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SYDNEY—Tests uncovered oil stains in three Rolls-Royce engines on Singapore Airlines’ A380 superjumbos, prompting the airline to yank the planes from service Wednesday just two days after Qantas announced troubling oil leaks on its A380s.

The oil on the Qantas and Singapore planes was discovered during tests prompted by the explosion of a Rolls-Royce engine on a Qantas A380 during a flight from Singapore to Sydney last week. The plane made a safe emergency landing in Singapore, but the Australian airline immediately grounded its entire fleet of A380s while it investigated the cause.

Singapore Airlines said it does not know whether the oil stains found in its engines have any connection to the engine oil leaks found on Qantas, but was temporarily pulling the planes from service as a precaution. The planes, in Melbourne, Sydney and London, will be flown to Singapore without passengers, where they’ll be fitted with new engines.

“We apologize to our customers for flight disruptions that may result and we seek their understanding,” airline spokesman Nicholas Ionides said in a statement.

Twenty planes operated by Qantas, Germany’s Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines use the Trent 900 engines. With the decision by Singapore, nine aircraft with the engines have been grounded.

On Monday, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said tests had uncovered oil leaks in the turbine area of three engines on three different A380s. The leaks were abnormal and should not be occurring on new engines, he said. All six of the Australian airline’s A380s remained grounded Wednesday.

London-based Rolls-Royce, an aerospace, power systems and defense company that is separate from the manufacturer of Rolls-Royce cars, had recommended a series of checks for the Trent 900 engines used in the A380s operated by Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Germany’s Lufthansa.

Singapore Airlines grounded its entire fleet of 11 A380s following last Thursday’s engine explosion on Qantas, but after initial checks, returned them to service Friday. However, on Wednesday, based on fresh analysis of the tests, Singapore took three of its A380s out of service again, because of oil stain results.

Singapore’s eight other A380s, also flying with Trent 900 engines, remain in service.

Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow said the airline was aware of the Singapore problem, but its maintenance crews had not found any oil leaks in their Trent 900 engines. However, the German airline did say it had replaced the Rolls-Royce engine on one of its A380s after detecting a problem it said was not connected to the oil leaks that grounded the Qantas and Singapore superjumbos.

The most likely cause of an oil leak or stain is a tiny crack in the oil supply pipe that lubricates the engine’s bearings, said John Page, an aircraft designer and senior lecturer in aerospace engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Oil leaks in an engine’s turbine area can spark fires, which could then put too much stress on the rapidly spinning engine parts and lead to a breakdown absolutely free credit score. There are many possible culprits behind a crack, such as poor design or chafing from the pipe rubbing against another engine part.

However, Page said, trace amounts of oil are not necessarily considered a serious issue.

“Normally it’s not a critical problem, but if it’s associated with a growing crack, then obviously it becomes a problem,” Page said. “If it’s a first indication it’s a growing crack, then it’s serious.”

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is leading an international investigation of the incident. The agency has said it is trying to find a missing piece of a turbine disc that could help explain what happened.

The bureau released a photo of a jagged and bent piece of turbine disc from the Trent 900 that seems to indicate a failure of the metal disc at the centre of the turbine. Turbines spin at extremely fast speeds during takeoff and initial climb, generating massive centrifugal forces.

Martin Chalk, president of the Brussels-based European Cockpit Association that represents 38,200 pilots from 36 European nations, said it was unlikely that a single cause such as an oil leak could have been responsible for the Qantas incident.

“Normally, when these things happen, it’s a series of factors that contribute to an accident,” Chalk said.

Meanwhile, Singapore plans to replace the affected engines on its A380s with other Trent 900s, said Bryony Duncan-Smith, a Sydney-based spokeswoman for Singapore Airlines. The airline does not know how long that will take, she said.

Rolls-Royce did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment Wednesday. On Monday, it issued a statement saying it had made progress in understanding what caused the Qantas engine to burst, but offered no details on what that cause might be.

Singapore said the engine changes don’t affect its eight other A380s at this point.

