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Chrysler Financial gets $1.5 billion federal loan

The U.S. Treasury Department said today it will lend $1.5 billion to a new arm of Chrysler Financial Services LLC so that it can increase lending to vehicle buyers. The five-year loan carries a flexible interest rate.

Mark Vaughn: We’ll always have Vegas

There were a few bare spots on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show this year, spots that in previous years had been jammed sardine-like with myriad Taiwanese makers of Hello Kitty knockoff cell phone cozies and electronic barking dogs, but the show this year was nonetheless pretty well attended. Besides, for those working their way upstream through the aisles like so many digitally trained trout, the empty spots left by exhibitors that pulled out were like refreshing mountain meadows or little piazzas in crowded Italian cities. Show management stocked the open spots with cushy couches, too, on which many a jet-lagged showgoer snoozed.

One Lap of the Web: Are race-car drivers athletes?

-- Should we consider race-car drivers athletes? Well, they certainly have the neck muscles for it. And racing around a circuit, pulling considerably more gs than Donovan McNabb during a Chunky Soup commercial certainly requires athletic prowess.