Home Showcase: Cabot mansion unit receives updates

This unit is part of the former mansion of Godfrey Lowell Cabot, founder of the Cabot Corp., that has seen extensive updating over the past several years.

Unit 3 at 242 Beacon St. is one of nine units carved out of the grand mansion. And Unit 3's living/dining area was the home's original receiving parlor.

Recent renovations include two redone bathrooms, updated kitchen, walnut-stained red oak floors throughout, three new HVAC units, new living room windows and built-in shelving for bedroom closets.

The brick exterior of the building and the roof were recently repaired and the front landscaping was redone last year. The marble floor in the building's lobby was replaced in 2012, and a reconditioned elevator and stairways lead up to the condos.

Unit 3 opens into a foyer with a large storage closet. This space is approved for installation of an in-unit washer and dryer. Right now, there is washer/dryer for common use in the building's basement.

Straight ahead is the unit's updated kitchen with oak floors, recessed lighting, 16 white-painted cabinets and dark granite countertops with a tumbled marble backsplash. Stainless-steel appliances include Kitchen Aid and G.E. Profile.

The large living/dining space has a lot of original detailing such as crown molding and a blue tile-faced original wood fireplace. This recessed-lit room has high ceilings, three new front windows in a bay arrangement and cabinet and bookcase built-ins on either side of the fireplace.

The master bedroom suite has a large arched architectural window and a walk-in closet with newly built-in storage. It has a redone en-suite bathroom with black-and-white ceramic tile floors but does not have a tub or shower, although there's space in a corner of the living room to expand.

There's a also fully redone second full bathroom with black-and-white ceramic tile floors, and this bath does have a deep soaking tub/ shower lined with white subway tile.

The second bedroom does not have a window to the outside, but an interior lightwell with storage space. There's also a closet with built-in storage.

There are three new HVAC units, in the living room and in the two bedrooms with new electric thermostats. Heat and hot water is provided as part of the unit's condo fee.

There is a waiting list for parking behind the building for $300 a month. But the owner may be able to get a nearby transferable rental space for $325 a month.

Home Showcase

• Address: 242 Beacon St., Unit 3, Back Bay
• Bedrooms: Two
• Bathrooms: One full, one half
• List price: $899,000
• Square feet: 1,254
• Price per square foot: $717
• Annual taxes: $9,547
• Monthly condo fee: $407 (includes heat and hot water)
• Location: On Beacon Street near the corner of Dartmouth two blocks from retail and restaurants on Newbury Street, three blocks from offerings on Boylston Street.
• Built in: 1884; updated 2011-2014
• Broker: Robb Cohen of Boston Realty Advisors at 617-962-0142

Pros:

• Large, open living dining area with original details, new built-ins and new windows.
• New walnut-stained red oak floors throughout
• Redone bathrooms with black-and-white tile floors
• Three new HVAC units and electric thermostats

Cons:

• En-suite master bathroom doesn't have tub or shower
• Second bedroom doesn't have window to outside
• In-unit laundry has not been installed
• Waiting list for parking behind building

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Amazon’s big stock slide shows strategy’s shaky

Time for Amazon to hit the Mayday Button.

Investors are beginning to wake up and realize that maybe this whole thing about putting long-term profits over short-term profits isn't as enchanting and magical as CEO Jeff Bezos once made it seem.

Amazon's stock plummeted an astonishing 
10 percent in a day after the announcement of a $126 million quarterly loss on Thursday — the latest in a long string of losses for the e-commerce beast.

For consumers, Amazon's prices seem impossibly low. And that's because they are, in fact, impossible. You can't sell items that cheaply. No company could ever make a profit by selling goods at or below cost, and that's exactly what Amazon has done for as long as anyone can remember.

Bezos is a puzzling man. The delivery drones. The atomic clock. The Washington Post. Who can figure this dude out? Some commentators have wondered whether Amazon was set up to function as a de facto consumer charity. I've wondered that myself. I've come to quite the opposite conclusion.

Amazon won't raise its prices until it has achieved a majority of the market that brick-and-mortar retailers currently occupies. An entire generation of locally owned small businesses — and mid- to large-sized businesses — hang in the balance.

"The current investment cycle layers in increased technology and content costs as Amazon seeks to build itself into a complete consumption, payment and advertising platform for physical and digital goods," wrote analyst Colin Gillis of BGC Financial in a note to investors yesterday.

In other words, all this taking over the world ain't cheap!

Currently valued at 
$147 billion, Amazon is the 28th largest publicly traded company in the United States. And in the past 48 hours it lost $15 billion of its market value.

Investors are getting antsy.

I'm all about encouraging that sense of angst. Although Amazon's convenience and prices are hard to beat, I find myself spending a little more offline lately: shopping local, paying a little bit more here and there, and chalking it up to charity. You too can help keep Amazon stockholders worried and a little ticked off. You know what to do.

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Is Marty right to bunker down?

A day after the state Gaming Commission suggested Boston was "abandoning" Charlestown, neighborhood residents were split yesterday on whether Mayor Martin J. Walsh did the right thing by breaking off talks with Wynn Resorts about how much money the city should get to cope with the company's proposed Everett casino.

"The mayor is not abandoning Charlestown residents. He was a strong ally in arguing for Charlestown to be considered a host community. ... The commission rejected that," said James Matsoukas, who has lived in Charlestown for three years. "There's just so much the mayor can do to negotiate deals that give the city some compensation, when the party he is dealing with is not forthcoming, not approaching the situation in good faith and making a public offer far below what the project requires. What the mayor is saying implicitly is that a decision has already been made."

The offer Wynn made — but Walsh rejected — called for $6 million in one-time payments and $2.6 million annually, compared to the $30 million upfront and minimum annual $18 million pledged to Boston by Mohegan Sun — Wynn's rival for the sole-Boston-area casino license — for a casino on the Revere side of Suffolk Downs.

But Evelyn Addante said she is "incredulous" that Walsh has ceded all dealings with Wynn over to the commission without telling it what the city wants.

"I believe the traffic impacts and safety implications are so important that the mayor should not have missed an opportunity to provide an estimate of the cost of providing road improvements that would ameliorate these impacts," said Addante, 64.

In an email, Walsh spokeswoman Melina Schuler said: "Wynn failed to provide critical information to the city ... We're confident the commission will not have the same issue accessing information from Wynn and expect it will be able to properly assess the project impacts and award Charlestown an appropriate mitigation package."

On Thursday, the commission said it would have its staff continue to urge Boston to negotiate with Wynn and, if that fails, it may appoint someone to serve as the city's advocate.

Its license deliberations will begin Sept. 8, and the commission hopes to make a licensing decision on Sept. 12.

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Car Smart: New Kia Soul offers spirited ride, features

The 2014 Kia Soul 2.0 L is a five-seat wagon with an oddball shape and quirky angular front windows. It looks like anything but a luxury automobile. However, it's equipped like a car twice its cost, boasting some features seen only in high-end models.

This Soul is loaded to the core.

Heated and ventilated seats in this "urban hatchback" keep you the right temperature year-round. The ventilated seats work so well you can even go easy on the air conditioning on a hot day.

The Soul's navigation system has a substantial 8-inch display, but its two-dimensional display will not show a third dimension until a destination is entered.

Also driven by the big touch screen display is the Infinity sound system, which cranks deep rich bass to its eight speakers including a center dash speaker and sub-woofer. The speakers also glow with the music for some mood lighting.

Controls for the audio system are mounted on the leather-wrapped steering wheel as well as on the touch screen.

The Soul has a power panoramic roof with a power sunshade which helps give an open feel to this small car with big features.

Sleek 18" alloy wheels complement its textured front grille and smart- looking headlights.