The Qantas and Singapore incidents are not the first problems Rolls-Royce have faced with its engines. In September 2009, a Singapore Airlines A380 was forced to return to Paris mid-flight after an engine malfunction. Last August, a Lufthansa crew shut down one of its engines as a precaution before landing in Frankfurt after receiving confusing information on a cockpit indicator.

On Tuesday, the European Aviation Safety Agency said it was closely monitoring the probe into the Qantas incident. The agency issued orders twice this year advising airlines about extra inspections or repairs needed for the Trent 900s.

A380s flown by Emirates and Air France use engines manufactured by the Engine Alliance, a 50/50 joint venture between GE Aircraft Engines and Pratt & Whitney.

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The bulls are back on Wall Street. After a bearish August, stocks roared into September with a major rally Wednesday, as investors cheered signs of strength in the manufacturing sector.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 256 points, or 2.2%.The S&P 500 (SPX) soared 31 points, or 2.9%. The Nasdaq (COMP) composite rallied 63 points, or 3%.

Stocks rallied right out of the gate as investors welcomed a rebound in Chinese manufacturing and robust economic growth in Australia. The advance kicked into high gear following an unexpectedly strong report on U.S. manufacturing activity.

The manufacturing data boosted industrial names and companies in the materials sector. Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), United Technologies (UTX, Fortune 500), Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) all gained between 2% and 4%. Energy producers Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) and Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) also rose as oil prices spiked 3%.

But the rally was broad-based. Six stocks gained for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. All 30 Dow components closed higher, with Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) gaining over 6%.

While the improvement in manufacturing allayed some concerns about the U.S. economy, traders said the market remains vulnerable given the uncertain outlook for growth this year.

Investors shrugged off a weaker-than-expected report from payroll processing firm ADP, which is widely seen as a leading indicator for Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department.

"This market is looking for something to grab on to," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist for Janney Montgomery Scott. "And for the moment it’s manufacturing."

The focus could shift to jobs Thursday morning when the government’s weekly report on initial claims for jobless benefits comes out. Investors will also take in the latest readings on factory orders and pending home sales shortly after the market opens.

"The manufacturing number is nice to hang your hat on, but the state of the consumer is still paramount for what’s happening in the economy, " said Luschini.

The major gauges ended Tuesday’s session essentially unchanged, closing out a lackluster August. Stocks typically start September strong, but often end on a weak note due to end-of-the-quarter movements by mutual funds.

Economy: The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) said its index of manufacturing activity rose to 56.3 in August. Economists were expecting the index to edge lower. Any number above 50 indicates growth in the sector.

Meanwhile, payroll processing firm ADP reported that employers cut 10,000 jobs in August. Economists were expecting private sector employers to add 13,000 jobs during the month, after adding 37,000 in July.

A separate report showed that planned job cuts plummeted to a 10-year low in August, as employers shed 34,768, down 17% from the previous month, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The reports come two days before the government’s monthly report on jobs and unemployment. Economists expect the government to report that the economy lost 120,000 jobs in August, after employers cut payrolls by 131,000 in July. The unemployment rate is expected to edge up to 9.6% from 9.5%.

Other reports on Wednesday included construction spending, which fell 1% in July, versus a forecasted 0.7% decline.

Companies: General Motors, Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Toyota (TM) all reported disappointing sales Wednesday, kicking off what is expected to be the worst August for industrywide auto sales in 27 years.

The drop in auto sales is partly a result of tough comparisons to the Cash for Clunkers program of last summer.

Shares of Burger King Holdings (BKC) jumped 14%, following a report that the fast food chain is considering a possible sale to buyout firms. The Wall Street Journal reported that that private equity firms that have expressed interest in buying Burger King include Britain’s 3G Capital Group.

Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) stock was up 2.8% as the company held its annual music-themed special event. CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil its newest iPods and advances in the iTunes music store.

Shares of BP (BP) climbed 3.7% as the oil giant said it has agreed to sell its interests in ethylene and polyethylene production in Malaysia to government-owned Petronas for $363 million in cash.

