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The man arrested in connection with the disappearance of Hamilton’s Timothy Bosma is the heir to an Ontario aviation dynasty and once held the world record for the youngest solo helicopter flight.

Dellen Millard, 27, of Toronto, was arrested and charged in Mississauga in connection with Bosma’s disappearance Saturday morning. His family founded and ran Millard Air, a charter airline that once flew out of Toronto and has operations in Waterloo Region, where Hamilton police were seen investigating Saturday at Millard Air’s hangar at the airport.

Bosma disappeared in Hamilton Monday when he took two men for a test drive of a pickup truck he was trying to sell online. Police have since been searching for two suspects, one of whom was described as having a tattoo on his wrist that reads “ambition.”

Millard, who police believe was driving the pickup truck during the incident, has such a tattoo, police said. Millard was arrested on Cawthra Rd. in Mississauga Saturday morning without incident. He was charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000.

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“Tim Bosma has not been located and our greatest priority is the welfare and locating of (him),” Hamilton Police Supt. Dan Kinsella said during a media briefing Saturday afternoon.

The remaining suspect is still at large. Police in three cities — Toronto, Waterloo and Hamilton — are participating in the investigation.

Toronto police blocked off Maple Gate Crt. in Etobicoke Saturday afternoon to investigate a house connected to the arrest of Millard. Hamilton police were seen at Millard Air Hangar 53 at the Waterloo Regional Airport the same day.

The Millard family has a storied history in Ontario’s aviation industry. Dellen’s grandfather, Carl, founded the private commercial airline, the Star reported in 1999.

Wayne Millard, Dellen’s father, took the reins on a 50,000-square-foot aircraft maintenance facility in Waterloo, according to Canadian Skies, an aviation trade publication.

Wayne died in late 2012. His obituary, published in the Star, was written by Dellen and praises Wayne’s love for animals and commitment to flying.

In 1999, Dellen became the youngest person to fly a helicopter solo at 14 years old, setting a world record and earning a free breakfast from the Brampton Flying Club. He set another record by taking his first solo flight in a Cessna 172, making him the youngest to fly both a helicopter and fixed-wing plane solo in one day.

“It was a great flight,” he told the Star then, moments after landing the Cessna and receiving applause from family members. “It went by a lot faster than I thought it would.”

The Brampton Flying Club refused to comment Saturday, telling the Star a manager would be available Monday.

“I really thought he turned out fine and I’d see him someday at an airline,” said Marilyn Daigle, Dellen’s flight instructor in 1999, who’s now a commercial pilot in Toronto. “He was sweet, smart, really lovely to teach . . . I just hope it doesn’t end up being true.”

Dellen Millard’s passion for planes seems to have been grounded later in life, as he turned his attention towards automobiles. He and a friend are listed as drivers in the 2009 Baja 1000, an off-road race in Mexico, according to the race roster.

Facebook photos of Dellen posted on the friend’s account show him working on vehicles in what appears to be an airport hangar. Calls to the friend’s home were not returned.

The other suspect, still at large, is described as white, between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-10, with a small to medium build, dark hair. He was last seen wearing a red-hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head.

“It is critical that we inform you of (Dellen Millard’s) arrest, however it is much more important that we continue to pursue every evidentiary lead,” Kinsella said Saturday.

On Friday, police announced they recovered Bosma’s cellphone in an industrial complex in Brantford, which is the direction he was last believed to be heading with the men.

Police believe his vehicle was in the area of downtown Brantford around 10:10 p.m. Monday, May 6. They are asking business owners with surveillance cameras to review their footage between 9:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. that day.

Bosma’s Dodge Ram, which has not been recovered, is described as black with an Ontario licence plate number 726 7ZW.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Hamilton police’s dedicated tip line at 905-546-2100.

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JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed legislation that sought to re-impose local sales taxes on vehicles bought from out-of-state dealers or through person-to-person sales.

Nixon’s veto Friday marks the second time in two years he has rejected the Legislature’s attempt to reverse the effect of a 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

The court ruled that local sales taxes can only be charged on vehicles bought from Missouri retailers. If cities and counties want to tax vehicles bought elsewhere, the court said they need to adopt local “use taxes cheap business cards.”

