EARNIE GRAFTON / Union-Tribune Truc Nguyen prepared the bar at Universal, an indoor nightspot in Hillcrest, in advance of tonight's grand opening

When it comes to San Diego's glitzy nightclub scene, James Brennan is arguably the King of the Velvet Rope. During the downtown development boom, the native New Yorker and his partners opened the chic Gaslamp Quarter nightspots Stingaree and Side Bar. Stingaree and the now-closed Side Bar reveled in exclusivity, with dark-suited doormen deciding which fashionistas  got in and nightly bottle-service tabs running into the thousands of dollars.

General Electric, widely viewed as a bellwether for the economy because of its diverse operations, stunned Wall Street yesterday by reporting sharply disappointing results for the first quarter and creating widespread concern about the outlook for other companies.

DENVER – On Monday, Frontier Airlines was looking at plans to boost revenue and promote a new turboprop service. By yesterday, the carrier was restructuring under the shield of bankruptcy court. The airline carrier, which will continue to operate as it reorganizes, blamed not high fuel costs or competition but credit card processor First Data Corp.'s decision to hold back up to 100 percent of proceeds from ticket sales until the passenger's flights are completed.

An aging fleet is catching up with domestic airlines, and the maintenance issues that inevitably arise are likely to worsen as the industry's jets grow older and its finances weaken. The airlines' long-running problems have put them in a fix that many car owners can appreciate: the carriers have been too financially squeezed to buy new planes, so they have held on to old ones.

San Diego's Mitchell International has agreed to merge with CCC Information Services of Chicago, bringing together two of the largest makers of software for the auto collision repair industry.