World markets: European shares closed sharply higher. The FTSE 100 in Britain jumped 2.7%, the CAC 40 in France added 3.8% and the DAX in Germany gained 2.7%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index gained nearly 1.2%, rebounding after hitting a 16-month low on Tuesday, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose 0.4%. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.6%, despite a report that showed China’s manufacturing sector bounced back in August after several months of slowing.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar fell against the euro and the British pound, but rose versus the Japanese yen.

Currency trading volume around the world has hit $4 trillion a day, a 20% jump compared to 2007, said the Bank of International Settlement.

Oil futures for October delivery rose $2.08 to $74.03 a barrel. Gold for December delivery fell $2.20 to $1,248.10 an ounce.

Bonds: The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.58% from 2.48% late Tuesday. 

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Apartment rental and vacancy rates for properties in the Raleigh-Durham region improved in first half of 2010, as demand strengthened and new construction slowed.

The average vacancy rate for the 103,383 apartment units tracked by apartment market research firm Real Data of Charlotte improved to 8.7 percent in July compared to a rate of 9.9 percent in January and a rate of 10.4 percent in July 2009, when the market’s vacancy rate peaked.

Renters signed to lease 2,912 vacant units between February and July, which was an improvement over the absorption of 604 units during the same period a year ago.

The Triangle apartment market’s average rental rate was $786 in July, which was up by 2.5 percent in the past six months. New apartments that are still in the lease-up stage have the highest average rental rate in the market, at $1,017 per month.

Real Data projects that average rents and occupancy levels will continue to rise over the next year as demand increases and new construction remains tempered.

Only 1,273 apartment units were under construction in July, Real Data’s report states, which compares to 3,234 units that were under construction the year prior Same day payday loans. Another 1,137 units are proposed to be built in the Triangle, but many projects have been put on hold due to lack of financing.

Apartment communities that are under construction include the following:

• Alexan Garrett Farms, with 116 units on U.S. 15-501 in central Durham.

• Final phase of American Tobacco Campus’ remaining 17 apartment units in downtown Durham.

• Trinity Commons, with 335 units on Douglas Street in Durham.

• Chapel Hill North, with 123 units on Airport Road in Chapel Hill.

• Landings at Winmore, with 60 units on Winmore Avenue in Carrboro.

• Meridian at Wakefield, with 369 units on Capital Boulevard in north Raleigh.

• Final phase of Chancery Village at the Park, with 42 units in Cary.

• Final phase of Grace Park, with 24 units on Davis Drive in Morrisville.

• Swift Creek Commons, with 196 units on West Chatham Street in Cary.

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It has been years in the making, but shares of the private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. finally made their U.S. debut Thursday.

Shares of the New York-based firm, trading under the symbol "KKR", got off to a modestly higher start, before finishing nearly 3% lower on the New York Stock Exchange.

"Today’s NYSE listing is an important milestone for KKR, and will provide an opportunity for investors to share in the value being created by our firm," cofounders Henry Kravis and George Roberts said in a statement issued shortly after the market open.

KKR (KKR) is known mainly for its role in taking RJR Nabisco private in 1988, a deal that spawned the book and television movie "Barbarians at the Gate."

The company originally filed to go public in 2007, but subsequently delayed its offering. A year later, the firm made another run at an initial public offering, but was forced to scuttle those plans altogether with the U no faxing 1 hour payday loans.S. financial markets in turmoil in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The company then pursued the non-traditional route of going public through a takeover of its Amsterdam-listed investment fund. Thursday’s debut simply marks the migration of those European-listed shares to the NYSE.

Analysts have suggested that KKR decided to move its shares to a U.S. exchange simply to widen its pool of potential investors.

Whether that demand will be there or not however, remains to be seen. Shares of publicly-traded private equity firms, including KKR rival Blackstone Group (BX) and Fortress Investment Group (FIG), are off 71% and 87% respectively since their market debuts in 2007. 

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US Airways Group Inc. has begun service from its Charlotte hub to Ottawa, Ontario.

US Airways Express partner Air Wisconsin will operate the daily service on 50-seat CRJ-200 regional jets.

“The new service to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, from Charlotte complements a growing choice of destinations from our largest hub,” says Jason Reisinger, US Airways director of route planning. “We’re now able to offer flights to and from Ottawa from both Philadelphia and Charlotte, providing flexible travel options for customers in those cities and abroad no fax payday advances.”