The legislation vetoed by Nixon sought to get around that ruling by tying local sales taxes to the titling of vehicles. Local voters would have had a chance to repeal the taxes by 2016.

Nixon said the repeal section was not drafted well.

(Vehicle tax bill is SB182)

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WASHINGTON • Texting by the pilot of a medical helicopter contributed to a crash that killed four people, federal accident investigators declared Tuesday, and they approved a safety alert cautioning all pilots against using cellphones or other distracting devices during critical operations.

It was the first fatal commercial aircraft accident investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board in which texting has been implicated. And it underscored the board’s worries that distractions from electronic devices are a growing factor in incidents across all modes of transportation — planes, trains, automobiles, trucks and even ships.

While no U.S. airline crashes have been tied to electronic device use, the Federal Aviation Administration in January proposed regulations prohibiting airline flight crews from using cellphones and other wireless devices while a plane is in operation. The regulations are required under a law passed last year by Congress in response to an October 2010 incident in which two Northwest Airlines pilots overflew their destination of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by 100 miles while they were engrossed in working on their laptops.

Regulations already in place prohibit airline pilots from engaging in potentially distracting activities during critical phases of flight such as takeoffs, landings and taxiing fast payday loans. In some cases, however, pilots are allowed to use tablet computers containing safety and navigation procedures known as “electronic flight bags,” replacing paper documents.

The five-member board unanimously agreed that the helicopter crash was caused by a distracted and tired pilot who skipped preflight safety checks, which would have revealed his helicopter was low on fuel, and then, after he discovered his situation, decided to proceed with the fatal last leg of the flight.

The case “juxtaposes old issues of pilot decision making with a 21st-century twist: distractions from portable electronic devices,” said board Chairman Deborah Hersman.

The helicopter ran out of fuel, crashing into a farm field in clear weather early on the evening of Aug. 26, 2011, near Mosby, Mo., a little over a mile short of an airport. Mosby is about 25 miles northeast of Kansas City. The pilot was killed, along with a patient being taken from one hospital to another, a flight nurse and a flight paramedic.

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A measure of the U.S. economy’s health over the next six months increased in February from January, a sign that growth could be improving.

The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of leading indicators rose 0.5 percent in February to 94.8. That followed an equal gain in January, which was revised higher. The gauge is designed to anticipate economic conditions three to six months out.

The increase was also more broad-based, with eight of its 10 components rising. That compared with only five in January and six in December.

A gain in housing permits, a longer manufacturing work week and rising stock prices were among the elements that drove the index higher. Lower orders for large manufactured goods and lower consumer outlook for business conditions limited the gain.

The economy “may be developing some resilience against headwinds from … federal spending cuts,” Ataman Ozyildrim, an economist at the Conference Board, said.

A steady recovery in housing and rising job gains could be offsetting the cuts, he added guaranteed payday loans. Automatic government spending cuts of $85 billion kicked in March 1, though their impact may not be felt until April and May when layoffs at government agencies and contractors will likely start.

The index is derived from data that for the most part have already been reported individually.

Other reports issued Thursday also pointed to steady improvement. Weekly unemployment applications rose slightly, but the four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell for the fourth straight time to the lowest level in more than five years.

That’s a sign companies are laying off fewer workers. As layoffs fall, net hiring usually picks up.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose in February to the highest level in more than three years, the National Association of Realtors said in a separate report.

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ELLIOT LAKE, ONT.—Missing bolts, crooked columns and steel beams that were rusted despite being new marred the construction of a doomed mall in northern Ontario, a public inquiry heard Wednesday.

John Kadlec, a structural engineer on the Algo Centre Mall project, testified that the shoddy workmanship he saw three decades ago was unprecedented in his experience.

“I’d never seen that many deficiencies in my life before,” Kadlec said. “I sent letters warning (the owner) about sloppy workmanship.”

The discovery of off-kilter columns prompted an unusual fix in which the construction company, York Steel, anchored the building to an adjacent rock face, the probe heard.

