Around Business

NEW ORLEANS -- To help boost its stalled economy, hurricane-ravaged New Orleans is offering the nation's first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city.\nMayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday the system would benefit residents and small businesses who still can't get their Internet service restored over the city's washed out telephone network, while showing the nation "that we are building New Orleans back."\nThe system started operation Tuesday in the central business district and French Quarter. It will be available throughout the city in about a year. The system uses hardware mounted on street lights. \n

Wine bottles turn plastic, less formal, single serve

\nYOUNTVILLE, Calif. -- The next big thing for the wine industry could be small, screw-capped and shatterproof.\nSingle-serve plastic bottles are starting to show up on supermarket shelves in a bid to win over new customers by moving wine beyond posh white-tablecloth dinners to the informal ease of a picnic.\nIf one of these green bottles should accidentally fall, no problem.\nStone Cellars by Beringer has been selling four-packs of unbreakable, single-serve bottles since this summer.\nThe new, 187 milliliter bottles are part of a larger trend in the industry that includes boxed wine, cans and carton-type packages.