A jump in demand for commercial aircraft pushed orders for big-ticket manufactured goods higher in March while sales of new homes shot up at the fastest pace in 13 years, reflecting a rebound from bad weather in February. Both reports depicted an economy continuing to expand at a healthy pace, a view supported by a new survey of business conditions around the country released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve. The Fed's 12 regional banks used words such as "solid," and "steady" to describe the economy's performance in March and early April.

The number of diesel cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles on U.S. roads rose 80 percent between 2000 and 2005 as more vehicles hit the market and more buyers chose fuel-efficient diesels as an option, according to data released Wednesday by a diesel advocacy group. There were 543,777 new diesel vehicles registered in 2005, compared to 301,471 five years earlier, according to data compiled by the Southfield, Mich.-based auto information company R.L. Polk & Co. and released by the Diesel Technology Forum. Diesels represented about 3.6 percent of all new vehicles in the U.S. market 2005.

Insurance company Ace Ltd. settled a bid-rigging investigation by New York, Illinois and Connecticut for $80 million in restitution and penalties. Ace, a holding company based in Bermuda, and its subsidiaries were accused of bid rigging and improper transactions in so-called finite insurance and reinsurance contracts. A company spokesman declined comment.

A record number of people filed their tax returns electronically this year. More than 70 million taxpayers, or 57 percent, transmitted their tax returns through a computer. But the number of people who took advantage of free tax preparation software offered through the IRS fell by 23 percent. The number of individuals and families filing their taxes from a home computer increased more than 18 percent this year, to nearly 20 million. More than 50 million people, or 9 percent more than last year, got professional help and filed electronically.

Nissan Motor Co. said less than half the employees at its North American headquarters in California plan to move when the automaker relocates to Tennessee. About 42 percent of the nearly 1,300 employees at the headquarters in Gardena, Calif., will relocate. Tom Libby, an automotive analyst with JD Power and Associates, said Wednesday that high-level employees will be more difficult to immediately replace, though the loss of experienced workers shouldn't produce any long-term problems.

McClatchy Co. is selling four newspapers to MediaNews Group Inc., publisher of The Denver Post and dozens of other newspapers, for $1 billion in cash. The deal will strengthen MediaNews' presence in California, where it already owns several papers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The complex deal involves financial backing from Hearst Corp. The four papers -- the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the Monterey County Herald as well as the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- are among 12 being sold by McClatchy.

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