Scott Brown

Retail sales rose broadly in August, which should ease some concerns about consumer spending and support expectations for sturdy growth in the third quarter. The Commerce Department said Friday retail sales increased 0.6 percent last month as Americans bought automobiles and a range of other goods after an upwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in July. "It still paints the consumers muddling along," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Fla. "The general message on the economy is that it's improving but we still have a lot of slack to take up." 

The buzz over the new Winnipeg Jets logo continued as the team was forced to close its store over the weekend because it anticipated having no stock to sell. Jets Director of Communications Scott Brown said the Jets Gear store at the MTS Centre sold all 1,900 hats it had brought in. By mid-day Saturday, the team had processed more than 1,200 on-site transactions and expected to be sold out of all the rest of the nearly $200,000 of stock before the end of the day.