Business briefly

Bank of Nevada acquires Security

LAS VEGAS (AP) " State regulators say a Southern Nevada-based bank has failed and its deposits are being transferred to another state bank.

Officials announced Friday that the Security Savings Bank of Henderson was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC says Bank of Nevada has agreed to purchase all of the failed bank's deposits and a portion of its assets.

Officials say Security Savings Bank's two branches will reopen Monday under the Bank of Nevada name. Security Savings customers' accounts will be transferred to Bank of Nevada.

Historic hotel closing in Grass Valley

GRASS VALLEY, Calif. (AP) " Grass Valley's historic Holbrooke Hotel is closing because of the slumping economy.

Co-owner Jim O'Brien says he couldn't find a buyer for the 28-room West Main Street hotel, built in 1862 in the Sierra Nevada foothills town. O'Brien and a partnership group purchased the hotel for $2.35 million in 2005.

The hotel's Golden Gate Saloon bills itself as the oldest continuously operated hotel bar west of the Mississippi River.

That will end Monday when the 156-year-old landmark closes.

O'Brien tried to sell the hotel for $3.5 million, then reduced the price to $2.9 million without success. The owners spent $500,000 improving the kitchen, roof and parking lot.

FDIC raising fees charged to banks

WASHINGTON (AP) " Facing a cascade of bank failures depleting the deposit insurance fund, federal regulators on Friday raised the fees paid by U.S. financial institutions and levied a hefty emergency premium in a bid to collect $27 billion this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. now expects that bank failures will cost the insurance fund around $65 billion through 2013, up from an earlier estimate of $40 billion. The bank failures, 14 already this year following 25 last year, reflect the ravages of rising unemployment and falling home prices that have sent loan defaults soaring.

The industry's biggest trade group said the new insurance fees would place an extra burden on the nation's banks and thrifts, and suggested regulators could reduce the premiums if their economic assumptions end up being overly severe.

Airline pay toilets: A wee bit too much?

DUBLIN (AP) " When nature calls at 30,000 feet, is $1.40 a wee price to pay? Or could it force passengers without correct change into a whole new kind of holding pattern?

The head of budget European airline Ryanair unleashed a flood of indignation and potty humor Friday when he suggested that future passengers might be obliged to insert a British pound coin for access to the lavatory to get some in-flight relief.

Airline chief Michael O'Leary suggested that installing pay toilets would lower ticket costs and make flying, somehow, easier for all. Not even his own aides seemed to be sure if he was serious ..

"One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might have to actually spend a pound to 'spend a penny' in future," O'Leary said, using a British euphemism for going to the bathroom.