Some critical of proposal for ads on school buses

WORCESTER, Mass. — A proposal to allow advertisements to be placed on school buses in Worcester is drawing mixed reviews.

John Monfredo, vice chairman of the city's school committee, asked the school department to explore a pilot program to place black-and-white ads on school buses as a way of raising new revenue for educational programs.

School Superintendent Melinda Boone said the administration has discussed the idea with the Worcester Education Development Foundation, but had concerns.

"We're concerned about safety as it relates to people potentially reading the ads and not paying attention to a (bus's) stop arm that's out," Boone said.

Monfredo joined two other school committee members in voting to refer the proposal to a subcommittee for more study, The Telegram and Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/1pvbg3L ).

"I'm really distressed to see this item on here," said Tracy O'Connell Novick, one of two members who voted against sending it to the subcommittee. "We have had a history of keeping commercial activity out of the Worcester Public Schools ... I'm really bothered by the notion we would think transporting our kids could become a commercial enterprise."

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Obama: Congress left town with unfinished business

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he's taking action on his own because Congress is doing so little for working families.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says the economy is improving. He says decisions made now can ensure things keep improving.

Obama says he's been pushing policies addressing jobs, student loans and wages. He says all of the policies would help families feel more stable, but all have been blocked by Republicans.

Obama says Congress left town for their August vacation with unfinished business. He says he hopes when lawmakers get back, Washington can join together in common purpose.

In the Republican address, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon says Obama is disengaged when he should be leading. He says the midterm elections are a chance to deliver accountability.

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Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.nrcc.org

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Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch may be on market soon

Word on the real estate street via the fine folk at Forbes is that "Neverland Ranch," the Los Olivos, CA, mega-estate where Michael Jackson lived in (in)famous, child-like splendor will soon be put on the market for an unrevealed price.

The crazy talented but terrifically troubled Mister Jackson decamped "Neverland" years before he died in 2009 but in its glory-days the 2,700-acre spread had a zoo with exotic animals and an full-blown amusement park where -- true story, children -- one of Your Mama's cuzzins used to drive the train.

There were rumors the estate's current owner, Colony Capital, considered subdividing and selling the property in order to recoup its investment as well as turning the property into tourism spot like Elvis's "Graceland" in Memphis (TN). However, the not easily accessed, semi-remote location not to mention the vehement local opposition nixed that notion before it really got off the ground.

(C) 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Nuclear plant looks to end emergency planning role

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The soon-to-close Vermont Yankee nuclear plant wants to stop more than $2 million in annual payments for emergency planning in the region, but a watchdog group opposes that, saying nuclear waste on-site will create continuing risks.

Plant officials have told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the radioactive spent fuel will have cooled enough by mid-2016 that they should then be able to stop paying to maintain the 10-mile emergency evacuation zone around the plant.

The plant is closing at the end of this year.

The zone extends out from the reactor in Vernon in Vermont's southeast corner to six Vermont towns and parts of neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

The plant maintains emergency sirens in each town, provides each household with a tone-alert radio, distributes an annual calendar with emergency information and supports regular drills by emergency personnel.

The risks of storing spent nuclear fuel in storage pools at plant sites have been hotly debated in recent years, with some state regulators and nuclear critics saying the fuel is safer in the concrete and steel storage casks that many plants have been using in recent decades because they've been running out of room in their pools.

Five U.S. senators wrote to the NRC in May to urge it to expedite movement of the spent fuel from fuel pools to dry casks. They said studies have concluded that "draining a spent nuclear fuel pool can lead to fires, large radioactive releases and widespread contamination" and that research has found spent fuel pools "could not be dismissed as potential targets for terrorist attacks."

Erica Bornemann, a Vermont Emergency Management official overseeing disaster planning around Vermont Yankee, said the next full-scale drill next year will focus on the potential for a catastrophe resulting from "a hostile act."

Short of that, Raymond Shadis of the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition pointed to an NRC document describing the possibility of an accident during the process of unloading the spent fuel pool. The casks are brought into the pool as they are loaded. The NRC document raised the possibility that one of the 110-ton casks could be dropped.

Vermont Yankee has said it expects there to be some fuel remaining in the pool until 2021, when the last of it will have been moved into dry casks.

