Massachusetts gas prices drop another 7 cents per gallon

BOSTON — The cost of a gallon of gasoline in Massachusetts is down another 7 cents.

AAA Northeast reports Monday that self-serve, regular has dropped in the past week to an average of $2.08 per gallon.

That price is 38 cents lower than a month ago and $1.29 below where it was at this time a year ago.

The average price in Massachusetts, however, remains a nickel above the national average of $2.03 per gallon.

AAA found self-serve, regular selling for as low as $1.93 and as high as $2.49 per gallon in Massachusetts.

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Norfolk Southern 4Q profit flat as coal revenue falls 15 pct

OMAHA, Neb. — Norfolk Southern Corp. reported its profit was little changed in the fourth quarter from a year ago because the railroad's coal revenue fell 15 percent on weak demand from utilities and export markets.

The Norfolk, Virginia, based company said Monday that total volume increased 4 percent but that wasn't enough to offset the coal weakness.

Coal shipments are likely to remain weak throughout 2015, and the current low crude oil prices will limit Norfolk Southern's revenue because many of its fuel surcharge contracts don't assess a charge when oil is selling for less than $64 a barrel

But Norfolk Southern CEO Wick Moorman still expects the railroad to prosper this year because its service levels continue to improve and the economy is growing. Plus, the cheap crude oil could provide an additional boost to the economy if consumers spend more.

"We remain optimistic," Moorman said. "We do have some headwinds but we have got a lot of positives in front of us as well."

In the fourth quarter, the railroad said it earned $511 million, or $1.64 per share. That was slightly below last year's earnings of $513 million, or $1.64 per share.

Norfolk Southern said its revenue also dipped to $2.87 billion from last year's $2.88 billion.

Citi Investment Research analyst Christian Wetherbee said the quarterly results were helped by a lower tax rate and reduced interest expenses.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected the railroad to report earnings per share of $1.63 on revenue of $2.94 billion. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.64 per share on revenue of $2.93 billion.

The railroad said it plans to spend $2.4 billion on capital projects and equipment this year, up from $2.1 billion last year. Norfolk Southern operates about 20,000 miles of track in 22 states and Washington D.C.

Through all of 2014, the railroad reported net income of $2 billion, or $6.39 per share, on $11.6 billion revenue. That's up from the previous year'searnings of $1.9 billion, or $6.04 per share, on $11.2 billion revenue.

Norfolk Southern shares gained $2.23, or 2 percent, to $107.01 in midday trading Monday.

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Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite

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Online:

Norfolk Southern Corp.: www.nscorp.com

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Reinsurers Axis Capital, PartnerRe combining

NEW YORK — Reinsurers Axis Capital Holdings Ltd. and PartnerRe are combining in an $11 billion deal.

PartnerRe Ltd. shareholders will receive 2.18 shares of the combined company's stock for each share of PartnerRe that they own. Axis Capital shareholders will receive one share of the new company's stock for each share of Axis Capital that they own.

PartnerRe shareholders will own about 51.6 percent of the new company once the deal closes. Axis Capital shareholders will own about 48.4 percent.

Axis Capital CEO Albert A. Benchimol will serve as CEO of the new company.

PartnerRe CEO Costas Miranthis is stepping down from his post and as a PartnerRe director. PartnerRe board member David Zwiener will serve as interim CEO until the deal closes.

PartnerRe Chairman Jean-Paul L. Montupet will serve as non-executive chairman, while current Axis Capital Chairman Michael A. Butt will serve as Chairman Emeritus.

The 14-member board will include seven directors from both PartnerRe and Axis Capital.

The deal is expected to achieve at least $200 million in annual cost savings in the first 18 months of operations and to add to earnings per share.

The new company will be based in Bermuda, which is where Axis Capital and PartnerRe have headquarters.

Both companies' boards have unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the second half of the year. It still needs approval from shareholders of both companies.

Shares of Axis Capital gained more than 3 percent in Monday premarket trading.

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Survey: Firms optimistic on hiring, wages in 1Q

WASHINGTON — Rising sales helped boost hiring at U.S. businesses in the last three months of 2014, and companies are optimistic that continued improvement in business conditions will bring increased employment and wages in the current quarter, a new survey shows.

And many businesses expect the steep drop in oil prices in recent months to have a positive impact on them this year, according to the survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics.

Fifty-four percent of the 93 respondents to the quarterly survey said sales at their companies increased in the October-December period. That was up from 49 percent in the third quarter. As sales picked up, so did hiring. Thirty-four percent of companies responding said they hired more workers during the fourth quarter, about the same as in the second and third quarters.

Businesses said the outlook for the January-March period is strong. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they expect wages and salaries to increase at their companies — up sharply from 34 percent in the fourth-quarter survey. Thirty-six percent said they expect their companies to hire more workers, up from 31 percent previously.

