News In Brief
| Washington
US plants had 1.8% drop in orders for September
For the second month in a row, orders to US factories for new manufactured goods posted a decline in September, dropping 1.8 percent, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. It said September orders totaled $189 billion, $3 .6 billion below the August level. Orders fell 0.8 percent in August after rising 1.8 percent in July.