guy Caruso, administrator of the department's Energy Information Administration, told a Senate committee that retail prices fell by about three cents a gallon last week and that wholesale prices declined by 23 cents a gallon from their peak.

Web sites slowed in 'international attack'

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Several major Web sites -- including Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google -- were inaccessible at times early Tuesday due to what the company that distributes them online called an attack. The problem began about 7:45 a.m. and lasted about two hours, said Jeff Young, a spokesman for Akamai Technologies Inc., whose network of servers mirror some of the Web's top destinations to improve their performance. Young called it a "large scale, international attack on Internet infrastructure."

-- From wire reports