Ottawa joins five other destinations that have been added from Charlotte in the past 18 months, including service to Rome and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

US Airways (NYSE:LCC), based in Tempe, Ariz., offers more than 3,000 flights per day to 190 destinations.

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The economy seems to be recovering but is "far from being out of the woods," Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said in a speech Wednesday.

Bernanke, speaking before the Dallas Regional Chamber business group, said unemployment remains one of the "toughest problems" for policymakers, and one that he expects to ease only gradually.

Bernanke said he expects the Fed’s easy money policies and a gathering recovery "will be sufficient to slowly reduce the unemployment rate over the coming year" from its current level of 9.7%. But he admitted that the jobless rate remains a major concern.

"The economy has stabilized and is growing again, although we can hardly be satisfied when 1 out of every 10 U.S. workers is unemployed and family finances remain under great stress," Bernanke said.

The Fed chief also noted that bank lending continues to be weak and inflation expectations stable. Those observations should allow the central bank to continue to hold short-term interest rates near zero percent for what the Fed has called an "extended period" while keeping prices stable.

Fed meeting transcripts released Tuesday show some officials remain concerned that the economy could slip from its recent recovery track in the second half, as companies work through inventories accumulated in the downturn and fiscal stimulus payments slow.

Signs that the recovery is faltering could prompt officials to expand their support for the markets and delay a long-awaited policy tightening.

Investors have been anxious to see the Fed tighten monetary policy after nearly a year and a-half of near-zero interest rates. In the past two months, the Fed has ended a year-long bond purchase program and raised the rate it charges banks for emergency borrowing.

Among those seeing a need to tighten policy is Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig. In a speech Wednesday in New Mexico, he called for the Fed to drop its extended-period commitment and to "sometime soon" begin raising the key fed funds overnight lending target to 1% from its recent range of 0%-0.25%.

That said, the Fed has made clear it’s in no hurry to tighten policy, with the recovery in its earliest stages and so many Americans out of work.

Bernanke also questioned whether still-weak property markets could continue to hamper consumers and the financial system.

"Mortgage delinquencies for both subprime and prime loans continue to rise as do foreclosures," he said. "The commercial real estate sector remains troubled, which is a concern for communities and for banks holding commercial real estate loans."

Bernanke also said the United States must confront its profligate ways sooner rather than later if it is to avoid a fiscal crisis. Americans will have to make tough choices on the balance between higher taxes and lower spending on various priorities, he said.

Investors have been fretting about the nation’s grim budget picture and its need for overseas financing, though a sale of government bonds Wednesday shows demand for U.S. debt hasn’t ebbed.

"Unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Bernanke said. 

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Eden’s Fresh Co. opened a new restaurant in downtown Orlando, its second in Central Florida, on April 2.

The Winter Park-based restaurant, which specializes in salads, wraps and other fresh foods, debuted a 2,700-square-foot eatery with an outdoor patio in the Seaside Plaza building on South Orange Avenue. The space was previously occupied by Sobik’s Subs.

Owner Brian Certo said the downtown location also serves breakfast, something he plans to expand to his Winter Park location in the near future.

The restaurant signed a five-year lease at the end of January for the space, said Yvonne Baker, senior leasing representative with landlord Highwoods Properties Inc. (NYSE: HIW).

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Funeral home operator Service Corp. International has acquired rival Keystone North America Inc.

Last October, Service Corp. International (NYSE: SCI) announced plans to buy Keystone in a transaction with an estimated value of about $256 million.

On March 26, Keystone shareholders tendered their shares, at $8 apiece in Canadian dollars, as part of the buyout. Tampa, Fla.-based Keystone (TSX: KNA), also an owner and operator of funeral homes, trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange no fax pay day loan.

“We welcome the Keystone associates into the Dignity Memorial family,” said Tom Ryan, SCI president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “The acquisition is a great complement to the more than 300 similarly situated businesses we currently operate and will provide a platform to grow our business in this valuable segment.”