Finance, insurance and real estate companies were most likely to say they expect employment increases, at 52 percent; transportation, utilities and communications firms were the least likely, at 15 percent. Only 7 percent of respondents expect employment declines at their companies in the first quarter.

"Business conditions continued to improve in the fourth quarter of 2014," NABE President John Silvia, the chief economist for Wells Fargo Securities, said in a statement. "There are strong expectations for the first quarter, especially for jobs and wages. ... Moreover, price and cost pressures appear to be subdued."

There was a sharp decline in the number of companies reporting they raised prices in the October-December period, to 16 percent from 25 percent in both the second and third quarters. Higher prices were reported most frequently by respondents from the transportation, utilities and communications sector, at 25 percent. Nearly two-thirds of respondents — 65 percent — expect no change in the prices their companies will charge in the first quarter, close to 66 percent in the fourth-quarter survey.

The drop in oil prices was the financial shocker of 2014. In the first half of the year, the oil market looked just as it had the year before — and the two years before that. Crude oil was more than $100 a barrel and drivers in the U.S. were paying around $3.50 a gallon for gasoline. Now oil is around $45 a barrel and the average gas price is $2.07 a gallon.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the NABE survey indicated that tumbling oil prices would be positive to some extent for their businesses this year, while only 18 percent said they could have a negative impact. The decline is expected to benefit the manufacturing sector to a larger extent than others.

The survey, in this case conducted between Dec. 15 and Jan. 8, is intended to gauge business conditions at NABE members' companies or industries. Forty-three percent of the respondents were from companies with more than 1,000 employees.

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Mattel CEO resigns, toy maker results miss expectations

Mattel Chairman and CEO Bryan Stockton has resigned after the struggling maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars reported fourth-quarter results that fell far short of analyst expectations.

Shares of the El Segundo, California, company slipped in Monday morning trading.

The company said longtime board member Christopher A. Sinclair will replace Stockton as chairman and interim CEO.

The toy maker also disclosed that its net income tumbled 59 percent to $149.9 million from $369.2 million in the three months that ended Dec. 31. On a per-share basis, Mattel earned 44 cents per share in the most recent quarter, or 52 cents per share not counting hits from integration costs and taxes.

Revenue fell 6 percent to $1.99 billion.

Analysts forecast, on average, earnings of 91 cents per share on $2.14 billion in revenue, according to the data firm FactSet.

Mattel has struggled for several quarters now with slumping sales of its iconic Barbie dolls.

Making matters worse, late last year, Barbie lost its top spot on the crucial holiday wish lists of girls to merchandise from the Disney hit "Frozen." The National Retail Federation's Holiday Top Toys Survey found that one in five parents, or 20 percent, planned to buy "Frozen" merchandise for their girls. That beat the 16.8 percent that are looking to make a Barbie purchase.

Stockton became CEO in January 2012 and then was named chairman a year later. Sinclair said in a statement from the company that the Mattel board believed it was the right time for a change in leadership to maximize the company's potential.

Mattel will announce full results from its quarter on Friday.

The company's stock fell 45 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $27.60 in Monday morning trading after falling as low as $24.88 earlier in the session, while broader indexes slipped less 1 percent. Mattel shares are coming off a year in which their price sank 35 percent, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 11.4 percent.

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France: 10 go on trial in L'Oreal heiress fraud case

PARIS — The trial of ten people accused of swindling France's richest woman of artworks and cash worth hundreds of millions of euros began Monday with the shock revelation that one of the accused had attempted suicide hours before the soap opera-like case began.

The "Bettencourt Affair," as the case surrounding 92-year-old L'Oreal cosmetics heiress Liliane Bettencourt has been dubbed in France, is a politico-financial scandal that has wound its way through French courts and newspapers for years, and is only now coming to trial.

A lawyer for Bettencourt — the world's third richest woman with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $39 billion — said the trial began with the announcement that one of the accused, Bettencourt's nurse Alain Thurin, had tried to hang himself a day earlier.

Speaking on French TV, the lawyer Benoit Ducos-Ader said that shortly after news of the attempted suicide, the hearing was suspended until Tuesday so that lawyers could argue a procedural question.

The case stems from a 2007 complaint filed by Bettencourt's daughter accusing one of her mother's closest friends, the photographer Francois-Marie Banier, of swindling the wealthy heiress of artwork, cash and other favors worth hundreds of millions of euros.

The case eventually widened to the nine others on trial, including some of Bettencourt's closest advisers and staff who are also accused of taking advantage of the elderly widow.

Bettencourt was placed under the guardianship of one of her grandsons four years ago, after she was diagnosed with dementia.

The complex saga also ensnared former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but he was cleared in 2013 of preliminary charges that he had taken advantage of Bettencourt's condition by accepting tens of thousands of euros in illegal campaign contributions on the way to his 2007 election victory.

