HISPANIC-OWNED BUSINESSES ON THE RISE

The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. is expected to nearly double this year from 2002. That’s the finding of a study released Friday by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Geoscape, a company that provides demographics data. The study projected there would be nearly 3.2 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the country in 2013, up from nearly 1.7 million in 2002.

The study forecasts that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the South Atlantic region will surpass the number in the Pacific region this year. The surge in reflects the rapid growth of the Hispanic population. The number of Hispanics counted in the U.S. census in 2012 rose 2.2 percent from 2011 to 53 million. — Associated Press

United Airlines said on Friday that it will honor the tickets it accidentally gave away for free. The decision is good news for people who snapped up the tickets on Thursday after United listed airfares at $0. Many customers got tickets for $5 or $10, paying only the cost of the Sept. 11 security fee.

The mistake was an especially good deal for any passengers who bought tickets for travel within the next week. For instance, a Houston-to-Washington Dulles flight for next weekend would have cost $877, according to United’s website on Friday.

Airlines have posted so-called mistake fares before. They generally decide on a case-by-case basis whether they’ll honor the ticket. On Friday, United Continental Holdings Inc. said it was honoring the tickets “based on these specific circumstances.” On Thursday, United said there was an error in filing the fares to its computer system.

United would not say how many tickets it accidentally gave away, or how much the mistake cost. The wrong fares were available on its website for a few hours on Thursday. It eventually shut down bookings on the website until it could fix the problem. — Associated Press