Kia also equips this car with a backup camera that is among the best. It provides clear detail of the area behind your bumper as you back in and out of those tight parking spots the 13-foot-7-inch Soul can squeeze into.

Rounding out the Soul's nice features is a 6-speed automatic with manual overriding paddle shifters commanding a spirited 2.0-liter inline-4,
164 -horsepower engine.

The Soul sips gas, getting 23 mpg in the city. It is responsive and fun to drive around the city, but the city is where the luxury similarities are left.

While the Soul gets 31 mpg on the highway, I found the 10-way adjustable driver's seats uncomfortable for longer drives. I'd like to see the headrest re-engineered so it is more adjustable and not pushed as far forward as the testers.

Its rigid chassis and tight suspension keep a snug connection to the road, but at higher speeds this car gets bounced around by bumps in the road, possibly because it is so lightweight.

Kia equips this car with a horn that nobody can possibly respect. This is not to suggest that smaller cars should have foghorns, but when other drivers hear such a wimpy sound, it barely gets their attention.

The hands-free phone performance is a major shortcoming, especially these days given the need for full concentration on the road and laws in most other states requiring hands-free cellphone use.

Essentially, the Soul is a well-equipped inexpensive compact wagon that is better for city driving than cruising on the highway in spite of the great mileage it gets.

2014 Kia Soul 2.0 L

• MSRP: $17,695
• As tested: $21,295
• MPG: 23 city, 
31 highway

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Regulators foaming over liter beers

Liters of lager are an essential piece of Bavarian beer culture. They're apparently verboten in Bay State beer halls.

The Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission threatened to put Firebrand Saints in Cambridge under surveillance yesterday to ensure it did not go ahead with plans to host a liter-mug patio party last night with Bay State beer maker Notch Brewing Co.

The board argued the promotional mugs used to serve the low-alcohol "session beers" that are Notch's speciality ran afoul of happy-hour regulations, after reading about the party plans in yesterday's Herald.

"We got a call from the ABCC and were told that we'd be under surveillance and that if we served the (liter mugs) we'd get in trouble," said Firebrand Saints owner Gary Strack. ABCC spokesman John Carlisle could not be reached for comment.

A liter is 33.8 ounces, slightly more than two pints. Notch Brewing's session beers are brewed with low- alcohol content, generally about 4 percent, to satisfy drinkers looking for full flavor without the heavy buzz.

"You can get a pint of beer with 10 percent alcohol in this state no problem," said Notch Brewing Co. owner Chris Lohring. "But you can't get a two-pint serving of beer with 4 percent alcohol. It makes no sense."

"We were trying to create the same sort of spirit of a German beer garden," said Strack. "It's a great event with cultural relevance."

As of press time, the party was in full swing, with the following workaround in place: patrons had empty liter mugs, bought full pitchers of sessions beer, and poured them into the mugs, Lohring confirmed.

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A fixer-upper for $3.4 million?

This 8,208-square-foot Chestnut Hill mansion is unlike most high-end properties you'll see in this toney neighborhood.

First of all, the 1904-built home at 152 Suffolk Road was designed in Spanish Mission style, rare for this area, complete with a stucco exterior, red terra cotta tile roof and a pagoda-style entry.

The original 26-acre estate was built for prominent shoe tycoon Clement S. Houghton, and included a large carriage house and a 10-acre garden. The city of Newton acquired the garden in 1968 and turned it into a city park. Other lots were sold off. The main house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, sits on just 1.61 acres now.

For the past 43 years, the main house has been owned by architect Branko Brankovic and his artist wife Angela Vinkler-Petrovic, founders of the well-known Baak jewelry and fine arts gallery in Harvard Square.

"I envision the buyer as someone who's socially prominent in the community and loves to entertain," said Brankovic, who once worked for the storied Architects Collaborative in Cambridge.

The interior of the home has great architectural detail. The main entry hall is lined with oak paneling, has elegant window seat cushions and arts-and-craft style brick floors. There's a sweeping central staircase with an original carved metal chandelier hanging over it. The large dining and living rooms have magnificent fireplaces with carved woodwork and beamed ceilings. There's a study lined with bookcases, a sunroom off the dining room and an outdoor terrace off the living room.

On the market for $3.4 million, the house undoubtedly has great bones, but as a disclaimer in the listing sheet states: "The home is in need of major renovations."

So is this the Boston area's priciest fixer-upper?

"It does need a lot of work," admitted co-listing broker Marjorie Gold of William Raveis Real Estate. "But what we're offering here is a piece of history in a great location."

Not that there haven't been updates. Over the years, Brankovic added a first-floor kitchen (the original is in the basement with its vintage stove), updated the bathrooms and even replaced the tar paper and flashing under the terra cotta roof tiles.

He created and redid the master bedroom suite, but the purple bathroom fixtures here and elsewhere on the second floor are outdated.

There's a great original linen closet with walls of glass cabinets, beautiful hardwood floors and original doors and moldings on the second floor, which has six bedrooms.

There's a warren of rooms on the third floor, which once housed the Houghtons' 11 servants. And there's lots more storage in the huge basement.

Potential buyers should bring their own architects. Giving this grand house the makeover it needs will be a major undertaking.

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Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB to merge with German and Italian sister companies to create pay TV giant

Rupert Murdoch-controlled U.K. pay TV operator BSkyB announced deals on Friday to take control of its German and Italian sister companies to create a pan-European pay TV giant. The total value of the deals will be 5.35 billion ($9.09 billion).

Murdoch's 21st Century Fox owns a 39% stake in BSkyB, 100% of Sky Italia and 57% of Sky Deutschland. The proposed deals, which are subject to shareholder approval, will see BSkyB acquire Fox's stakes in Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland. It also will bid for the remaining Sky Deutschland shares.

The acquisition of Sky Italia will cost 2.45 billion ($4.16 billion) with approximately 2.07 billion ($3.51 billion) to be paid in cash, and the balance to be secured through the transfer of BSkyB's 21% stake in National Geographic Channel Intl. to Fox at a value of 382 million ($649 million).

The acquisition of Fox's shareholding in Sky Deutschland will cost 2.9 billion ($4.92 billion) in cash, valuing Sky Deutschland at EUR6.75 ($9.09) a share. BSkyB will offer Sky Deutschland minority shareholders that price for the remaining shares.

The total worth of the deals to buy Sky Italia and 57% of Sky Deutschland would be 5.35 billion ($9.09 billion). Depending on how many Sky Deutschland minority shareholders accept the offer for their shares, the total cash consideration overall may be up to approximately 7 billion ($11.9 billion).

The coin will add to Fox's war-chest, which it could dip into should it decide to make an improved bid for Time Warner.

The merged entity, which some observers are calling Sky Europe, will have 20 million pay TV subscribers in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. Potentially, Sky Europe will be able to reach up to 97 million households. The German market offers large opportunities for growth. Only 20% of German households subscribe to premium pay TV channels, compared with 50% in the U.K., according to research group IDATE. Italy is a tougher market -- Sky Italia has lost more than 200,000 customers since 2011.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that combining the three companies could generate synergies of 100 million ($170 million) by 2017, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB's chief executive, said: "This transaction will create a world-class, multinational pay TV business with enhanced headroom for growth and immediate benefits of scale. The three Sky businesses are leaders in their home markets and will be even stronger together. By creating the new Sky, we will be able to use our collective strengths and expertise to serve customers better, grow faster and enhance returns."

Financial analysts have speculated in recent days that Murdoch's long-term goal may be to acquire the remaining shares in BSkyB and then sell Sky Europe to a telco.

BSkyB also announced results for the 12 months ended June 30. Adjusted revenue was up 7% to 7.6 billion ($12.9 billion). Profit after tax was 937 million ($1.59 million), compared with 969 million ($1.65 billion) in 2013.

