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Arizona operations of Raytheon Co. and Northrop Grumman were awarded $237.4 million in Pentagon contracts Friday.

Raytheon's missile division in Tucson is getting a $220.5 million contract for anti-missile weapons systems from the U.S. Navy. The antimissile defense systems are used in Iraq.

Northrop's operations in Sierra Vista are getting a $16.9 million U.S faxless payday advance. Army contract related to unmanned aerial vehicles. UAVs, or drones, are used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Northrop (NYSE: NOC) is based in Los Angeles; Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) in Massachusetts.

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The Swiss central bank will probably leave its main lending rate at a seven-year high today to ensure inflation will slow below its 2 percent limit.

The Swiss National Bank's Governing Board, led by Jean- Pierre Roth, will keep the three-month Libor target at 2.75 percent for a fifth quarter, all 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg said.

“Monetary policy in Switzerland is at a crossroad,'' said Guillaume Menuet, a senior European economist at Merrill Lynch International in London. “There are obvious downside risks to the economy as we've seen in recent data, but it would be premature to ease monetary policy given the inflation outlook.''

Financial-market fallout from the U.S. housing crisis has hammered banks' profits and is a drag on economic growth. The SNB joined central banks around the globe today to provide extra money to calm markets spooked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. At the same time, the 35 percent drop in the price of oil since mid-July may give the SNB room to lower borrowing costs this year without sparking inflation.

The SNB has left its target interest rate unchanged since September 2007 after record defaults on U.S. home mortgages led to losses at the country's two biggest banks, UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group. The Swiss financial industry accounts for about 15 percent of the economy and contributed about 50 percent to growth in recent years.

The SNB will announce its rate decision at 2 p.m. in Zurich.

Financial Turmoil

Global stocks plummeted and bonds surged this week as traders sought the safest investments after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Merrill Lynch was bought and American International Group Inc. was rescued by the Federal Reserve. UBS, the European bank hardest hit by the U.S. mortgage crisis, has already booked more than $43 billion in writedowns and had to raise almost $28 billion in fresh capital from investors.

The SNB joined with the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other central banks around the world to pump dollars into the financial system and head off a deepening crisis.

“The action is designed to address the continued elevated pressures in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets,'' the banks said. “The central banks continue to work together closely and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures.''

Exports Ease

With financial markets rattled and exports slowing, two of Switzerland's main economic engines are stalling easy fast cash. Export growth may slow to about 3 percent this year from about 10 percent in each of the two previous years, the government said in June.

“The SNB shouldn't ignore weak growth,'' said Jan Amrit Poser, chief economist at Bank Sarasin in Zurich. “We need a rate cut as a cushion against this downturn. The SNB will either cut by the end of the year or not at all, because March may be the bottom of the cycle.''

The economy is still “in line'' with the SNB's forecast for expansion between 1.5 percent and 2 percent this year, Roth said on Sept. 5. While the economy will weaken further, Switzerland's won't suffer as much as other countries, he said. The Swiss economy grew 0.4 percent in the second quarter even as the economies of neighboring France and Germany shrank.

`Getting Close'

“Europe is currently closer to recession than Switzerland is,'' Poser said. “But if you look at the pace at which leading indicators are deteriorating, they're getting increasingly close to recession territory.''

Switzerland's leading economic indicators fell to the lowest level in five years in August and a measure of manufacturing growth slid to a three-year low. At the same time, price increases have eroded households' purchasing power and threaten consumption, the largest part of the economy.

Record prices for oil and food have triggered a surge in inflation worldwide, prompting central banks from Asia to North America to shelve plans to cut rates.

Roth said Aug. 26 in an interview with Finanz und Wirtschaft that he “hopes'' inflation peaked this summer and that it would be “absurd'' to use monetary policy to counter rising costs for oil and food. Inflation eased to 2.9 percent in August from 3.1 percent in July, the fastest pace in 15 years.

While the ECB raised its rate in July on concern excessive pay demands may entrench faster inflation, Switzerland faces limited risks of so-called second-round effects as the Swiss economy is “flexible'' and wage negotiations are decentralized, Roth said.

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Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.

The New York-based bank has two office locations in Dallas — one on Crescent Court, another on St. Paul Street downtown.

Lehman (NYSE: LEH) did not elaborate on how many offices or employees will be impacted by the decision, but specified that its broker-dealer subsidiaries and other subsidiaries of LBHI are not included in the filing.

Subsidiaries Neuberger Berman LLC and Lehman Brothers Asset Management also are excluded from the bankruptcy filing and will move forward with business as usual no fax payday loan.

The company added, “Customers of Lehman Brothers, including customers of its wholly owned subsidiary, Neuberger Berman Holdings LLC, may continue to trade or take other actions with respect to their accounts.”

At the moment, Lehman is exploring the possible sale of its broker-dealer operations and is moving forward with discussions about the sale of its Investment Management Division to interested parties.

