In a setback to Microsoft's efforts to push its new operating system, Dell Inc. said yesterday that it would begin offering Windows XP as an alternative to Windows Vista on some consumer PCs. The announcement followed steady demands made on a Dell support forum, where consumers complained that Vista created too many problems for them with old software and hardware.
More good news: The Dow Jones industrials are extending their record gains of late and also approaching the 13,000 level. So not only do consumers seem to be ignoring all the doom-and-gloom predictions about the economy–mostly from housing bears warning of a spillover to other sectors–but the same goes for investors. (Of course, the consumer and the investor often are the same character.)
AP - Investigators pressed ahead Saturday with their search for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho's motives, even as more of his victims' families prepared for memorial services. Authorities sought Cho's cell phone records on the chance he warned someone about what would become the nation's worst mass shooting in modern history.
AP - A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it "collective punishment" and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council's approval.
AP - The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, the administration is warning Iraqi leaders that the boost in forces could be reversed if political reconciliation is not evident by summer.
A gunman killed himself and a male hostage while holed up in a barricaded building at NASA's Johnson Space Center, police say. Houston Police spokesman Capt. Dwayne Ready said a female hostage survived the ordeal. It is not know what, if any, relationship the killer had with his hostages. Houston police and NASA security were called about 1:40 p.m. CT and quickly surrounded Building 44, where work focuses on the engineering end of tracking spacecraft.