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

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Family feud sparks revolt at grocery store chain

WEST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — It's been called a David vs. Goliath story, a "Tale of Two Arthurs" and even the "ultimate Greek tragedy," but the characters in this drama are not Biblical or literary figures. They're grocery store owners.

A workers' revolt at the Market Basket supermarket chain has led to empty store shelves, angry customers and support for a boycott from more than 100 state legislators and mayors.

Industry analysts say worker revolts at non-union companies are rare, but what's happening at Market Basket is particularly unusual because the workers are not asking for higher pay or better benefits. They are demanding the reinstatement of beloved former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, who workers credit with keeping prices low, treating employees well and guiding the company's success.

The New England grocery store chain is embroiled in a family feud featuring two cousins who have been at odds for decades.

While earlier squabbles between Arthur T. Demoulas and Arthur S. Demoulas were fought in courtrooms, this dispute has spilled into Market Basket stores.

For the past week, warehouse workers have refused to make deliveries to Market Basket's stores, leaving fruit, vegetable, seafood and meat shelves empty. Workers have held huge protest rallies and organized boycott petitions through social media, attracting thousands of supporters.

Customers are defecting to other grocery stores. In some cases, customers have taped receipts from competitors to Market Basket windows.

"We are going to go somewhere else from now on," said Soraya DeBarros, as she walked through a depleted produce department at the Market Basket in West Bridgewater this week. "I'm sad about it because of course I want to keep the low prices, but I want to support the workers."

Despite threats by new management to fire any workers who fail to perform their duties, some 300 warehouse workers and 68 drivers have refused to make deliveries. So far, eight supervisors have been fired. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is running for governor, and New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan have publicly supported the employees.

"If you had told me that workers at a grocery store would walk out to save the job of a CEO, I would say that's incredible. There is usually such a gulf between the worker and the CEO," said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester.

Market Basket stores have long been a fixture in Massachusetts. The late Arthur Demoulas — grandfather of Arthur S. and Arthur T. and a Greek immigrant — opened the first store in Lowell nearly a century ago. Gradually, Market Basket became a regional powerhouse, with 25,000 employees and 71 stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

The feud dates back to the 1970s, but the most recent round of infighting began last year when Arthur S. Demoulas gained control of the board of directors. Last month, the board fired Arthur T., sparking the current uprising.

Workers are fiercely loyal to Arthur T.

"You know the movie, 'It's a Wonderful Life.' He's George Bailey," said Tom Trainor, a district supervisor who worked for the company for 41 years before being fired last weekend over the protests. "He's just a tremendous human being that puts people above profits. He can walk through a store, and if he's met you once, he knows our name, he knows your wife, your husband, your kids, where they are going to school."

Employees said they believe the fight between the family members loyal to Arthur T. and Arthur S. is largely over money and the direction of the company. They say Arthur S. and his supporters have pressed for a greater return to shareholders.

Arthur T. and his supporters have focused on keeping prices low.

Many employees are distrustful of Arthur S. and two co-chief executives who were brought in from outside the company: Felicia Thornton, a former executive of the grocery chain Albertsons, and Jim Gooch, former president and chief executive at RadioShack Corp.

"I'm worried about my job," said Valerie Burke, a worker in the West Bridgewater store. "It's a great company to work for now, but we are worried it won't stay that way," she said as she picketed outside the store Tuesday.

Arthur S. has not spoken publicly, while Gooch and Thornton have communicated only through prepared statements. They assured workers in a statement that they are not planning drastic changes in the way the company is operated, and urged employees to return to work.

Arthur T. on Wednesday offered to buy the company for an undisclosed amount.

Gooch and Thornton declined to comment.

Workers have planned another rally Friday in Tewksbury, while the company's board of directors is scheduled to hold a meeting the same day in Boston.

Steve Paulenka, who started in 1974 as a bag boy and rose to facilities and operations manager before being fired last weekend, said he sees no end to protests unless Arthur T. is reinstated.

"A big part of me doesn't like what's going on — it's like breaking your favorite toy on purpose," he said. "But we'll get through this."

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European carriers suspend more Tel Aviv flights

BERLIN — Air France and Germany's two largest airlines on Wednesday canceled more flights to Tel Aviv because of safety concerns amid the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Lufthansa and Air Berlin extended their cancelations through Thursday and Air France said it was suspending its flights "until further notice."

The European Aviation Safety Agency late Tuesday said it "strongly recommends" that airlines refrain from operating flights to and from Tel Aviv. It said it would "monitor the situation and advise on any update as the situation develops."

EASA acted after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited American-based airlines from flying to the airport following a Hamas rocket explosion nearby. The FAA dropped the ban just before midnight Wednesday.

Lufthansa said its decision applies also to its subsidiaries Germanwings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. In all, 20 flights from Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels were cancelled for Thursday.

The airline initially had suspended flights for 36 hours through the end of Wednesday. Those cancelations were extended because "at the current time there is no sufficiently reliable new information that would justify a resumption of air operations," Lufthansa said.

Air Berlin said it is continuing to evaluate the situation to determine whether further cancelations are necessary.

KLM, Alitalia and Scandinavian Airlines were among other European airlines that also canceled flights Tuesday and Wednesday. Polish airline LOT said it would suspend flights to Israel through July 28. Iberia said it had cancelled its Wednesday night and Thursday morning flights to Tel Aviv, and UK-based budget airline easyJet cancelled its Thursday services between its European bases and Tel Aviv.

British Airways, however, said Wednesday it hasn't canceled any of its twice-a-day Tel Aviv flights and had no immediate plans to do so.

A spokesman stressed that British Airways wouldn't fly to Israel if it thought it was unsafe, adding that "each airline draws its own conclusion" on safety.

Aviation security expert Chris Yates said British Airways would have assessed the situation with input from the intelligence services and ultimately concluded there was an acceptable level of risk. He said this may be because the rockets from Gaza "are fairly rudimentary and can't be targeted easily at planes in flight."

Yates said other airlines might have cancelled flights fearing the possibility that rockets could strike their plane on approach or take off, but that Israel's Iron Dome defense system makes that very unlikely.

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Games begin as Marty Walsh, Boston group meet USOC

Mayor Martin J. Walsh and his chief of staff are traveling with some of Boston's top businessmen to meet with the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado today and tomorrow about hosting the Summer Olympics in 2024.

"The Walsh administration is committed to gaining a full understanding of the impacts hosting the Summer Olympics would have on the city of Boston," said Kate Norton, a spokeswoman for Walsh.

John Fish, CEO of Suffolk Construction, and Daniel O'Connell, CEO of Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, will also be part of the group that meets with the USOC. Fish and O'Connell are on the board of directors of Boston 2024 Partnership, which has been leading the campaign to bring the Summer Games to Boston. The trip will be paid for by Boston 2024 Partnership.

The USOC also has asked teams from Los Angeles, Washington and San Francisco to send delegations to what it says will be an informative session about the details of bidding for the Olympics, including finances.

The push to host the games here has faced opposition, including from No Boston Olympics.

"Our hope is the mayor will come back with a formal understanding of what this thing will cost and do his due diligence when he returns," said Conor Yunits, co-chairman of the group.

The USOC is waiting until early next year before deciding whether to submit a bid to host the 2024 Games, which will be awarded in 2017. Other cities possibly in the running include Rome, Paris, Doha and Istanbul.

Herald Wire services contributed to this report.

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FAA lifts ban on US flights to Tel Aviv airport

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban Wednesday on U.S. flights in and out of Israel, which the agency had imposed out of concern for the risk of planes being hit by Hamas rockets.

The decision was effective at 11:45 p.m. EDT.

"Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation," the FAA said. "The agency will continue to closely monitor the very fluid situation around Ben Gurion Airport and will take additional actions as necessary."