Bornemann argued that until the spent fuel pool is emptied, there should be some level of enhanced emergency response capability around the nuclear plant.

Just weeks after the senators wrote their letter, the NRC rejected calls for speeding up the transfer of spent fuel from pools to dry casks, saying too little was to be gained from a safety perspective to warrant such a ruling.

Christopher Recchia, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, said Vermont and neighboring states are pressing the NRC not to let Vermont Yankee drop the emergency response efforts. But he acknowledged that, given the NRC's position that spent fuel pools provide safe storage for the nuclear waste, the states' chances of prevailing may be slim.

On Friday, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency was reviewing Vermont Yankee's request to end its support for emergency planning. He said the agency had never rejected such a request from a plant undergoing decommissioning.

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Taiwan explosions probe focuses on petrochem firm

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Authorities in Taiwan's second-biggest city zeroed in on a petrochemical firm Saturday in their investigation into a series of gas pipeline explosions that killed 28 people and injured 286, as anger rose over the handling of the disaster.

The government is seeking to pinpoint the cause of five blasts that tore through streets in the city of Kaohsiung starting at around midnight Thursday, flinging cars into the air and blasting cement rubble at passers-by, many of whom were out late at a nearby night market.

The city's environmental officials said LCY Chemical Corp., a Taiwanese petrochemical firm, had failed to notify authorities of problems with a pipeline in the area despite being aware of irregularities in deliveries going through that pipeline that night. This caused delays in the government's response to the disaster, said the officials, who are facing growing public anger.

"If we were informed earlier by LCY, we could have evacuated everyone," Chen Chin-der, director of the Environmental Protection Bureau in Kaohsiung, an industrial port city of 2.8 million people, said at a televised news conference Saturday.

The pipeline was leaking nearly four tons of propene every hour as pressure dropped at around 8:45 p.m. Thursday, Chen said.

Propene, also known as propylene, is mainly used for making the plastic polypropylene, which is used in a wide variety of packaging, caps and films. It is a highly flammable, colorless gas with a mildly unpleasant smell.

Because the leak went on for so many hours as firefighters and environmental officials struggled to identify the nature of the gas and its source, it was able to rapidly accumulate in density and spread a greater distance, Chen said.

"The leak was at a different location from the explosions, because propene was leaking and spreading through the sewer system everywhere," Chen said in a telephone interview. "When the density of propene is very high, anything can trigger an explosion, anything as small as a cigarette, or starting the engine of a motor scooter."

The city's fire department and environmental authorities first received reports of a gas leak from residents in the area several hours before the explosions. They summoned representatives of a few companies to the site of the leak to check their pipelines, but all of them, including LCY Chemical, said their operations were normal, according to Chen and other environmental officials.

Thinking at first that the leak was that of natural gas, firefighters poured water at the site in the hope of dissolving the gas. When it became clear it was not natural gas, environmental experts were called in to take samples, a city news release said.

The experts were only able to identify the gas as propene at around 11:55 p.m., Chen said. But by then it was too late. A few minutes later, the blasts started ripping the streets apart.

Chang Jui-hui, chief secretary of the Environmental Protection Bureau, said records and data collected later by investigators from LCY's plant and that of its supplier, China General Terminal & Distribution Corp., showed abnormalities in the delivery of propene that night, with significant changes in pressure in the pipeline. Yet the companies did not notify the authorities, Chang said.

The supplier said it had initially shut off the propene pump when it noticed irregularities several hours before the blasts, but had resumed delivery on LCY's request. "Our preliminary judgment is that it is that stretch of line that had the problem," the supplier's assistant manager, Lin Kuo-chung, told local television channel FTV News.

LCY Chemical Corp. said it would cooperate with the investigation. "Our priority is to figure out the truth and responsibility," company spokeswoman Pan Lee-lin told a news conference.

Some local residents questioned the way the authorities handled the leak and subsequent blasts that left a 2-square-kilometer (1-square-mile) trail of destruction. One resident told television channel TVBS that five minutes before the explosions, the authorities told them: "Everything is under control. You can go home and sleep."

The blasts also damaged rows of shops and low-rise apartments. Tens of thousands of people lost utilities in the disaster zone, but a deputy economic affairs minister said Saturday that water and power would be restored within five days.

