“I wouldn’t even call it a rivalry,” says Boeing engineer Mike Sinnett. “It wasn’t anything like Army beating Navy.”

Still, no one denies that a respectful yet pronounced division separated engineers on the commercial side of the Boeing ledger from those on the military arm.

The evidence that both sides in fact play on the same team descended on St. Louis last week when a prototype of the Chicago-based aircraft maker’s fuel-efficient, long range commercial aircraft, the Boeing 787, touched down on a runway at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

Dubbed the Dreamliner, the 787 is among the first collaborative efforts between the company’s Seattle-based commercial engineering unit and their counterparts at the Defense, Space and Security division headquartered in Hazelwood.

Seattle aerospace analyst Scott Hamilton says Boeing’s successful launch of the 787 testifies to the talent the St. Louis engineering corps brought to a project plagued by cost overruns and production glitches.

“They absolutely borrowed or stole engineers from Boeing defense as the problems got worse,” said Hamilton. “So, yes, you had collaboration. But (the defense engineers) were the relief pitchers.”

One reliever was Greg Busche, assigned in 2007 to manage the St. Louis Commercial Support Group

An engineer for 26 years at McDonnell Douglas and, after the 1996 merger of the two aerospace giants, Boeing, Busche was well-versed in in the design of the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the other fighter jets manufactured for U.S. and worldwide military customers.

The basic thrust of Busche’s responsibilities remained the same.

But the challenge of moving from a 60-foot aircraft carrying a maximum of two pilots that’s designed to land on aircraft carriers to the logistics of an 186-foot jumbo jet capable of transporting as many as 250 passengers up to 8,500 nautical miles required him to recalibrate his expertise.

Though the schematics of the retrospective aircraft vary greatly - the wingspan of the 787 is four times greater than that of a Super Hornet jet fighter and the commercial jet stands a full 40 feet higher - the basic principles of aerodynamics carried the day.

“It’s kind of like speaking French and speaking German,” said Busche. “You can say the same thing, but you say it in different ways.”

Sinnett, the Seattle-based chief engineer on the project, concurs:

“How an engineer solves problems doesn’t change no matter the domain,” he said free credit score online.

The commercial-defense division partnership born when Boeing combined forces with McDonnell Douglas resonated personally with Sinnett.

A St. Louis native, Sinnett traces his roots as an “airplane nut” to his father - a senior executive at McDonnell Douglas at the time of the merger.

The younger Sinnett began on the defense side of the business but moved to commercial engineering after re-locating to Seattle.

He acknowledges the corporate mandate for “One Boeing” took getting used to.

“It was not natural for us in the beginning,” Sinnett said of the collaborative effort with the defense engineers. “The hard thing was remembering that we needed to tap a great enterprise.”

In St. Louis, Busche and his team concentrated their efforts on the floor structure and structural design and analysis as Boeing struggled to rectify an estimated $2.5 billion in cost overruns and delays that set delivery of the first of the $200 million jetliners nearly three years behind schedule.

Hamilton blamed a fair share of the predicament on Boeing’s decision to encumber the process by outsourcing portions of the project to vendors and suppliers spread across the globe.

“There were certainly too many cooks in this kitchen,” the analyst said. “But it’s not fair to say Boeing defense was one of those cooks.”

The ongoing development of the P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and the KC-767 Tanker, both of which are based on the airframs of Boeing commercial jets, provides the company with further opportunity to hone the joint effort between its two divisions.

When all was said and done, Sinnett acknowledged the ability of the St. Louis-based engineers to identify and solve problems as they arose proved invaluable.

The Dreamliner is currently in use commercially in Japan, where All Nippon Airways operates it on commercial routes.

Boeing is filling orders totaling $178 billion for 870 additional 787s from 59 customers around the world.

At least one paying passenger will board more interested in the flight than his destination once Dreamliners begin materializing on U.S. commercial fleets.

“This is the first program I’ve ever worked on that I can actually fly,” said Busche, the defense engineer.  “I’m going to get a ticket and take a ride.”

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Donald Tusk said Friday that first a wider discussion must be held on the issue to include Internet users and privacy protection office.

The government signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, late last month but it must still be approved. Tusk says Parliament may not do so if it conflicts with Polish law.

The U.S., Japan and others say the treaty is needed to fight trade in pirated material.