Sarkozy's then-campaign treasurer Eric Woerth is among the 10 people going on trial in Bordeaux Monday.

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Thousands of flights canceled as storm descends on the East

More than 5,000 flights in and out of East Coast airports have been canceled as a major snowstorm packing up to three feet of snow barrels down on the region.

United Airlines canceled all flights in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. JetBlue, whose flights are largely in the Northeast, has already canceled about a third of its entire schedule.

About half of all flights out of New York's LaGuardia Airport were called off Monday, and about 60 percent of flights heading into the airport were scratched.

In all, Airlines canceled more than 2,680 flights, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. More than 2,900 flights have been scrapped for Tuesday.

Problems in the Northeast are rippling outward across the country.

In West Palm Beach, Florida, where temperatures are expected to be in the 70s Monday, about 30 percent of all flights have been canceled. Fort Lauderdale and Orlando are also reporting major cancellations.

Most major airlines are allowing customers whose flights are canceled in the next few days to book new flights without paying a penalty. Customers ticketed on flights to dozens of Eastern airports are generally eligible for the allowance, though specific terms vary by airline.

The National Weather Service predicts 2 to 3 feet of snow for a 250-mile stretch of the Northeast, including the New York and Boston areas. Philadelphia should get 14 to 18 inches.

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WikiLeaks slams Google over delay in revealing US warrants

BERLIN — The secrets-spilling group WikiLeaks has criticized Google for failing to inform it about U.S. search warrants issued against three of its staff.

The warrants issued in March 2012 required Google to hand over the phone numbers, IP addresses, credit card details, contents of all emails and other information for Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Faerrell.

They were disclosed to WikiLeaks in December.

In a letter to Google dated Monday, a lawyer for WikiLeaks says the group is "astonished and disturbed that Google waited over two and a half years to notify its subscribers that a search warrant was issued for their records." The letter adds that Twitter took legal action so it could alert WikiLeaks of a similar warrant in 2011.

Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Fox News protester shoots self outside News Corp. hq - Reports

A man protesting Fox News Channel outside the network's New York City base in the News Corp. building committed suicide by shooting himself, according to a report in The New York Post and a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The newspapers, citing police who had been at the scene, said the man had been protesting the cable-news network and had been told to leave by security guards. Instead of following their instructions, the man appeared to have shot himself. A small-caliber weapon was found by his side, the Post said.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a law-enforcement official, identified him as Phillip Perea, 41 years old, of Irving, Texas, and said he had once worked for a Fox News affiliate in Austin, Texas.

The Post reported the man was heard saying Fox News had "ruined his life," the Post reported, without providing additional information. A suicide note was found in his pocket, the newspaper said. The man was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, the newspaper reported, but The Journal reported he died an hour later.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Death toll from GM ignition switches rises to at least 50

DETROIT — With only five days left before the deadline to seek payments, compensation expert Kenneth Feinberg has decided that 50 death cases are eligible for money due to crashes caused by faulty General Motors ignition switches.

Feinberg, who was hired by the automaker to handle death and injury claims, released new totals on Monday. The deputy administrator of the compensation fund says she expects a flurry of claims before Saturday's deadline, and she also expects the number of deaths and injuries to rise.

Feinberg, in an Internet posting, determined as of Friday that the families of 50 people killed and 75 people injured are eligible for payments. The fund has received 338 death claims and 2,730 claims for injuries. Of those, 58 death claims have been rejected as ineligible for compensation, as have 328 injury claims. Feinberg is either reviewing or awaiting documentation on 230 additional death claims and 2,327 injury cases.

GM was aware of faulty ignition switches on Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars for more than a decade, but it didn't recall them until 2014. On 2.6 million of them, the switches can slip out of the "on" position, causing the cars to stall, knocking out power steering and turning off the air bags.

Last year the company set aside $400 million to make payments, but conceded that could grow to $600 million. The company's chief financial officer told analysts earlier this month that those numbers have not changed. Compensation for deaths starts at $1 million.

Camille Biros, deputy administrator for Feinberg, said that so far the GM claims are following the usual pattern for compensation cases with a large number of claims at the beginning, a lull in the middle, and a large number toward the deadline.

"We've had a busy month already," Biros said. "We're expecting that in the last few days of this week ... we'll get a lot of claims in."

Feinberg is among the nation's most prominent compensation experts. He previously handled payments to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the BP oil spill.

Claims filed by mail will trickle in next week and will be considered as long as they are postmarked by Saturday.

Feinberg has promised to decide the claims within 90 to 180 days from when he determines they are substantially complete. His law firm expects to continue working on claims at least through the spring, and perhaps into the summer.

The ignition switch debacle, which brought congressional and Justice Department investigations and the maximum $35 million fine from the government's auto safety agency, touched off a companywide safety review. That brought a total of 84 recalls involving more than 30 million vehicles.

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