August 30, 2001

Harvey Araton Sports of The Times column discusses career of disabled skier Diana Golden Brosnihan, who died last week at age 38; photo (M)

Japan's Suzuki Motor and Kawasaki Heavy Industries will jointly develop motorbikes, supply each other parts and products, and jointly purchase parts and materials (S)

State of the Art column on ruggedized laptops, portable computers designed for rough treatment; testing standards include repeated drops onto hard surface, exposure to high heat and similated ride in military jeep; generally not available in standard computer stores, they can be found at trade shows that cater to military, police and other non-sedentary occupations; Panasonic's Toughbook and RuggedNotebooks.com offer full and semi-ruggeds; drawing (M)

Jefferson Smurfit Group says profit before interest and exceptional items from North America fell 38 percent, to 107 million euros ($97.5 million), while profit from Europe increased 44 percent, to 149 million euros ($135.8 million); after-tax profit was 114,000 euros ($104,000) for six months ended June 30, up 6 percent over year ago, and revenue increased 5 percent, to 2.3 billion euros ($2.09 billion); pretax profit was flat at 175,000 euros ($159,000); Smurfit-Stone Container Corp, of which Jefferson Smurfit owns 29.5 percent, reports 44 percent drop in pretax profit, from $154 million to $86 million, on revenue of $4.3 billion (M)

Credit Suisse Group says profit fell 23 percent in second quarter from year earlier; income fell 24 percent, to $1.6 billion, in first half of year; photo (M)