Poland is the only country that has seen major opposition to the treaty. Opponents say it will restrict Internet free speech and allow online surveillance.

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The company aims to cut labor costs by 20 percent and will soon begin negotiations with its three major unions. Some management jobs would also be cut.

AMR also proposes to end its traditional pension plans. The move has been opposed by the airline’s unions and the U.S. pension-insurance agency.

AMR Corp. CEO Thomas W. Horton said Wednesday that the company hopes to return to profitability by cutting spending by more than $2 billion per year and raising revenue by $1 billion per year.

AMR lost $884 million in the first nine months of 2011, and on Tuesday it disclosed a $904 million loss for December. It has lost more than $11 billion since 2001.

Employees have braced for bad news for weeks. AMR, American and short-haul affiliate American Eagle filed for bankruptcy protection in November. Horton said in December that the company would emerge from bankruptcy with fewer workers.

Horton said cost-cutting moves would include restructuring debt and aircraft leases, grounding older planes and changing labor contracts. Horton and other top executives outlined the job cuts and other proposals during a closed-door meeting with employees near the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters.

The company has about 88,000 workers. Most are represented by a union.

The biggest cuts would come from the ranks of maintenance workers, about 4,600, and baggage handlers, about 4,200, according to company spokesman Bruce Hicks. About 2,300 flight attendants, 1,400 management employees and 400 pilots would lose their jobs under the plan, he said.

If American and its three unions can’t agree on labor cuts, the company could ask a bankruptcy judge to impose changes on workers. But federal law requires the company to make a good-faith effort to first negotiate agreements with its workers.

American has about 1,200 employees based in St. Louis, according to a company spokeswoman. Meanwhile, American Airlines has about 17 percent of the market share at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. Southwest Airlines is the dominant carrier in the St. Louis market with 45 percent of departing traffic.

Ken Leiser of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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The Pittsburgh-based steel company also says it expects first-quarter results to be improved from fourth-quarter levels.

U.S. Steel says it had a net loss of $226 million, or $1.57 per share, in the last three months of 2011, compared with a loss of $249 million, or $1.74 per share, in the same quarter in 2010.

Excluding charges including $51 million in losses tied to foreign currencies, the company says its adjusted loss is $164 million, or $1.14 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a narrower loss of 85 cents per share.

Revenue is up 12 percent to $4.82 billion from $4.3 billion, while analysts expected $4.74 billion.

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Spokesman David Gaffney said Hester would not receive the bonus of 3.6 million shares he was awarded last week by the board of the largely state-owned bank.

The British government spent 45 billion pounds bailing out RBS three years ago. It still owns an 82 percent stake, and politicians had criticized the reward at a time when Britons face painful spending cuts and tax hikes.

The government _ which has insisted it has no control over the bank’s bonuses _ welcomed the announcement.

“This is a sensible and welcome decision that enables Stephen Hester to focus on the very important job he has got to do, namely to get back billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that was put into RBS,” Treasury chief George Osborne said.

The decision follows Saturday’s announcement that RBS chairman Philip Hampton was waiving his own bonus of 1.4 million pounds in shares.

Hester and Hampton were brought in after Fred Goodwin, who led RBS’s ill-fated takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro, stepped down in October 2008 as the government was spending billions to prop up the bank.

The board of directors decided last week to award Hester a bonus of 3 quick payday loans.6 million shares _ worth just under 1 million pounds at Friday’s closing share price of 27.74 pence. That came on top of his annual salary of 1.2 million pounds.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that Hester’s bonus was “a matter for him,” but pointed out it was much less than last year’s.

The government claimed it had no control over bonuses awarded by the bank, and said replacing Hester if he resigned would be more costly than paying the reward.

But many politicians were critical. London Mayor Boris Johnson, a Conservative like Cameron, said he found the bonus “absolutely bewildering.”

Rachel Reeves, Treasury spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, said Sunday the sum was inappropriate “when families are feeling the pinch.”

“It’s time the government explained why they have allowed these bonuses to go through unchallenged,” she said.

Before the bank’s announcement, the Labour Party said it would force a vote in the House of Commons next month calling for Hester to be stripped of his bonus.