The FAA instituted a 24-hour prohibition Tuesday in response to a rocket strike that landed about a mile from the airport.

The directive, which was extended Wednesday, applied only to U.S. carriers. The FAA has no authority over foreign airlines operating in Israel.

The FAA's flight ban was criticized by the Israeli government and by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who questioned whether President Barack Obama used a federal agency to impose an economic boycott on Israel.

Delta Air Lines, which diverted a jumbo jet away from Tel Aviv before Tuesday's ban by the FAA, will not necessarily resume flights to Israel even if U.S. authorities declare the area safe, the airline's CEO said before the FAA lifted the ban.

CEO Richard Anderson said Delta would of course obey FAA orders but would continue to make its own decisions about safety.

"We appreciate the advice and consent and the intelligence we get, but we have a duty and an obligation above and beyond that to independently make the right decisions for our employees and passengers," Anderson said on a conference call with reporters. "Even if they lift" the prohibition on flying in and out of Ben-Gurion Airport, "we still may not go in depending on what the facts and circumstances are."

Anderson declined to discuss specifically how the airline would make the decision to resume the flights and spoke only in general terms. He said the airline decides whether flights are safe to operate "on an independent basis, so we will evaluate the information we have and we will make the judgment that our passengers and employees rely on us to make for them every day."

The CEO of Middle East carrier Emirates said after the shoot-down in Ukraine of a Malaysia Airlines jet last week that global airlines need better risk-assessment from international aviation authorities. Delta, however, seems more inclined to go it alone.

"We have a broad and deep security network around the world," Anderson said. "We have security directors that work for Delta in all the regions of the world, and we have a very sophisticated capability and methodology to manage these kinds of risks, whether it's this or a volcano or a hurricane."

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Ex-Market Basket boss wants to buy company

TEWKSBURY, Mass. — The former chief executive of the Market Basket supermarket chain whose ouster has led to employee protests, customer boycotts and empty shelves wants to buy the entire company.

Arthur T. Demoulas said in a statement Wednesday that he and his side of the family want to buy the 50.5 percent of the company now controlled by relatives who backed his firing last month.

Demoulas said the offer was a "very full and fair one and should meet or exceed a seller's expectations of the value of the company."

Demoulas was ousted by a family faction supporting his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. Both are grandsons of the company's founder and have been locked in a decades-long feud.

The Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based chain has 71 stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

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Global stocks bolstered by US earnings, home sales

SEOUL, South Korea — Global stocks mostly rose Wednesday, bolstered by solid U.S. earnings and home sales as tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine eased.

Europe markets opened with moderate gains. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.2 percent to 6,806.46 and Germany's DAX added 0.4 percent to 9,771.38. France's CAC 40 also advanced 0.4 percent to 4,386.53.

Futures augured a tentative advance on Wall Street. S&P 500 and Dow Jones futures each inched up 0.1 percent.

Markets have been roiled the past week by heightened tensions between Russia and the West after a Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists, killing all 298 people on board. The tensions eased Tuesday after the separatists released a train packed with bodies and handed over the aircraft's black boxes.

The focus of investors was returning to earnings, with hundreds of U.S. companies set to report quarterly results this week. Many of the U.S. earnings reports have been positive so far, easing jitters that stock prices have climbed too high in the past several months.

After U.S. markets closed on Tuesday, two tech giants boosted investor sentiment with their better-than-expected earnings reports.

Apple Inc. reported a 12 percent increase in its quarterly profit, exceeding analysts' estimate. The company said its iPhone shipments rose 13 percent over a year earlier, showing consumers still snapped up its devices even as the next version will likely to come out this fall.

Media reports have said Apple's Taiwanese contractors are ramping up production of its next iPhone models which are expected to feature a bigger screen than their predecessors.

Microsoft's CEO painted a rosy vision for the company's future after saying its profit excluding items related to the absorption of Nokia was higher than forecasts.

U.S. home resale numbers also bolstered sentiment. Sales of previously owned homes rose 2.6 percent in June, a third straight monthly gain and the highest level in eight months. The report from the National Association of Realtors provided the evidence that housing is regaining lost momentum.

"A combination of U.S. earnings optimism, positive U.S. economic data and a slight downgrade to Russia risk has ignited markets today," Stan Shamu, a market strategist at IG, said in a commentary.

Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng finished 0.8 percent higher at 23,971.87 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.6 percent to 5,576.70 helped by the brisk output report by mining giant BHP Billiton. Stocks in mainland China and Southeast Asia also closed higher. But Tokyo's Nikkei 225 shed 0.1 percent to 15,328.56 and South Korea's Kospi was steady at 2,028.32.

Indonesian stocks surged about 1 percent in early trading after the official vote count showed Joko Widodo the clear winner of a bitterly contested presidential election. Late in the day, the index was up 0.2 percent after Widodo's rival, former general Prabowo Subianto, said he would challenge the result in court, alleging massive fraud. Election observers found the vote to be generally fair and free.

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude for September delivery was down 23 cents to $102.16 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract slipped 47 cents to $102.39 on Tuesday.

The euro edged up to $1.3467 from $1.3466. The dollar fell to 101.33 yen from 101.47 yen.

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Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman says Al Jazeera is enemy

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has set his sights on a new enemy: the television network Al Jazeera.

As Israel enters its third week of a bloody confrontation with Hamas in Gaza, Lieberman on July 21 called the Qatari network a crucial piece of Hamas' propaganda effort and said the Israeli government is already in the process of banning it.

"Al Jazeera has abandoned even the semblance of a credible media outlet, and it broadcasts - both within Gaza and outside it, to the world - anti-Semitic incitement, lies, provocation and encouragement to terrorists," Lieberman said.

Al Jazeera is bankrolled by and maintains it headquarters in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Qatar, a country that is eager to play a more dominant role in Middle-Eastern politics, and despite having no formal relations with Israel, is known to maintain several back channels of trade and industry. But Qatar is also the current home of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and an open supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Qatar constitutes the economic spine of the most radical terrorist groups," Lieberman said.

Less than 24 hours after Lieberman's statement, Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza said warning shots had been fired into their Gaza City headquarters. Terrified staffers wrote on Twitter that the fire had come from Israel Defense Forces soldiers, and the building was evacuated.

The IDF, however, denied the incident, and conflicting reports on Twitter said that incident had in fact been shattered windows caused by a nearby explosion.

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

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AP source: Thieves got into 1K StubHub accounts

NEW YORK — Cyber thieves got into more than 1,000 StubHub customers' accounts and fraudulently bought tickets for events through the online ticket reseller, a law enforcement official and the company said Tuesday.

Arrests were expected in a case that sprawled across international borders, said the official, who wasn't authorized to discuss it ahead of arrests being announced and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. was expected to hold a news conference Wednesday with London and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials. A spokeswoman for Vance's office declined to comment Tuesday night on the case, which comes amid growing concern about data thieves targeting retailers and other consumer giants.

StubHub, which is based in San Francisco, said that the thieves didn't break through its security — rather, they got account-holders' login and password information from data breaches at other websites and retailers or from key-loggers or other malware on the customers' computers, spokesman Glenn Lehrman said.

The company detected the unauthorized transactions last year, contacted authorities and gave the affected customers refunds and help changing their passwords, he said.

It's unclear whether the digital prowlers then exploited their access to scoop up more information from the compromised accounts. The company and the law enforcement official wouldn't give further details Tuesday.

StubHub, owned by eBay Inc., is the leading digital marketplace for reselling concert, sports, theater and other tickets, offering brokers and fans a way "to buy or sell their tickets in a safe, convenient and highly reliable environment," as its website pledges. The company, which serves as an official secondary ticket market for such entities as Major League Baseball, this spring unveiled plans to become an event producer itself, selling tickets to a handful of its own concerts.

