By JON CHAVEZ, Toledo Blade

Plentiful supplies and low component costs have added up to big price drops on televisions for the holiday season.

TV prices typically are lower for the holidays, but this year the tags on flat-screen high-definition sets could drop 20 percent on average and as much as 40 percent on larger models.

It was spring, 1960, and 21-year-old Bill Killgallon was mesmerized by a toy that his dad, Ohio Art Co. executive William Casley Killgallon, got at a toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany.

For the last four months, Kelly Royce has kept two bottles of hand sanitizer gel on her desk and a can of Lysol in the drawer.

She is not paranoid about germs. But the way she sees it, manning the front desk at the Florian Insurance Agency in Toledo, Ohio, carries health risks.

With retail gift cards losing part of their luster, some retailers are trying a new strategy: Wooing new customers by accepting their competitors' gift cards.
For the fourth year, Culture Clash, a Toledo, Ohio store that sells CDs, records, and pop culture merchandise, is accepting gift cards of other retailers on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

While driving her Honda Civic, Tara Justus often takes her "baby," Layla, along for the ride.Layla, a 15-month-old Chihuahua, usually starts out in the back seat, but sometimes the dog wanders around the interior, a potentially harmful activity were an accident to occur."My mom always tells me to keep an eye on her," said Justus, of Perrysburg, Ohio.

BRYAN, Ohio -- Already home to the Etch A Sketch drawing toy and Dum Dum pops, Bryan will soon will have a third claim to fame: gigantic tires.Titan International Tire Co. has begun test production at its Bryan plant of a new 63-inch mega-tire that it plans to sell to the mining industry, which is booming due to high demand worldwide for gold, iron ore, coal and other minerals.

As U.S. financial markets move like a Yo-Yo, some investors are cutting risk by embracing the golden rule: He who has the gold, rules.Gold prices are up nearly 55 percent from this time last year, and investors are moving money out of stocks and other instruments into gold stocks, coins, and bullion bars.