Despite the problems, Kadlec ultimately signed off on the construction of the mall, which collapsed last summer killing two women.

Based on reports from an inspection company, he said he was satisfied the deficiencies had “apparently” all been rectified.

Lawyer Joe Bisceglia, who speaks for another engineer who later inspected the mall, seemed incredulous at Kadlec’s seemingly nonchalant approach.

“It’s not every day that a building you design is out of plumb and is in such a condition that it has to be anchored to the side, in essence to a rock cut,” Bisceglia said.

“They put in anchors without consulting you and without making you inspect it and approve it?”

The engineer defended his actions, saying he was part of a team and decisions were made elsewhere. He said he only visited the building site three or four times and relied on inspection reports to outline the deficiencies.

At times, it was difficult to tell whether Kadlec, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1970, was having language difficulties.

“Are you happy with this?” he asked Bisceglia at one point after a tortuous attempt at questions and answers.

At other times, he simply said he could not remember events or was unable to answer the questions.

Kadlec, who worked for Toronto-based Beta Engineering, also testified he was puzzled by the “unique” decision to put the parking garage above the mall when the usual practice was to put it underground.

He said he discussed his reservations with the original mall owners — Algocen Realty Holdings — to no effect.

“I didn’t like it, especially in this area,” Kadlec said. “We talked about it. I was a small man, but the decision was made somewhere else.”

The roof began leaking immediately. Asked if he ever warned the owner about the corrosive effects of water and salt penetrating the rooftop garage, Kadlec said he didn’t realize the problem was so serious.

Investigators believe water and road salt combined to destroy the weld of two steel structures, leading to the catastrophic collapse on June 23, 2012 of the pre-cast roof deck, which rained rubble down on shoppers and mall stuff.

Kadlec said he couldn’t remember if he had designed the structure to avoid a “progressive” collapse.

He also said he had no idea the system used to waterproof the roof had never been used before in North America, the inquiry heard.

“I know nothing about waterproofing, even to today,” Kadlec said. “It’s a different profession.”

Kadlec testified he is now allowed to practise engineering only by working with or for another professional engineer. The limitation was placed as the result of another ill-fated project in which he was involved: the roof of a mall in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., collapsed in 2009.

The inquiry continues Thursday, with two witnesses involved in the construction of the roof at the Algo Centre expected to testify.

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, Fortune 500) reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue Tuesday and raised its guidance for the current quarter, citing signs of a housing recovery.

The news lifted shares of the Dow component 1.9% in premarket trading.

The quarter only ran through Oct. 28, the day before Hurricane Sandy came ashore in New York and New Jersey.

While some of the buying in preparation for the storm may have been included in the just completed quarter, other storm-related sales increases will be reported in the current period.

The company did not quantify the impact the storm on sales. Instead it pointed to what it said is an important turnaround in housing, which lifted sales 4.6% to $18 billion, and operating earnings up 23% to $1.1 billion. Earnings per share topped forecasts by 4 cents.

The strong results reflect “the start of the path toward the healing of the housing market,” said CEO Frank Blake in a statement.

The rebound in home building is something that has already been noted in other reports, including new home sales, which hit a two-year high in September and home construction, which surged to a four-year high.

Mortgage rates are near record lows, helped by the Federal Reserve buying mortgages in order to push rates lower.

That, along with an improvement in the labor market, a steady rise in home prices and a decline in foreclosures is helping lead a general recovery in housing.

Signs of an improvement in housing had already led analysts to forecast better results ahead for Home Depot.

The retailer’s new guidance for sales and earnings for its fiscal year that runs through late January is better than the company’s previous guidance, but both were a bit short of analysts’ current estimates. And that could temper investor enthusiasm.

Monday, home builders ) and ) both saw their stocks fall after they reported results that were decent but clearly not better than some forecasts.

Home Depot rival , Fortune 500) is due to report its results this coming Monday. Analysts expect its earnings to be flat compared with a year ago.

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The looming spending cuts at the Pentagon played a starring role in Monday night’s foreign policy debate.

Mitt Romney said several times he would “not cut our military budget by $1 trillion.”