In the last year, major companies such as Target, LinkedIn, eBay and Neiman Marcus have been hacked. Target, the nation's second-largest discounter, acknowledged in December that data connected to about 40 million credit and debit card accounts was stolen as part of a breach that began over the Thanksgiving weekend. Even Goodwill Industries Inc. found itself announcing last month that shoppers' payment card data might have been stolen.

Ticket-sellers also have been targeted. The event ticketing service Vendini last month settled a class action lawsuit related to a data breach in 2013.

Since many people use the same passwords at multiple retailers, hackers who get hold of a password for one site often try it at another, Lehrman said.

Authorities generally advise consumers to protect against possible identity theft from such breaches by keeping close watch on their bank statements and using credit card monitoring services, among other tips.

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Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @jennpeltz

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China detains employees of suspect meat seller

BEIJING — Five employees of a company accused of selling expired beef and chicken to McDonald's, KFC and other restaurants in China were detained by police Wednesday after an official said illegal activity was an organized effort by the supplier.

China's food safety agency said on its website that its investigators found unspecified illegal activity by Husi Food Co. but gave no confirmation expired meat had been found or other details.

Some of the illegal conduct was an "arrangement organized by the company," the deputy director of the agency's Shanghai bureau, Gu Zhenghua, told the official Xinhua News Agency.

Those in criminal detention include Husi's quality manager, the Shanghai police department said on its microblog account. The one-sentence statement gave no details of possible charges or the employees' identities.

The scandal surrounding Husi, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has alarmed Chinese diners and disrupted operations for fast food chains.

It erupted Sunday when a Shanghai broadcaster, Dragon TV, reported that Husi repackaged old beef and chicken and put new expiration dates on them. It said they were sold to McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

Xinhua said the manager of Husi's quality department, Zhang Hui, told investigators "such meat had been produced under tacit approval of the company's senior managers." It said the company "has been conducting the malpractice for years."

An employee who answered the phone at the food agency office in Shanghai declined to give any additional details.

A woman who answered the phone at Husi's Shanghai headquarters said the company would not comment until the investigation was completed. She declined to give her name.

Restaurant operators that have withdrawn products made with meat from Husi include McDonald's Corp., KFC owner Yum Brands Inc., pizza chain Papa John's International Inc., Starbucks Corp., Burger King Corp. and Dicos, a Taiwanese-owned sandwich shop chain.

The scare has also spread to Japan, where McDonald's said 20 percent of the meat for its chicken nuggets was supplied by Husi.

Product safety is unusually sensitive in China following scandals over the past decade in which infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or sickened by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods.

Husi said in a statement earlier this week it was "appalled by the report" and believed it to be an "isolated event." It promised to cooperate with the investigation and to share the results with the public.

The State Food and Drug Administration's statement Wednesday said investigators seized 160 tons of raw material and 1,100 tons of finished products from Husi. The agency said earlier its investigation would extend to Husi facilities in Shanghai and five other provinces.

During a conference call Tuesday to discuss its financial results, McDonald's Corp. CEO Don Thompson said the company felt a "bit deceived" about the plant in question.

Foreign fast food brands are seen as more reliable than Chinese competitors, though local brands have made big improvements in quality.

KFC, China's biggest restaurant chain with more than 4,000 outlets and plans to open 700 more this year, was hit hard by a report in December 2013 that some poultry suppliers violated rules on drug use in chickens. Sales plunged and KFC overhauled quality controls, cutting ties with more than 1,000 small poultry suppliers.

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Associated Press researchers Fu Ting in Shanghai and Yu Bing in Beijing contributed.

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World stocks rise as Ukraine plane tensions ease

TOKYO — World stock markets rose Tuesday as tensions over the downing of a passenger jet in Ukraine eased after pro-Moscow separatists released a train packed with bodies and handed over the aircraft's black boxes.

In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.5 percent to 6,764.55 and Germany's DAX added 0.8 percent to 9,689.15. France's CAC-40 gained 0.6 percent to 4,328.51. U.S. markets looked set for an upbeat start, with Dow futures up 0.2 percent and S&P 500 futures up 0.1 percent.

Shares fell Monday as investors awaited corporate earnings while monitoring the mounting political turmoil in Gaza and Ukraine.

Some investors fear Western governments, already alarmed by Russia's support for rebels in Ukraine's east, might toughen economic sanctions over the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines last week with 298 people aboard.

The conciliatory moves by the rebels came as European Union foreign ministers were due to meet Tuesday to discuss such penalties.

Stock markets in Southeast Asia were mostly higher, though Indonesian shares tumbled 1.7 percent to 5,039.59 as authorities prepared to release official results of the country's hotly disputed presidential election.

Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.6 percent to 23,748.72 by mid-afternoon as investors snapped up China property shares on expectations regional governments in China will move to shore up the troubled real estate sector.

"There's not much sparkling news," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. "But Chinese property plays are doing well as some provinces are due to introduce control policies."

China's Shanghai Composite Index rose 1 percent to 2,075.48.

Lending and sales curbs have cooled China's red-hot housing market, raising worries over possible defaults by overstretched property developers.

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock index added 0.8 percent to 15,343.28 as trading resumed after Monday's public holiday. South Korea's Kospi gained 0.5 percent to 2,028.93.

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude for September delivery was up 24 cents to $103.10 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 91 cents to $102.86 on Monday. The August contract, which expires Tuesday, was up 43 cents at $105.02 a barrel.

The euro edged lower, to $1.3514 from $1.3524 late Monday. The dollar rose to 101.49 yen from 101.40 yen.

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China meat scandal hits Starbucks, Burger King

BEIJING — A suspect meat scandal in China engulfed Starbucks and Burger King on Tuesday and spread to Japan where McDonald's said the Chinese supplier accused of selling expired beef and chicken had provided 20 percent of the meat for its chicken nuggets.

Chinese authorities expanded their investigation of the meat supplier, Shanghai company Husi Food Co. A day after Husi's food processing plant in Shanghai was sealed by the China Food and Drug Administration, the agency said Tuesday that inspectors also will look at its facilities and meat sources in five provinces in central, eastern and southern China.

The scandal surrounding Husi Food, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has added to a string of safety scares in China over milk, medicines and other goods that have left the public wary of dairies, restaurants and other suppliers.

Food safety violations will be "severely punished," the food agency said on its website.

Starbucks Corp. on Tuesday said it removed from its shelves sandwiches made with chicken that originated at Husi. Burger King Corp. said it stopped using hamburger it received from a supplier that used product from Husi. Pizza restaurant chain Papa John's International Inc. announced it stopped using meat from Husi.

In Japan, McDonald's Corp. said it stopped selling McNuggets at more than 1,300 outlets that used chicken supplied by Husi. It said the Shanghai company had been supplying chicken to it since 2002.

A Shanghai broadcaster, Dragon TV, reported Sunday that Husi repackaged old beef and chicken and put new expiration dates on them. It said they were sold to McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

McDonald's and Yum Brands Inc., which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, said they immediately stopped using meat from Husi. A third restaurant chain, Taiwanese-owned Dicos, also said Monday it stopped using meat from Husi.

In a statement, Husi said it was "appalled by the report" and would cooperate with the investigation. It promised to share the results with the public.

"Our company management believes this to be an isolated event, but takes full responsibility for the situation and will take appropriate actions swiftly and comprehensively," Husi said.

Some companies said they didn't deal with Husi but had discovered their suppliers bought meat from that company.

Food and drug safety is an unusually sensitive issue in China following scandals over the past decade in which infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or sickened by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods.

