Also. . .

Ford Motor Co. and CNA Financial Corp., a property and casualty insurance provider, each filed applications with bank regulators to establish federally chartered savings banks that would allow them to offer financial services nationwide. Ford and CNA are the latest non-banks to seek charters from the Office of Thrift Supervision.

* A former Kidder Peabody & Co. stockbroker was sentenced to 33 months in prison by a federal judge in New York for a “free-riding” scheme that cost eight brokerages $13.4 million between 1992 and 1994, prosecutors said. Michael Morse lost a bid for leniency, claiming that a pathological gambling addiction caused him to commit fraud, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

* Inland Steel Co., the U.S.’ sixth-largest steelmaker, is being sold to Ispat International of the Netherlands for $1.43 billion in cash and assumed debt.