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• The case, scheduled to be considered at a meeting Tuesday of the National Transportation Safety Board, underscores concerns the board has already expressed that use of cellphones and other distracting electronic devices has increasingly become a factor in accidents and incidents across all modes of transportation -- planes, trains, cars, trucks and even ships. The Aug. 26, 2011, accident near Mosby, Mo., which killed four people, appears to be the first fatal commercial aircraft accident investigated by the board in which texting has been implicated.
• The pilot, James Freudenbert, 34, of Rapid City, S.D., exchanged 20 text messages with an acquaintance over a span of less than two hours before the helicopter crashed into a farm field a little over a mile from where he hoped to refuel, documents made public by NTSB show. At least three of the messages were sent and five received while the helicopter was in flight, although not in the final 11 minutes of the last leg of the flight, according to a timeline prepared by investigators.
• The timeline indicates Freudenbert also exchanged text messages at the same time he was reporting by radio to a company communications center that the helicopter was low on fuel. The helicopter was on the ground at the time waiting for the patient, who was being transferred from one hospital to another, and a nurse and a paramedic to board.
• Although the pilot wasn't texting at the time of the crash, it's possible the messaging took his mind off his duties, interrupted his chain of thought and caused him to skip safety steps he might have otherwise performed, experts on human performance and cognitive distractions said. People can't concentrate on two things at once; they can only shift their attention rapidly back and forth, the experts said. But as they do that, the sharpness of their focus begins to erode.
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• NEW YORK (AP) -- J.C. Penney is hoping its former CEO can revive the retailer after a risky turnaround strategy backfired and led to massive losses and steep sales declines.
• The company's board of directors ousted CEO Ron Johnson after only 17 months on the job. The department store chain said late Monday, in a statement, that it has rehired Johnson's predecessor, Mike Ullman, 66, who was CEO of the department store chain for seven years until November 2011.
• The announcement comes as a growing chorus of critics including a former Penney CEO, Allen Questrom, called for Johnson's resignation as they lost faith in an

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