Foreign fast food brands are seen as more reliable than Chinese competitors, though local brands have made big improvements in quality.

"If confirmed, the practices outlined in the report are completely unacceptable to McDonald's," the company's Chinese business said in a statement.

Yum's KFC is China's biggest restaurant chain, with more than 4,000 outlets and plans to open 700 more this year.

The company, based in Louisville, Kentucky, said in a statement that "food safety is the most important priority for us."

"We will not tolerate any violations of government laws and regulations from our suppliers," it said.

KFC sales in China plunged after state television reported in December 2013 some poultry suppliers violated rules on drug use in chickens. KFC overhauled quality controls and eliminated more than 1,000 small poultry producers from its supply network.

In Japan, McDonald's spokesman Kenji Kaniya said the affected stores are in Tokyo area and the cities of Nagano and Shizuoka.

Other chicken used by McDonald's in Japan comes from suppliers in Thailand and China, Kaniya said.

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Associated Press researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai and AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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US job-training review emphasizes data, employers

WASHINGTON — A six-month review of federal job-training programs concludes that the government needs to better engage U.S. employers, improve the use of data, and boost apprenticeship programs so workers can earn while they train.

The White House is releasing the results of a report developed under the leadership of Vice President Joe Biden. The report says the government is working to tailor training and grants to better match jobs that are in demand. The government is also adding employment outcome measures to all federal programs.

The report also stresses the need for regional partnerships and for programs that provide stepping stones for a seamless transition from one level of education to the next.

Obama on Tuesday will also sign bipartisan legislation aimed at improving business engagement and accountability in federally-funded programs.

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Netflix defends Chelsea Handler deal

Chelsea Handler's talk show on Netflix, slated to debut in 2016, will have a limited shelf life, chief content officer Ted Sarandos acknowledged, but he said it will fit into the streaming company's overall mix by introducing a new time-shifted model for latenight TV.

"I think Chelsea's is going to be a great representative of the content on Netflix: movies and pop culture," said Sarandos, speaking on Netflix's second quarter earnings call Monday.

He added, "This isn't instantly perishable content, but it's not a movie... but the economics (of the deal with Handler) level it out for us."

Handler is leaving her show on E!, "Chelsea Lately," after seven years. Netflix announced the pact with the comedienne last month. The deal encompasses Handler's first hour-long standup comedy performance based on her sold-out tour, "Uganda Be Kidding Me," taped June 20 and set to debut in October, along with four other specials in 2015.

For Netflix, the foray into latenight TV programming with Handler represents a dramatic departure from its traditional emphasis on binge-watching series. But to Sarandos, it's simply the evolution of a traditional TV format to the on-demand paradigm that's becoming the prevailing model for consumers' viewing habits.

Netflix and Handler want to "create a show that's built closer to the way people are going to watch it," Sarandos said, noting that TV viewers are increasingly watching latenight programming "not at 11:30 (p.m.) but days or weeks later."

In announcing second-quarter results, Netflix was upbeat on its international growth prospects. The company plans launches in six European countries -- including France and Germany -- this fall. Sarandos said the company spends 10%-20% of its content budgets internationally on locally productions, with the rest largely comprising Hollywood-produced shows and movies. "What's been really great is how much the content travels," he said.

With respect to France, which has laws governing the amount of French-produced content that must be available on video services, CEO Reed Hastings was asked whether Netflix was attempting to skirt Gallic regulations. Netflix was reported to be locating its base of operations for France in Luxembourg, in order to avoid French regulations including taxes.

"We are really not trying to get around anything," Hastings said. "We want to be an avenue for French content to be available around the world," he said, joking that Netflix would be investing in a "House of Versailles" series.

As for whether Netflix will boost the amount it spends on original relative to licensed content, Sarandos said while more of its focus will be on original productions, "we'll always be a very valuable off-net buyer" for TV shows. He noted that CBS's "The Mentalist" is most popular content in France.

"The great thing about this time we are in... there's so much great content being produced, you could never watch it in your lifetime," Sarandos said.

On the call, moderated by JP Morgan's Doug Anmuth and MoffettNathanson's Michael Nathanson, Netflix execs were asked about the potential impact of 21st Century Fox's potential takeover of Time Warner.

Sarandos responded that "Fox and Warner are both pretty powerful companies today... so I don't know how that changes much with them coming together." He said the merger talks between the two congloms were more likely about TV network consolidation and sports rights than combining production capabilities.

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

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US companies report rising sales, employment in 2Q

DETROIT — Rising sales helped boost hiring and wages at U.S. businesses in the second quarter, and companies are optimistic that the trends will continue this fall, according to a new survey by the National Association for Business Economics.

Fifty-seven percent of the 85 respondents to the quarterly survey said sales at their companies rose in the April-June period. That was up from 53 percent in the first quarter and 35 percent in the same period a year ago. Just 5 percent of firms said sales fell during the second quarter.

Respondents also said the outlook for the July-October period is strong. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they expect sales to increase during the third quarter, and just 1 percent expects sales to decline. Respondents from the finance, insurance and real estate sector were most optimistic about sales increases, while the service sector lagged.

As sales picked up, so did hiring. Thirty-six percent of firms said they hired more workers during the second quarter, up from 28 percent in the first quarter and 29 percent in the second quarter of 2013.

The employment outlook was steady, with 37 percent of respondents expecting their companies to hire more workers in the July-October period. Finance, insurance and real estate companies were most likely to say they expect employment increases, at 48 percent; service companies were the least likely, at 28 percent. Less than 10 percent of respondents expect employment declines in the third quarter.

For the first time since October 2012, no respondents reported falling wages. Forty-three percent said their firms raised wages during the second quarter, which was than double the share that reported raising wages during the same time period a year ago. More than one-third of respondents — 35 percent — expected wages to continue to increase in the third quarter.

Hiring and wage increases hit companies' profits. Just 27 percent of respondents said their firms' profit margins rose in the second quarter, down from 32 percent in the first quarter. Despite the slowdown, manufacturers and financial companies both said they expect margins to grow at a faster pace in the third quarter.

Some companies improved their margins by raising prices. Twenty-five percent of respondents said their businesses raised prices in the second quarter, up from 20 percent in the two previous quarters. Eight percent said prices fell, up from 3 percent in the first quarter.

Technology and communications companies and manufacturers said prices were up during the quarter, while service companies and finance companies said prices were softer. Nearly three-quarters of respondents expect no change in the prices their firms will charge in the third quarter.

The quarterly survey by NABE is intended to gauge business conditions at members' firms or industries. Almost half the respondents are from companies with more than 1,000 employees.

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Verizon boosts FiOS uploads to match downloads

NEW YORK — Verizon is boosting the upload speeds of nearly all its FiOS connections to match the download speeds, vastly shortening the time it takes for subscribers to send videos and back up their files online.

Starting Monday, all new subscribers will get "symmetrical" connections. The cheapest plan will deliver 25 megabits per second up and down, an increase from 15 megabits down and 5 megabits up.

Current subscribers will see their upload speeds raised over the coming months, product manager Fowler Abercrombie said. He expects that 95 percent of Verizon customers will see higher speeds. For the rest, fully symmetrical speeds may not be possible for technical reasons.

With the speed increase, Verizon Communications Inc. is taking advantage of a technical ability that its all-fiber FiOS network has. Rival offerings from cable companies, for the most part, can't match that because cables were originally designed to send video to homes, not the other way around. Cable upload speeds top out at about 35 megabits per second, while Verizon's top tier now offers 500 megabits per second.

Those who share or upload big files will get the greatest use out of higher upload speeds. At the new bottom-tier speed of 25 megabits per second, uploading an hour-long, 3-gigabyte high-definition video would take 16 minutes, a fifth of the time it would have taken on the previous 5-megabit plan. At the highest, 500-megabit tier, the upload would take just 50 seconds.