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The Wichita City Council on Tuesday will vote on an incentives package for Spirit AeroSystems that would help the aviation company construct a new 375,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

Spirit recently announced it would build the fuselage for Cessna Aircraft Co.’s new Columbus business jet in Wichita. The company has said it will invest more than $260 million in the project, adding 700 jobs during the next five years.

In an effort to lure the project, the city, county and state offered incentives to Spirit guaranteed cash advance. The company will use a state law passed this year that would allow the state to issue bonds to help with construction.

The city and county each offered cash incentives of $1.6 million. The city also would install a traffic signal at Oliver and Colfax Drive and issue revenue bonds to finance Spirit’s construction project.

The city council will vote on those proposals on Tuesday.

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Health care fraud may be one of the biggest factors driving up health care costs, to the tune of billions of dollars, new research indicates.

Resolved health care fraud cases alone in the previous decade involved $9.3 billion in damages paid to both federal and state government, according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Results of the study are slated to be published in the Sept. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

But the researchers said the data suggest hat there is likely much more unrecognized fraud still going on within the health care system, adding countless inefficiencies that drive up costs.

“We are interested in exploring how … targeting health care fraud may be best utilized to play a role in controlling inefficient health care spending,” said lead study author Dr. Aaron Kesselheim in a statement.

The researchers, along with their counterparts at the University of Melbourne in Australia, looked at all 379 federal health care cases resolved between 1996 and 2005 initiated by whistle-blowers who know about the fraud, such as executives, physicians or internal employees payday loans application. They found that those cases led to $9.3 billion in financial recoveries, with $7.2 billion being returned to the federal government and $861 million going to state governments.

They also tracked who perpetrated the fraud.

According to the study, pharmaceutical manufacturers represented 4 percent of the defendants but nearly 40 percent of the money recovered. Billing organizations were frequent defendants as were laboratory service providers, hospitals, and medical equipment companies.

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In a night of speeches, capping the biggest political event in Denver’s history, music did a lot of the talking.

Closing night at the Democratic National Convention at Invesco Field at Mile High had the trappings of a summer rock festival: A lot of swinging and swaying to the music, a fair amount of singing along, and generous applications of sunscreen.

Yes, Barack Obama delivered a 45-minute speech Thursday that frequently roused a packed house that spilled out onto the field.

Yes, former Vice President Al Gore and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — who preceded Obama to the stage — were greeted with thunderous responses.

But many of the best moments of Thursday’s six-hour grand finale to the 2008 DNC came between the speeches and the video clips, when an assortment of musical stars took the stage.

Obama and party leaders booked some fine pop and soul performers, helping lend a celebratory spirit to the proceedings that counter-balanced the litany of national woes contained in many of the speeches.

It helped the mood that Denver was having one of those impossibly perfect August days that turn visitors into residents. On a night when many speakers sang the praises of Colorado, the most effective marketing was provided by the weather.

Not everyone was able to get into the stadium early enough to experience all the event. The lineup at the main security gate on the east side of Invesco snaked back a mile or more onto the Auraria campus.

Hours after the program started at 3 p.m., many seats were still empty.

Those few who did make it inside when the convention was called to order were treated to a short set by Colorado’s own Yonder Mountain String Band, which unleashed a whitewater run of progressive bluegrass, Rocky Mountain style.

“We’ve been a band for 10 years and this is probably the coolest thing we’ve ever done,” a bandmember enthused.

Soon, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson was unleashing the fury of her gospel-informed voice on the national anthem, with the assist of a brief volley of fireworks.

Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am and R&B crooner John Legend dueted in a reprise of will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” online video repeating applause lines from Obama speeches.

On the stadium floor, where the delegates were arranged in a fan around the stage, there was an Olympics closing-ceremonies feel to the evening, with dancing and flag waving during many musical interludes.

Then sultry singer Sheryl Crow offered a slight rewrite on one of her hits to play off an Obama slogan: “A Change Will Do Us Good.”

Her wrapup tune, “Every Day Is a Winding Road,” was perhaps inspired by a ride on one of the wayward buses that carried the media from their hotels during DNC week payday loans lenders. In any case, the song had even the sign-language interpreter bobbing and weaving along.

Soul legend Stevie Wonder had the crowd joining in for much of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” (What, no “Higher Ground”?) And snowy-haired former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald offered a take on “America, the Beautiful” that inspired flag waving en masse.

Even tapes of Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen (the latter did not appear, despite earlier rumors) got big reactions from the delegates. And when renewable-energy advocate Gore took the stage, the “let the sunshine in” refrain from “Hair” was playing.

Gov. Bill Ritter quoted a musical icon — Merle Haggard — in his speech: “If God doesn’t live in Colorado, at least that’s where he spends most of his time.”

There was also a tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 45 years after his “I have a dream” speech to remind the crowd of the evening’s place in history, as the conclusion of the first major-party convention to nominate an African-American.