The figures reported yesterday reflect the spending in the two weeks before the election.
The figures, reported under United States accounting rules, slightly exceeded analysts' expectations.
For example, the figures reported in the Times article almost certainly inflate plaintiff success rates for 1989 and report a time trend that probably does not exist.
According to the figures reported to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, General Motors alone spent more than $4.4 billion on warranty claims in 2003.
The figures reported -- $1.5 billion, up 19.7percentt from almost $1.3 billion in 1998 -- were for December 1999, not the full year.
The figures reported on Friday reflect the steep financial challenges The Washington Post is facing as more readers migrate to digital formats.
The huge disparity between the figures reported by Merlin and the Bank of England show that the government's lending targets are "meaningless," said Labour shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie.
The net result of all the corrections, he said, shows a very slight warming in the lower atmosphere, less than the figures reported in Nature and the reading derived from surface measurements.
Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it's 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.
AT&T surpassed the figures reported by Verizon, the country's largest phone company, which said on Wednesday that it had sold 4.2 million iPhones and 7.7 million smartphones during the same period.
"The figures reported in Isaf press releases are not intended to provide a complete historical documentation of every battlefield event that occurs in theatre," he said, adding that more comprehensive figures were used in formal reports to the US Congress, Nato or the UN.
