BUSINESS BRIEFS
Presidential debates online
Advertiser Staff and News Services
NEW YORK — The 2008 presidential contenders may soon be slugging it out in cyberspace, with pioneering online-only debates being planned for early next fall, a new media partnership says.
The political blog Huffington Post, online portal Yahoo and Slate Magazine will host the debates — one for Democratic candidates, one for Republicans — sometime after Labor Day, with PBS host Charlie Rose serving as moderator, the sponsors planned to announce today.
Voters will be invited to submit questions and can blog in real time to share their opinions on the candidates' answers.
CHINA SHOWS OFF ALTERNATIVE CARS
SHANGHAI, China — One experimental clean-energy car runs on natural gas. Another uses ethanol distilled from corn. A third has a zero-emissions electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
These alternative vehicles were created not by a global automaker but by China's small but ambitious car companies, which displayed them yesterday alongside gasoline-powered sedans and sport utility vehicles at the start of the Shanghai Auto Show.
MORE LEGROOM IN 'FREEDOM' SEATS
The dreaded middle seat in coach may never be the same on long international flights.
Britain's Premium Aircraft Interiors Group, or PAIG, has introduced the Freedom Economy Seat, a three-seat row that flips the middle one backward. PAIG also has a four-seat row in which the middle two face backward.
The configuration, introduced at a trade show in Germany, promises to minimize or eliminate the current problems of coach passengers bumping elbows, knees and especially shoulders, typically the widest part of the body. Freedom seats also would give passengers at least two more inches of legroom than conventional seats, PAIG says.
