News In Brief

The personal income of Americans climbed in August for the eighth consecutive month, the Commerce Department reported. Total wages, interest, and government benefits rose 0.5 percent - a little faster than the 0.4 percent forecast by many analysts - after a 0.2 percent rise in July.

Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's largest oil companies, disputed part of a financial newspaper's report that it was preparing to cut 7,000 more jobs from the payroll. The Dutch publication Het Financiele Dagblad said over the weekend that the losses would accompany a restructuring plan to be implemented late next month. A company spokesman said he was not aware of a restructuring plan. Shell's payroll already has been cut by 7,000 jobs over the past 12 months.

Sony Corp. cofounder Akio Morita, who died in Tokyo, was largely credited with transforming Japan's image from a maker of slipshod products to a world leader in high-quality electronics and automobiles. Under his leadership from 1946 to 1994, Sony became a multibillion-dollar company that produced the first all-transistor TV and home-videotape recorder. His name is most closely linked to development of the Walkman personal stereo-cassette recorder, perhaps the corporation's No. 1 success story.

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society