Industrial-use pipelines run through Kaohsiung's residential neighborhoods because industry preceded the construction of houses, said city spokesman Ting Yun-kung. Kaohsiung contains much of Taiwan's heavy industry, especially petrochemicals, and the explosions were the city's worst in 16 years.

The disaster was Taiwan's second in just over a week, following the July 23 crash of a TransAsia Airways prop jet on the island of Penghu that killed 48 people and injured 10.

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Associated Press writer Gillian Wong in Beijing contributed to this report.

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GM boosted June sales with discounts to dealers

As General Motors prepares to report monthly sales results on Friday, a look its numbers from June show just how intent the company is on keeping new-car sales on the rise during a record spate of safety recalls.

The Detroit automaker has recalled nearly 30 million cars and trucks this year, including some models that had barely rolled off the assembly line. Yet sales have been resilient, up 2.5 percent through the first six months of the year.

In mid-June, however, the automaker was headed for a year-over-year monthly sales decline, according to data compiled by automotive research firms. Then, on June 20, GM asked dealers to buy more cars, and it threw in another $1,000 in discounts per vehicle, five dealership representatives told The Associated Press. The company finished the month with a 1 percent gain.

The dealers said they were asked to buy the cars for a rental program, one that provides loaner cars for people whose vehicles are being serviced. When they buy the cars for the program, GM counts them as a retail sale. It's a longstanding practice used by nearly all automakers to boost sales results.

At GM, though, the incentive was unusually generous and came as GM executives try to steer the company through the worst safety crisis in its history, including the recall of 2.6 million small cars with defective ignition switches tied to at least 13 deaths. The company has allayed investor fears by saying that recalls have actually helped sales by bringing in customers who see vastly improved new models.

"Clearly the timing seems a little suspicious," said Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for the Cars.com website who predicted on June 22 that GM sales would be down 7 percent for the month, compared with a 2 percent decline for the rest of the industry. "Retail numbers at that point did not show any kind of strength." The industry eked out a 1.2 percent gain for the month.

GM spokesman Jim Cain confirmed that offers were made to dealers, but wouldn't give details. He said GM needed to make more models available as loaners for those whose cars are being recalled. As part of its small-car ignition switch recall, GM is offering free loaners to owners. But dealers have run short of cars for the program and have been forced to rely on rental car companies, which can loan out cars from competing brands.

GM has issued more than 83,000 loaner cars since the recalls started in February. But CEO Mary Barra said last week that it had fixed about 550,000 of the small cars, so the need for loaners was waning.

The automaker won't say how many vehicles were purchased by dealers in June. After about two months, the loaners are resold as used cars because of the miles on them, but buyers get low-interest financing and other incentives offered to new-car buyers, said the dealers, most of whom asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from the company.

"There was a heavy push on an incentive program that increased sales," one dealer said. "If they don't have the volume they want, they'll come out to the dealers."

GM's U.S. sales rose 2.5 percent in the first half of the year, lagging the overall market's 4.3 percent gain.

Some dealers downplayed the importance of the discounts. Mike Marone, chief operating officer of AutoNation Inc., the country's largest dealership chain, said AutoNation bought a small number of discounted vehicles for its loaner fleet. But he didn't think the sales had a large impact on GM's numbers.

"I don't think it's as big a deal as it may sound," he said.

Marone and other dealers said other automakers also offer similar late-month discounts in order to juice sales and improve monthly numbers. Some make the offers every few months.

Some dealers worry that if GM continues to make similar end-of-the-month offers, the influx of used cars into the market will hurt resale values and new-car sales.

GM's Cain said that even without the sales to dealers, GM would have beaten analysts' sales expectations in June. Before the month ended, many analysts predicted GM sales would fall at least 6 percent. The loaner program, he said, has helped boost GM's reputation for customer service.

"That has been very important during the recalls that we have had, to be able to put customers into new GM vehicles and not have to force people into a Ford Focus," Cain said.

Sales at GM and the rest of the industry are expected to improve in July. Edmunds.com expects an 11.1 percent increase in total sales, with GM up 10.6 percent. When all the numbers are in late Friday, it may wind up being the industry's best July in eight years, Edmunds predicted.

GM's stock price has dropped nearly 16 percent since the start of the year. It had been trading around $37 recently, but began falling last week as GM announced that recall costs had dramatically cut into earnings. The shares closed Thursday at $33.82.

