NEW YORK (AP) – Shoppers persevered at the nation’s stores and malls in August, buying skinny jeans and other back-to-school fashions and giving many retailers solid sales for the month. Still, there were some signs of consumers’ financial strain in merchants’ results, leaving the outlook for the holiday season unclear.

As retailers reported their results Thursday, the winners included Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and many teen retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Wet Seal Inc.

Heinz earnings jump 23 percent

PITTSBURGH (AP) – H.J. Heinz Co. said Thursday its fiscal first-quarter profit jumped by 23 percent, partly due to sales growth.

Profit grew to $194.1 million, or 58 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Aug. 2 compared with $157.3 million, or 45 cents per share, during the same period last year.

Revenue edged up 8 percent to $2.06 billion, from $1.9 billion, the company said.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected a profit of 54 cents on revenue of $2.05 billion.

IRS: Refund OK on telephone tax

WASHINGTON (AP) – Consumers can claim a standard $30 to $60 refund next year for a tax on long-distance telephone calls that the government declared invalid, the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday.

Telephone customers had been paying the 3 percent federal excise tax on local and long-distance service. The government this month stopped collecting the tax on long-distance calls after businesses repeatedly fought the tax in court and won.

Next year, consumers can use their 2006 tax returns to claim a refund on long-distance telephone taxes paid since March 2003.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Consumers boosted their spending by the largest amount in six months and the back-to-school shopping season also got off to a strong start this summer.

Those two developments, released Thursday, offered hope that the current economic slowdown may be less severe than some had feared, notwithstanding a separate report showing a drop in orders to U.S. factories.

The Commerce Department reported that spending in July rose by a healthy 0.8 percent last month, double the 0.4 percent gain in June. Incomes also were up, rising by 0.5 percent in July, reflecting stronger wage growth.

Meanwhile, another report showed that orders to American factories fell in July by 0.6 percent, the biggest drop in three months, but the weakness was centered in a big drop in commercial aircraft, a category that is extremely volatile from month to month.

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RENO, Nev. (AP) – Canadian gold miner Goldcorp Inc. has agreed to buy Reno-based rival Glamis Gold Ltd. in an $8.6 billion stock deal that will create one of the world’s largest gold producers, the companies announced Thursday.

The new company will have proven and probable reserves of about 41.1 million ounces of gold, worth about $25 billion at current prices. The company will have 11,000 employees and operations focused on the Americas, the companies said. It will continue to operate under the Goldcorp name and be headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders will get 1.69 common shares of Goldcorp for each Glamis common share. Based on Goldcorp’s closing share price on Wednesday, the offer values Glamis shares at $51.49 each, an almost 33 percent premium to the stock’s closing share price on Wednesday.

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DETROIT (AP) – Aston Martin, the icon of luxury sports cars made famous in James Bond movies, has been put up for sale by the struggling Ford Motor Co., the company said Thursday.

Ford said in a statement that it is exploring the sale of all or part of the British-based carmaker, in part to raise capital for its other brands.

British-based Aston Martin makes about 5,000 cars a year. They cost upward of $100,000 each.

Bill Ford, the automaker’s chairman and chief executive, said the Aston Martin’s dealer network, design and size are different from other Ford brands and the most logical choice for possible sale.

Ford said no decisions have been made about its other luxury car brands, which include Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo.

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JEJU, South Korea (AP) – Samsung Electronics Co. showed off its vision for the future of mobile technology Thursday, sending data wirelessly at blazing speeds to a moving minibus.

The connection was robust enough to support live images – including a high-definition movie – beamed from a conference the South Korean company is hosting here on fourth-generation, or 4G, wireless.

In a key step toward making the technology truly mobile, the device aboard the minibus switched seamlessly between two base stations – meaning the signal won’t be lost when users are on-the-go.

The current prototype allows data transfers of 100 megabits per second, about 30 times typical broadband Internet speeds. It works even when the receiver is moving as fast as 75 mph.

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By The Associated Press

The Dow industrial average closed modestly lower, down 1.76, or 0.02 percent, at 11,381.15.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.45, or 0.03 percent, to 1,303.82, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 1.98, or 0.09 percent, to 2,183.75.

Light sweet crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 23 cents to settle at $70.26 a barrel.

Gasoline futures fell by more than 5 cents to settle at $1.7504 a gallon and heating oil futures rose by less than a penny to $1.9542 a gallon.

Nymex natural gas futures fell by 24.2 cents to settle at $6.048 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange rose 7 cents to settle at $70.25 a barrel.