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Headquarters • Town and Country

CEO • Jeffry Quinn

Products • Laminated architectural and automotive glass; performance films for cars and buildings; chemicals for rubber and tires; synthetic heat transfer fluids; and hydraulic fluids for commercial aircraft.

Revenue • $2.1 billion

Employees • 3,400

www.solutia.com

Eastman Chemical Co.

Headquarters • Kingsport, Tenn personal business card.

CEO • Jim Rogers

Products • Chemicals, fibers and plastics

Revenue • $7.2 billion

Employees • 10,000

www.eastman.com

NOTE: Financial, employment figures for 2011.

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The Houston-based company said in a statement that the two had reached an agreement with China’s Ministry of Agriculture over the oil spills last June in the Bohai Sea.

The spills were considered small, especially compared with the Gulf of Mexico spills in 2010, but Conoco, the operator of the Bohai field, still came under intense media criticism in China.

Conoco said the money, 1 billion yuan, would be used “to settle public and private claims of potentially affected fishermen in relevant Bohai Bay communities.”

It said 10 percent of the money would go to the company’s previously announced fund to improve fishery resources.

The agreement will likely stop a lawsuit that a group of more than 100 Chinese fishermen filed last year seeking compensation from ConocoPhillips China for damage to their sea cucumber catches.

In September, ConocoPhillips announced plans to set up two funds to pay compensation and address environmental problems resulting from the spills.

The government has already ordered the company to stop all production pending a full cleanup and a review to ensure no more oil seeps into the sea.

The oil spill covered about 2,500 square miles (6,200 sq. kilometers) of water surface. It drew attention to pollution in the Bohai region due to industrialization, oil drilling and fast population growth that has decimated sea food and fish stocks and caused frequent red tides.

Sea cucumbers, one of many types of sea product harvested in the Bohai, are sausage-shaped, often spiky marine animals that are viewed as a delicacy by many in Asia.

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The National Association of Realtors reported that the annual sales pace in December reached 4.6 million homes, up 5% from November’s pace and 3.6% from a year ago.

It was the third straight month of improvement in the pace of sales. The fourth-quarter sales volume lifted full-year sales to 4.26 million homes, up 1.7% from 2010 levels.

"The pattern of home sales in recent months demonstrates a market in recovery," said Lawrence Yun, the group’s chief economist. "Record low mortgage interest rates, job growth and bargain home prices are giving more consumers the confidence they need to enter the market."

Home prices, however, remained depressed, largely because distressed sales continue to make up a significant part of the market.

The median price was $164,500 in December, down 2.5% from a year ago. For the full year, the median price of $166,100 was off 3.9% from 2010 levels.

Realtors said foreclosed homes sold for an average discount of 22% below market value in December, compared to a 20% discount a year ago. Meanwhile, short sales, which are homes sold for less than the amount owed on a mortgage, sold for a 13% discount, compared to a 16% discount in December 2010.

Foreclosures made up 21% of all sales, while short sales were 12% need a personal loan with bad credit. Both figures were comparable to 2010.

But even with the distressed properties on the market, the inventory of homes for sale has gotten tight.

Realtors calculate that at the current sales pace, there is only a 6.2 month supply of homes available for sale, the smallest since March 2005, before the housing bubble burst.

That was down from a 7.2-month supply in November and more than an 8-month supply a year ago, which is a "a notable decline," according to Troy Davig, an economist with Barclays Capital.

"The housing market appears to be making progress in terms of working through its excess inventory," said Davig in a note Friday.

Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank, said the current conditions should lead to improved prices and sales in the near term.

Other encouraging signs include a survey of home builders that showed the most bullish view of current sales conditions and customer traffic in nearly five years. The government’s report on home building is also showing improvement.

"Coming on the back of a dramatic improvement in homebuilders’ sentiment, the latest existing-home sales report corroborates our thesis that a housing recovery has finally begun," LaVorgna wrote in a note.  

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An alliance led by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood won 47 percent of the spots in the 498-seat parliament, while the ultraconservative Al-Nour Party clinched 25 percent.

The two parties are not likely to join forces because of ideological differences.

The liberal Egyptian Bloc, led by a party founded by Christian telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris, said Saturday it secured 9 percent of the seats in parliament. Another liberal party, the Wafd, also won 9 percent.

The new parliament is set to convene for the first time Monday.

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