Alon USA to buy refinery from Valero
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Alon USA to buy refinery from Valero
Alon USA Energy of Dallas will buy an 85,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Krotz Springs, La., from Valero Energy for $333 million, plus a provision that could be worth more than $100 million based on performance, the companies said Thursday. Alon has four U.S. refineries, including one in Big Spring that suffered a fire in February and which is expected to return by July to its full capacity of 70,000 barrels a day. The companies expect the transaction to close in July.
-- Jim Fuquay
GM will pay to help end strike at supplier
DETROIT -- General Motors has agreed to kick in up to $200 million to help bring an end to a bitter 10-week strike at parts supplier American Axle and Manufacturing. The automaker said Thursday in a government filing that the money would go for temporary payments to buffer reduced wages for the workers, as well as employee buyout and early-retirement packages. About 3,600 United Auto Workers at five American Axle factories have been on strike since Feb. 26 in a dispute over the company's quest for lower wages and benefits, crippling GM's production of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
-- The Associated Press
AMA seeks delay on ads for new drugs
Drugmakers, including Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co., have deceptively marketed their products to the public, showing the need to limit drug advertisements, lawmakers and the American Medical Association said. A moratorium should be placed on ads for newly approved drugs until doctors are educated and regulators have signed off on the messages, the largest U.S. doctors group said Thursday at a House subcommittee hearing on drug advertising. Drugmakers spent $5.4 billion last year on direct-to-consumer advertising, according to the market-research firm Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
-- Bloomberg News
Labor Department seeks more union details
WASHINGTON -- Unions should be required to make public more details of their internal finances, the Labor Department said Thursday as it proposed changes to union disclosure forms. The rules would require more detail about union pay and reimbursements to third parties and disclosure of the identities of those who buy union assets.
-- The Associated Press
Rule would restrain health-insurance agents
WASHINGTON -- Agents selling private health-insurance plans to the elderly and disabled would be barred from cold-calling, door-to-door solicitations and pitching their products outside hospital waiting rooms or pharmacies under a federal rule proposed Thursday. The rule is designed to make it harder to pressure Medicare beneficiaries into signing up for insurance products they don't need or want.
-- The Associated Press
Facebook adds safeguards for young users
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Facebook, the world's second-largest social-networking Web site, is adding more than 40 safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies under an agreement with officials nationwide that was announced Thursday. The measures include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to contact subscribers under 18 and participating in a task force set up in January to find ways to verify users' ages and identities.
-- The Associated Press