Verizon's marketing materials claim that higher upload speeds will also benefit online gamers and eBay shoppers. In real-life use, however, it would be very rare for these activities to see a boost from higher upload speeds.

Verizon has just over 6 million FiOS Internet customers.

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World stocks weak as pressure on Russia grows

BEIJING — World stock markets remained on the back foot Monday as tensions grew between Russia and the West over the downing of an airliner in eastern Ukraine.

In Europe, Germany's DAX was off 0.7 percent at 9,654.54 and France's CAC-40 shed 0.4 percent to 4,315.92. Britain's FTSE 100 dropped 0.3 percent to 6,732.16.

Futures pointed to losses on Wall Street. Dow futures were down 0.1 percent at 17,009 and S&P 500 futures shed 0.1 percent to 1,969.

The shooting down last week of the Malaysia Airlines plane with 298 people aboard has rattled markets, which worried about how Western governments, already alarmed by Russia's support for rebels in Ukraine's east, would react.

The disaster, in an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists, has sparked international condemnation and increased pressure on Russia to stop meddling in Ukraine. Russian officials have blamed Ukraine's government for creating the situation and atmosphere in which the plane was downed.

"The more pressure that builds on Russia the more volatile European indices will be," said strategist Evan Lucas at IG Markets in a report. "With the strong trade links between the continent and Russia, any disruptions to this through sanctions will cause profit taking on European indices."

China's Shanghai Composite Index declined 0.2 percent to 2,054.48 points and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 0.3 percent at 23,387.14. Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.1 percent to 5,539.90.

Seoul's Kospi fell 0.1 percent to 2,018.50 ahead of this week's release of quarterly economic growth data. Tokyo was closed for a holiday.

Markets in Southeast Asia were mostly higher. Jakarta rose 0.8 percent despite tensions over presidential election results due out Tuesday, with both candidates claiming victory.

Investors were looking ahead to U.S. earnings reports amid hopes American economic growth is recovering. Results from Apple, Microsoft and Coca Cola were due out Tuesday and Caterpillar on Thursday.

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude for August delivery was down 1 cent to $103.12 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract shed 6 cents on Friday to close at $103.13.

The euro rose to $1.3537 from $1.3525 late Friday. The dollar fell to 101.31 yen from 101.36 yen.

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McDonald's, KFC in China face new food scandal

BEIJING — McDonald's and KFC in China faced a new food safety scare Monday after a Shanghai television station reported a supplier sold them expired beef and chicken.

The companies said they immediately stopped using meat from the supplier, Husi Food Co., Ltd. The Shanghai office of China's food and drug agency said it was investigating and told customers to suspend use of the supplier's products.

Dragon TV said Sunday that Husi, owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, repackaged old beef and chicken and put new expiration dates on them. It said they were sold to McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

The report added to a series of food safety scares in China that have battered public confidence in dairies, fast food outlets and other suppliers.

McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc., which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, said they were conducting their own investigations.

"Food safety is a top priority for McDonald's," the company said on its microblog account. The company said it pursues "strict compliance" with consumer safety laws and regulations and has "zero tolerance for illegal behavior."

A third company, sandwich shop chain Dicos, said in a statement that it stopped using sausage patties supplied by Husi. Dicos is owned by Taiwan's Ting Hsin International Group, and the company website said it had 2,000 outlets in China as of September 2013.

The Shanghai office of the State Food and Drug Administration said it was working with police to investigate Husi.

"At present, the company has been sealed and suspect products seized," the agency said on its website.

McDonald's sealed 4,500 cases of beef, pork, chicken and other products supplied by Husi for investigation and Pizza Hut sealed 500 cases of seasoned beef, the city government said in a statement.

A woman who answered the phone at Husi's headquarters said no one was available to comment. The official Xinhua News Agency cited a company manager, Yang Liqun, who said Husi has a strict quality control system and will cooperate in the investigation.

The Communist Party secretary of Shanghai, Han Zheng, called for "severe punishment" of any wrongdoing, according to the city government statement.

KFC is China's biggest restaurant chain, with more than 4,000 outlets and plans to open 700 more this year.

The company was badly hurt after state television reported in December 2013 that some poultry suppliers violated rules on drug use in chickens. Yum said KFC sales in China plunged 37 percent the following month. KFC launched an effort to tighten control over product quality and eliminated more than 1,000 small poultry producers from its supply network.

In a string of product scandals over the past decade, infants, hospital patients and others have been killed by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods.

Foreign fast food brands are seen as more reliable than Chinese competitors, though local brands have made big improvements in quality.

The high profile of foreign brands means any complaints involving them attract attention, while their status as foreign companies with less political influence means Chinese media can publicize their troubles more freely.

Scandal-weary consumers on Monday expressed mixed feelings.

Chen Lu, 24, an employee of an Internet company, was eating a chicken burger and fries at a McDonald's in central Shanghai that was half-empty at midday, a time when most restaurants are crowded.

"My boyfriend called and told me not to eat McDonald's one minute after I ordered this chicken hamburger, but what can I do? I've already ordered and I am in a hurry," she said.

"I am worried about my health," she said. "I will try to avoid it, at least for a while. I am pretty disappointed in this brand."

Another diner, Liu Kun, a 24-year-old student from Nanjing who was visiting Shanghai, said he was not concerned.

"The incident won't change me eating here," Liu said. "There have been negative reports all the time. McDonald and KFC are the leaders in the industry."

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Associated Press researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed to this report.

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Flight sharing set for Boston

For the harried traveler tired of spending interminable amounts of time in traffic before taking a ferry to get to the Vineyard or Nantucket, the Uber of the air could offer a new way to get away.

MassChallenge finalist AirPooler, a web-based, flight-sharing service that hopes to launch in Boston this summer, was founded last August by Steve Lewis and Andy Finke, who both came from backgrounds in travel technology — Lewis from ITA Software, a Cambridge company with an airfare-pricing-and-shopping system, and Finke from Zipcar.

"We were thinking where the new frontier would be," Lewis said. "There had been tremendous progress in making researching places and planning travel easier and more enjoyable. But when it came to actually getting around, it was still a huge hassle."

The two decided to launch a website where private pilots of light aircraft with vacant seats could list their flights, and people going to the same places could arrange to fly with them in exchange for sharing costs such as fuel or plane-rental fees.

Leaving out of Logan International Airport in Boston, a roundtrip flight on a Cessna 172 with three people, including the pilot, for example, would take approximately 1.1 hours at a cost of $47 per person to Martha's Vineyard, 1.4 hours at $60 per person to Nantucket and 3.1 hours at $132 per person to Bar Harbor, Maine.

All of the costs are estimates and could be recalculated by the system to reflect factors such as time spent waiting on the runway, or alterations to a flight plan that added or subtracted distance to or from the trip. Passengers also would pay AirPooler's 20 percent fee.

For the time being, however, AirPooler's plans to launch locally are on hold while it awaits a response to a May 19 letter it says it sent to the FAA, requesting that the agency confirm that any pilots who might list flights on the company's website would be in compliance with FAA regulations since they would be sharing the cost of flights, rather than profiting from them.

Until it receives that confirmation, AirPooler has suggested that pilots refrain from listing flights on the West Coast, where it launched earlier this year.

In a statement Friday, the FAA said only that it had not been contacted by Air Pooler about beginning operations in the Boston area.

Asked what the company's plans are if the FAA does not give it the legal interpretation it's seeking, Lewis said: "We really haven't thought about that. We recognize this is a difficult issue for the FAA. The regulations in question were issued long before operations of this sort were possible, and the agency needs a reasonable amount of time to evaluate the legal implications. But we're confident they will respond in the near future."