At issue are changes to defense spending in President Obama’s budget, as well as the impending “sequester” that will hit the Pentagon starting on Jan. 2.

For his part, Obama said his budget isn’t “reducing our military spending — it is maintaining it.” And, he added, the sequester “will not happen.” (Related: Obama vs. Romney on defense spending)

Who’s responsible for the defense cuts? Both parties in Congress and Obama approved the sequester.

The cuts are called for under the Budget Control Act. The BCA, which was signed into law in August 2011, was how lawmakers chose to resolve their bitter fight over raising the country’s debt ceiling.

The original idea was to pass something so distasteful it would light a fire under lawmakers to finally negotiate a deal to reduce deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over a decade.

But a “super committee” charged with doing so failed. Under the budget law, the next step was the sequester. The cuts would be evenly divided between defense and nondefense spending.

Now, both parties and the Obama administration say the cuts are a terrible idea — largely because they would be arbitrary and mostly across the board. (Related: Snapshot of economy under Obama)

How deep would the defense cuts be? It depends what you mean by “cuts.”

To fiscal experts, a cut means spending that falls below the level authorized by Congress in the prior year — or even spending that stays at the same level, because it hasn’t been adjusted for inflation.

The Budget Control Act actually called for two rounds of changes to defense spending.

The first round, which is already in effect, would not be considered a “cut.” The BCA set spending caps, which shaved $487 billion off the Pentagon budget over 10 years. But defense spending would continue to grow at the rate of inflation.

Romney says he would reinstate the $487 billion; Obama incorporated it into his budget proposal.

The second round of changes, the actual sequester, would be a real cut.

Starting in 2013, defense budget authority would be sliced by 9.4%, not including war funding. The cuts to some parts of defense would be higher because Obama has exempted military personnel and veterans’ affairs from the sequester.

In dollars, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Pentagon’s base budget will fall to $491 billion in 2013, down from $554 billion in 2012. Thereafter, defense spending will grow with inflation. That would save roughly $500 billion over a decade.

“The Pentagon will still be spending more in 2013 after sequestration than it did in 2006, at the height of the Iraq war,” noted Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant defense secretary under President Reagan. (Related: Romney’s balanced budget pledge)

Will the cuts hurt defense? Everyone from the top brass at the Pentagon to Republican critics of the Budget Control Act has said the cuts could result in a “hollow force.”

The White House budget office has noted, however, that the Defense Department would be able to shift funds to maintain critical military readiness.

Indeed, the operations and maintenance part of the defense budget — the area that most directly affects military readiness — is also the most fungible part. Funds can be shifted to what is deemed most important.

“This is a management issue, not a readiness issue,” said Gordon Adams, who was the senior White House budget official for national security under President Clinton.

Adams said the cuts likely would be felt most heavily by general service personnel at the Pentagon through attrition and furloughs and by service contractors (those who provide everything from mess hall services to security guards).

None of that means, however, that the cuts are advisable. After all, they only exist because Congress failed to reduce deficits in a smarter way.

Why can’t Congress just cancel the cuts? Easier said than done. Lawmakers need to negotiate a deal to avoid the defense cuts and the rest of the fiscal cliff — $7 trillion in tax increases and spending cuts that start taking effect next year.

But both parties are still publicly holding the line on their demands. The Republicans want to cancel the defense cuts and head off tax increases. The Democrats want to increase taxes on the rich before they agree to replace the sequester with more gradual and less arbitrary cuts.

Just last week, the White House was signaling again that the president would not sign legislation that cancels the cuts but extends the Bush-era tax cuts for high-income taxpayers.

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Macy’s is ramping up its hiring for this year’s holiday shopping season, with plans to bring on 80,000 seasonal workers.

The retailer, which owns Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department stores, said on Monday that this will be a 2.5% increase from last year, when the company hired 78,000 workers.

, Fortune 500) said it will need the extra workers to staff its sales floors, store operations and call centers, as well as shipping centers for online orders.

The new hires will be in addition to Macy’s year-round staff of 175,000.

Macy’s is just the latest retailer to step up its hiring in anticipation of a brisk holiday shopping season.