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Whole Foods lowers sales projections; shares slip

After a series of disappointing earnings reports, executives for Whole Foods Market hoped Wednesday's quarterly numbers would win back favor from investors.

But while the Austin, Texas-based natural foods grocer did beat some Wall Street expectations for its fiscal third quarter, the company also missed on its same-store sales projections and lowered its sales forecast for the rest of the year.

The combination sent Whole Foods' stock downward in after-hours trading. Shares fell as much as 7 percent shortly after the earnings report, but the stock stabilized closer to the $37.94 mark, down $1.17, or 3 percent from Wednesday's close.

Whole Foods has grown into one of Austin's highest-profile companies. The retailer has 388 stores in the U.S., Canada and Europe and has about 2,800 employees in Central Texas and 84,000 worldwide. The company reported quarterly revenue of $3.4 billion, a record total that was a 10 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago and above Wall Street expectations. The company had earnings per share of 41 cents, above 38 cents reported during the same quarter a year ago and above expectations of 39 cents per share.

However, the retailer posted lower same-store sales growth, a key metric closely watched by Wall Street. Same store sales rose 3.9 percent for the third quarter, which was well below the company's projections of 5 percent to 5.5 percent. The retailer also cut its future outlook for same-store sales.

The slowdown, said co-CEO Walter Robb, was a result of a number of factors, including cutting prices and new Whole Foods stores dragging on older locations.

It "reflects continued headwinds from our value efforts, cannibalization, competition and the economy," Robb told analysts and investors in a conference call following the earnings release.

After years as the leader in natural foods, Whole Foods has seen traditional supermarkets, big-box stores and online retailers step up their organic and natural offerings.

The retailer laid out several new initiatives to combat its growing landscape of competitors. Those include a new delivery and pickup service in at least a dozen major markets, an online subscription grocery service, the company's first national advertising campaign this fall and plans to "refresh" some of its older stores.

Robb said the retailer's business model continues to show positive signs, with "industry-leading" sales per gross foot, healthy returns and strong operating cash flow. Whole Foods has also seen more signs of stability in sales trend, Robb said.

Ahead of Wednesday's earnings report, investors had been hopeful, as Whole Foods stock closed up up $1.43, or 3.8 percent to $39.11. The stock also saw heavy trading, with 15.6 million shares trading hands, more than twice the company's average volume.

After it reported disappointing second quarter earnings in May, Whole Foods shares had taken a beating, falling to a more than two-year low. Before the May earnings report, the stock's 52-week low was $45.43.

During a testy May conference call with analysts, Robb and co-CEO and co-founder John Mackey faced questions over what the retailer was doing to combat increasing competition. Analysts said it was time to detail a more specific plan to fight competitors than just one focused on growth.

On Wednesday, Robb said with new initiatives in hand, including price cuts and competitive price matches, Whole Foods will be looking at robust growth over the long term.

"While the current environment is very dynamic and competitive, we are managing and growing our business for long term," Robb said. "We are not suggesting a race to the bottom, but rather a thoughtful, strategic, surgical approach to improve our relative value positioning."

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©2014 Austin American-Statesman, Texas. Distributed by MCT Information Services

Visit Austin American-Statesman, Texas at www.statesman.com

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States remind Market Basket of workers' rights

BOSTON — Massachusetts and New Hampshire officials are telling the Market Basket supermarket chain they'll be looking out for the legal rights of any workers fired in a protest over the family-owned company's leadership.

Attorneys General Martha Coakley and Joseph Foster also urged the company Thursday to consider its impact on other businesses in the region, where it employs about 25,000 and has 71 stores.

Co-CEOs Felicia Thornton and Jim Gooch said they "hope sincerely" not to fire anyone and they'll follow the law. They said Wednesday workers off the job demanding the return of fired CEO Arthur T. Demoulas must return by Monday.

Demoulas' supporters have held protest rallies and shut down deliveries to stores.

The company's board is evaluating buyout offers, including one from Demoulas. He was fired by the board which is controlled by his cousin.

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Dow has worst drop since February: What happened?

The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 317 points on Thursday, wiping out its gain for the year. It was the biggest drop since February and gave the index a loss for July after five straight months of gains. Here are some questions and answers about the sell-off and what might come next.