In January, two Northeastern University students launched a similar flight-sharing website called
Flytenow.

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The Ticker

Amazon unveils e-book service

Amazon is rolling out a new subscription service that will allow unlimited access to thousands of electronic books and audiobooks for $9.99 a month in the online giant's latest effort to attract more users.

The largest U.S. e-commerce site said that the Kindle Unlimited service will give users the ability to read as much as they want from more than 600,000 Kindle titles and thousands of Audible audiobooks.

TUESDAY

• Labor Department releases Consumer Price Index for June
• National Association of Realtors releases existing home sales for June
• Senate Finance Committee hearing on tax laws
• Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee hearing on coal miners

WEDNESDAY

•  Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed carbon pollution standards for power plants
•  Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing on legislation focusing on consumer protections and safety for cruise ship passengers
•  House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee hearing on domestic aviation manufacturing

THURSDAY

• Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims
•  Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates
• Commerce Department releases new home sales for June

FRIDAY

•  Commerce Department releases durable goods for June

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RJ Reynolds vows to fight $23.6B in damages

MIAMI — The nation's No. 2 cigarette maker is vowing to fight a jury verdict of $23.6 billion in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. executive J. Jeffery Raborn has called the damages awarded by a Pensacola jury "grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law."

"This verdict goes far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness, and is completely inconsistent with the evidence presented," Raborn, a company vice president and assistant general counsel, said in a statement. "We plan to file post-trial motions with the trial court promptly, and are confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway verdict to stand."

One of the widow's attorneys said the verdict Friday night sends a powerful message to tobacco companies.

"The jury wanted to send a statement that tobacco cannot continue to lie to the American people and the American government about the addictiveness of and the deadly chemicals in their cigarettes," said Christopher Chestnut, one of the attorneys representing Cynthia Robinson.

The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.

Last year, Florida's highest court re-approved that decision, which made it easier for sick smokers or their survivors to pursue lawsuits against tobacco companies without having to prove to the court again that Big Tobacco knowingly sold dangerous products and hid the hazards of cigarette smoking.

The damages awarded to Robinson after a four-week trial came in addition to $16.8 million in compensatory damages awarded Thursday.

Robinson individually sued Reynolds in 2008 on behalf of her late husband, Michael Johnson Sr., who died in 1996. Her attorneys said the punitive damages are the largest of any individual case stemming from the original class action lawsuit.

The verdict came the same week that Reynolds American Inc., which owns R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, announced it was purchasing Lorillard Tobacco Co., the country's No. 3 cigarette maker, in a $25 billion deal. That would create a tobacco company second only in the U.S. to Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris USA Inc. and is based in Richmond, Virginia.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2015 and likely will face regulatory scrutiny.

Anti-smoking advocates hailed the verdict as a reminder of what they called the tobacco industry's history of marketing to children and hiding the truth about their products.

"Wall Street analysts like to say the industry's liability risk is manageable. What this verdict shows is the tobacco industry's risk is far greater than Wall Street analysts would lead investors believe," said Vince Willmore, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away cigarette manufacturers' appeals of more than $70 million in court judgments to Florida smokers. Reynolds, Philip Morris USA Inc. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. had wanted the court to review cases in which smokers won large damage awards without having to prove that the companies sold a defective and dangerous product or hid the risks of smoking.

The Supreme Court refused to hear another of the companies' appeals last year, wanting the court to consider overturning a $2.5 million Tampa jury verdict in the death of a smoker.

Other Florida juries have hit tobacco companies with tens of millions of dollars in punitive damages in lawsuits stemming from the original class action lawsuit.

In August, a Fort Lauderdale jury awarded $37.5 million, including $22.5 million in punitive damages against Reynolds, to the family of a smoker who died at age 38 of lung cancer in 1995.

Attorneys for Reynolds said they would appeal, arguing that the woman knew the dangers of smoking because cigarettes had warning labels when she started. The attorney for the woman's family said teenagers like her were targeted by tobacco companies.

Some large jury verdicts awarding tens of millions of dollars in damages to relatives of smokers have been upheld by appeals courts.

In September, the 3rd District Court of Appeals affirmed $25 million in punitive damages and $10 million in compensatory damages against Lorillard, the country's No. 3 cigarette maker, for Dorothy Alexander, whose husband died in 1996 of lung cancer. Lorillard, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, unsuccessfully argued the damages were excessive and raised a number of other claims.

The 1st District Court of Appeals upheld in June 2013 a $20 million punitive damage award to another smoker's widow, more than a year after reversing a $40.8 million award in the same case against Reynolds. After the appeals court rejected the first award as excessive the award amount was recalculated. The tobacco company still objected.

Philip Morris is the country's biggest tobacco company and owned by Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc. Reynolds is owned by Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Reynolds American Inc.

Messages left with Atria and Lorillard spokesmen were not immediately returned.

___

Follow Jennifer Kay on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jnkay.

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Electric locks make doors hard to open if power fails

I was shocked to see a news broadcast of a man whose car caught fire and he couldn't get out because the electric door locks were inoperative. He was saved because someone was able to bend the top of the door and break the glass to pull him out. This seems to be a big problem in some modern cars. I was recently at a Chevrolet dealership that had a one-year-old Corvette convertible in the showroom. It was locked, but the top was down so I attempted to pull the door lock knob up to get in. No luck. I didn't have the key fob. I also read about some cars that can only be opened by finding some elusive handle to manually open a door when the car has an electrical failure. I find it hard to believe that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would allow cars to be manufactured this way. I own a 2005 Buick LeSabre and a 2010 F-150. Both have electric locks. Should I be concerned about these two vehicles?

The C6 Corvette you mentioned — I have one — has electrically operated door unlatch mechanisms that are operated by electric buttons on the inside and outside of the door and the BCM (body control module). Your two vehicles have electrically operated door latches operated by the keyless entry fob and the BCM, but also have mechanical unlatch mechanisms on the inside and outside of the doors.

The Corvette has no door-mounted mechanical release levers or buttons. Instead, it has a manual door unlatch mechanism that mechanically unlatches the door latch via a cable inside the door and a lever located on the floor between the seat and door. Pulling up on this lever unlatches and opens the door.

If some type of complete electrical failure disabled both your remote keyless entry fob and the electrical door lock switches on your door, you would open the door by manually unlocking it, then pulling the mechanical release handle on the door itself.

The same electrical failure on the Corvette would require you to pull up on the release lever on the floor to open the door. The only real difference is the location of the mechanical release system.

One other interesting difference. Because the Corvette, like a number of newer vehicles, utilizes electric switches rather than a mechanical linkage to open the door from the outside, if the battery is dead with the doors and rear hatch locked, the only way into the car is to use a special key that's part of the fob to mechanically unlock the rear hatch and pull a release handle to unlock the door.

Maybe the real question is this: Does this new technology add to or improve the functionality of the vehicle? What do you think?

I have a 2011 Chevy Silverado LT. Every time I have it serviced they claim it needs a front-end alignment. I mostly drive in city or on paved highways. Is this common? I have never had this problem before. I am 87 years old if that makes a difference.

Your age makes no difference — except perhaps to a service agency that may think you are an easier "up-sell" during routine service. Unless you've been pounding off-road, sliding into curbs, finding every pothole in your area or some other alignment-ruining scenario, your truck's alignment certainly should not need "regular service."

Are the tires on your truck wearing relatively evenly? Does the vehicle exhibit any alignment issues such as lead, pull or instability in a straight line.? GM says some light "feathering" on the outer edge of the tread is normal for this vehicle. Regular tire rotation can help maximize tire life and minimize unusual wear.

If your vehicle exhibits none of these issues, you may want to align yourself with another service agency.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paulbrand@startribune.com.

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