Soft drink giant to sponsor section at Fenway Park

The Boston Red Sox and Coca-Cola Co. unveiled the "Coca-Cola Corner," a section of 412 seats in Fenway Park that will be topped with a large illuminated sign. The "family friendly" section, which will include picnic tables, will be located on the State Street Pavilion upper-deck level, near where the left-field foul line meets the Green Monster, the Red Sox said. The seats will be available at $75 each. Last month, three 25-foot Coke bottles were removed from the left-field light tower as part of an effort to restore the light towers to their original appearance, the Red Sox said. The New York Times Co., parent of The Boston Globe and Boston.com, holds a 17 percent stake in the company that owns the Red Sox. (Chris Reidy)

Freddie Mac, the world's second-largest buyer of home loans, said the average US fixed mortgage rate in 2008 probably will tumble more than three-quarters of a percentage point to the lowest in at least 45 years. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage will fall to 5.5 percent from 6.3 percent last year, the company forecast. That would be the lowest annual average in records that go back to 1963. But, the low rates won't be enough to spur a recovery in the US real estate market, said Brian Bethune, an economist at Global Insight Inc., based in Lexington. "The lower rates . . . are not going to cause a housing turnaround because they are second in importance to excess inventory and falling prices," Bethune said. (Bloomberg)

US personal bankruptcy filings rose last month to the highest monthly level since Congress passed a sweeping bankruptcy overhaul that made filing more difficult. Consumers made more than 76,000 personal bankruptcy filings in February. That was up more than 10,000, or 15.2 percent, from 66,000 a month earlier and up from more than 55,000 in February 2007, according to data collected by the National Bankruptcy Research Center and published by the American Bankruptcy Institute, a research group in Alexandria, Va. It was the highest monthly figure since October 2005, when bankruptcy filings surged to nearly 620,000 before a new law made it more difficult for consumers to seek bankruptcy-court protection from creditors. (AP)

Donald Layton, newly appointed chief executive of E-Trade Financial Corp., said there are no plans to sell or break up the embattled online brokerage. There's a pretty big reason why rivals like TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. or Charles Schwab Corp. are keeping their distance - E-Trade has some $12 billion in troubled home equity loans on its books. And, Layton said, this will force the online brokerage to rebuild the company, and investor confidence, without any quick fixes. Speculation has swirled on Wall Street that E-Trade's bank and brokerage side could be broken up, and then sold off. Instead, the brokerage received a $1.75 billion capital infusion from hedge fund Citadel Investment Group to stay afloat. (AP)

Homeland Security officials are pushing recalcitrant states to adopt stricter driver's license standards to end a standoff that could disrupt domestic air travel. States have less than a month to send a letter to the Homeland Security Department seeking an extension to comply with the Real ID law passed following the 2001 terror attacks. Some states have resisted, saying it is costly, impractical and an invasion of privacy. Four states - Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, and South Carolina - have yet to seek an extension. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argues that the law fixes a critical gap in security identified by the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks: the ease of obtaining government-issued IDs. (AP)

To make sure the transition to digital TV broadcasting goes smoothly, the Federal Communications Commission wants to do a test run. The digital shift will happen nationwide next February. Viewers who don't have a digital set and watch shows via an antenna will lose their picture unless they buy a converter box. The changeover has members of Congress and the FCC worried that irate viewers with no picture will direct their anger at Washington. FCC commissioner Michael Copps suggested a test run in certain markets, prior to the national shift, would be a good idea. (AP)