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Texas Rep. Diana Maldonado (D-Round Rock) Thursday called for homeowners' insurance reform following huge rate hikes by the state's largest insurer.

Late last year, State Farm Insurance increased homeowners' insurance rates 8.8 percent, and in May, the number will rise another 4.5 percent. In November, State Farm was ordered to repay home policyholders $310 million for overcharging coverage dating back to 2003.

Texas homeowners pay the second highest insurance premiums in the nation, according to the release.

"Forcing rate increase after rate increase on Texas homeowners is unacceptable and it is past time for the legislature to reverse course," Rep guaranteed unsecured personal loan. Maldonado said.

Before 2003, the Texas Department of Insurance set insurance rates and companies had to ask for approval to increase premiums. But after that year, the Legislature replaced the "prior approval" mandate with a "file and use" system, which only requires companies to inform the department of changes instead of asking.

Several bills reversing the 2003 decision have been proposed, but never passed.

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The honeymoon is officially over.

Three months after he replaced Fritz Henderson as CEO of General Motors, Ed Whitacre is getting a rude introduction to life in a single-industry town.

Following the reorganization of sales and marketing in North America last week, the latest in a series of management changes that saw some veteran executives relieved of their jobs, the Detroit media unleashed a torrent of criticism.

It didn’t matter that Whitacre, according to an insider, wasn’t even responsible for the North America changes. Those decisions were delegated to North American chief Mark Reuss.

Or that GM had gone bankrupt under an earlier administration, so presumably some shifts in personnel were due.

No, some familiar faces were losing their jobs, and that was cause for concern.

Worse, according to the hometowners, some outsiders — non-car people, in fact — were ascending to key positions in finance, communications, and elsewhere.

First to take offense was Detroit News columnist Daniel Howes, who accused Whitacre of "management by musical chairs." Howes asked, somewhat rhetorically, whether the changes might "reap the kinds of internal resentment that delivers less performance."

Next came Automotive News, the trade weekly that lands on every auto executive’s desk on Monday morning.

In an unusually critical editorial about a local hero, it declared "GM should start moving metal, not managers," and added "multiple staff changes have been confusing and off-putting for dealers and other stakeholders."

Then influential Detroit blogger Peter De Lorenzo weighed in with an open letter to Whitacre on his Autoextremist Web site. "I’m getting the distinct impression that you clearly don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about, no matter how many ‘aw shucks, I’m just a nice guy trying to help y’all out’ platitudes you spread around," wrote De Lorenzo. Just in case Whitacre didn’t get the point, De Lorenzo added, "I have a suggestion: Seeing as I don’t believe you’re bringing anything of value to the table…I suggest you settle into a more suitable role as official company ‘greeter.’"

As an outsider who came from the telecommunications industry, Whitacre already had two strikes against him. Auto people like to think of their business as uniquely complex and requiring years of experience. Non-industry people, such as the marketing experts who infiltrated GM during the brand-management era of the mid-1990s, often get rude receptions and, not surprisingly, don’t last long in their jobs.

Whitacre also suffers from being compared to the one outsider in recent times who has made good: Ford CEO Alan Mulally, who came from Boeing. But what many people forget is that Mulally was also treated suspiciously at first as some sort of foreign body. It was only through the force of his personality, as well as by posting good results at Ford (F, Fortune 500), that he came to be accepted. Alan Mulally is now treated as a saint.

Complicating all this is that Whitacre doesn’t schmooze the media. He seldom grants interviews and doesn’t hang out with editors and publishers in Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Pointe. He is more likely to dine at a food court in GM headquarters than the Detroit Athletic Club. Says one longtime industry observer: ‘When a new leader comes to town who doesn’t play the old game, the locals get their feelings hurt."

What Whitacre will be judged on, in the end, is not how he played the game but the results he was able to achieve. Already, GMers give him credit for shaking up the culture, moving up younger executives, and setting a simple, understandable goal for the company: Sell more cars.

If he succeeds, the booing will cease and, he will find himself very quickly embraced by Detroit’s car guys. But assessing Whitacre before the numbers come in says more about the insular culture of Detroit than it does about him. 

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