Q: Why did the stock market fall?

A: A number of worries have been building for investors in recent weeks and several of them came together on Thursday. That prompted people to dump stocks, breaking several months of calm in the market. A number of large U.S. companies reported poor quarterly results or forecasts, including Whole Foods Market and Exxon Mobil. Tensions are escalating between Russia and the West, threatening Europe's economy and energy needs, and the Federal Reserve is getting closer to ending its powerful economic stimulus program. Also, the market has gone for an unusually long time without a significant pullback.

Q: How bad was it?

A: The Dow, an index of 30 large U.S. stocks, had its worst day in almost six months. The Standard & Poor's 500, a broader measure of the market and the benchmark for many index funds, lost 2 percent, its worst one-day decline since April. The S&P 500 index is still up 4.5 percent for the year and closed at a record high just one week ago. The Dow is slightly negative for the year.

Q: Does this mean the stock rally is over?

A: Not necessarily. Company earnings, one of the most important drivers of stock prices, are still at record levels and are expected to grow by 8.6 percent in the second quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ. That compares to growth of 4.9 percent in the same period a year ago and 3.4 percent growth in the first three months of this year. Also, the market has bounced back from other big drops this year. The S&P 500 slumped 3.6 percent in January but rose steadily for five months after that.

Q: What comes next?

A: The next order of business for investors is the monthly jobs report coming out Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Investors will be looking to see if U.S. employers are adding enough jobs to suggest that the economy is picking up momentum. They'll also be looking for signs that wages are growing, which might suggest that the Federal Reserve could move sooner than expected to raise interest rates in order to stave off inflation. Stock investors don't like higher interest rates because it makes it more expensive for companies to borrow money and invest in their business.

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US employers add 209K jobs, rate rises to 6.2 pct.

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers extended their solid hiring into July by adding 209,000 jobs. It was the sixth straight month of job growth above 200,000, evidence that businesses are gradually shedding the caution that had marked the 5-year-old recovery.

Still, July's gain was less than in the previous three months and probably wasn't strong enough to intensify fears that the Federal Reserve will soon raise interest rates to curb inflation.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.2 percent from 6.1 percent as more Americans started looking for work. Most didn't find jobs, but the increase suggests that they're more optimistic about their prospects. The jobless aren't counted as unemployed unless they're actively seeking work.

Average job gains over the past six months reached 244,000 in July, the best such average in eight years.

The pickup in hiring has yet to translate into larger paychecks for most Americans, a key factor that has hobbled the recovery. In July, average hourly earnings ticked up just a penny to $24.45. That's just 2 percent higher than it was 12 months earlier and is slightly below current inflation of 2.1 percent. In a healthy economy, wages before inflation would rise 3.5 percent to 4 percent annually.

Weak pay gains are restraining the housing market, usually a key driver of growth. A measure of signed contracts to buy homes slipped in June, the National Association of Realtors said this week. That suggests that home sales will decline in coming months.

Still, Friday's report echoes other data that point to an economy picking up speed. Growth accelerated during the April-June quarter, the government said Wednesday, after contracting sharply in the first three months of the year. Last quarter's bounce-back assuaged fears that growth was too weak to support this year's rapid hiring.

And on Friday, the government said consumer spending and income picked up in June.

Investors remain anxious about whether the broad economic gains will lead the Fed to raise its benchmark short-term rate sooner than expected. Such fears likely contributed to Thursday's 317-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average — its worst day since February.

In addition to reporting July's solid gain, the government on Friday revised up its estimate of the job increases in May and June by a combined 15,000.

Higher-paying jobs showed strong increases in July. Manufacturing added 28,000 jobs, the most in eight months. Construction added 22,000 and financial services 7,000, its fourth straight gain.

In the April-June quarter, the economy expanded at a seasonally adjusted 4 percent annual rate after a steep 2.1 percent contraction in the first quarter. Americans stepped up their spending, particularly on autos, furniture and other big-ticket items. Businesses also spent more on plants, office buildings and equipment.

Americans are also gradually gaining confidence in the economy, which means spending could accelerate in coming months. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index jumped to its highest level in nearly seven years in July.

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Contact Chris Rugaber on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber

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