Related: Hot toys for the holidays

Toys R Us said on Sept guaranteed high risk personal loans. 24 that it will hire 45,000 seasonal workers, an increase of 5,000 compared to last year. The toy retailer is also launching a free layaway program through Oct. 31 and a hot toy reservation plan. , Fortune 500) cut its layaway fee from $15 to $5 to try and draw customers.

The department store chain , Fortune 500) announced on Sept. 18 that it will hire 52,700 season workers, a 10% jump compared to the prior year.

Retailers are preparing for Black Friday, one of the most important shopping days of the year, and a critical barometer of the consumer-driven economy.

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Shares of BYD, the Chinese battery and electric car maker in which Warren Buffett is a major investor, tumbled in Hong Kong trading Wednesday after an analyst in China slashed his firm’s target price for the stock to virtually nothing.

) shares fell nearly 10% in Hong Kong, although shares listed in the U.S. were unchanged in early trading. But both shares have lost more than half their value since hitting a 52-week high in February.

CLSA, a Hong Kong investment firm that already had a sell recommendation on BYD stock, issued a critical report on Wednesday cutting its 12-month price target to 41 cents in Hong Kong dollars, which is 97% below current levels.

“We now think that the company will likely deteriorate further due to declining business in mobile phone components, rechargeable batteries and new energy,” said CLSA, citing the various business segments of the company. “BYD has talked about its EV [electronic vehicle] and plug-in hybrid automobiles for years, but they only sell the [electric models] in small volumes in Shenzhen no teletrack payday loans. This is a clear signal that even the company does not think its EV technology is ready for wide-range use.” BYD also sells traditional gasoline-powered cars in addition to the high-profile electric models.

, Fortune 500), which Buffett runs, bought a 9.9% stake in the company for $230 million in September 2008. By the end of 2010 Berkshire’s stake was worth $1.2 billion, according to company filings. But after the steady decline in its U.S. share price, the stake is now worth about $416 million.

Buffett’s investment drew global attention for BYD and its electric vehicle business. But that business has remained a difficult one in which to make money. ) announced earlier this week that it is pulling back on its plans for an all-electric subcompact car model, saying that plug-in hybrid vehicles that run on either gasoline or battery power are abetter way to serve that segment of the market.

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Car sales jumped in August, as major automakers all reported better-than-expected demand on Tuesday.

Industrywide U.S. car sales jumped 19.9% compared to a year ago, according to sales tracker Autodata. That works out to an annual sales pace of 14.52 million vehicles, which topped forecasts and nearly matched the pace in August 2009, when demand was inflated by the “Cash for Clunkers” program.

It also marked a nice rebound from disappointing July car sales and raised hopes that they aren’t about to lose steam.

Better access to financing and some signs of improvement in the labor market are likely factors in the stronger sales. Pent up demand from the weaker July sales could also have contributed to the jump, according to experts. Automakers achieved the better sales even while cutting back on incentives used to lure in buyers.

“Clearly the underlying consumer demand is strong,” said analyst Jesse Toprak of TrueCar. “This is a combination of factors you want as an automaker: Sales are up, transaction prices were up, incentives are down.”

Sales at , Fortune 500) were up 10.1% from a year ago, while , Fortune 500) reported a 12.6% rise. Chrysler Group posted a 14.1% improvement over a year ago.

The sales increases were even stronger at Japanese automakers ) and ). But their monthly sales were in comparison to a year ago, when supplies of new cars were limited by the effects of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Fuel efficient models were popular with buyers amid rising gas prices.

“The small car performance is what’s most impressive about GM’s numbers today,” said Edmunds’ senior analyst Jessica Caldwell. “Cruze, Sonic, and Spark were all unknown nameplates just a few years ago, but now they almost equal the volume of Silverado, the core of Chevys identity.”

In addition, the plug-in hybrid Volt posted record sales of 2,831, up more than 800% from a year ago and more than 24% better than its previous record set in March.

But it wasn’t just economy cars that enjoyed improved sales. Sales of large pickups, a key market segment that U.S. automakers dominate, also increased 15.7%, likely helped by signs of a recovery in the housing market. The home building industry is a major buyer of pickups.

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