TRENTON, N.J.: Imagine not being able to afford one of life’s great pleasures — sex.

That’s true for many older couples, doctors say. Soaring prices for prescription medicines for impotence and other problems have put the remedies out of reach for some.

Without insurance coverage, Viagra and Cialis cost about $50 a pill, triple their 2010 list prices. The new “female Viagra,” a daily pill for low sex drive called Addyi, costs $800 per month. Older products for women also have seen huge price run-ups, Truven Health Analytics data show.

“Many of them don’t get past the pharmacy counter once they see the price,” says Sheryl Kingsberg, a University Hospitals-Cleveland Medical Center behavioral psychologist and researcher who counsels men and women.

What people actually pay out of pocket varies. Some insurance prescription plans, including Medicare, cover some of the medicines. Some plans don’t cover any, arguing they’re not medically necessary. Many require steep copayments or limit the number of impotence pills per prescription.

“Once you get to a certain price point, sex becomes a financial decision,” says Dr. Elizabeth Kavaler, a sexual dysfunction specialist at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital. “It takes a lot of the joy out of this.”

Five of six specialists interviewed by the Associated Press say patients have told them they’ve given up sex because of the cost.

Now, a little relief is coming. Late next year, Viagra and Cialis will get at least one generic competitor costing slightly less; prices will plunge later when more generics reach the market. For women, an Addyi rival is in late-stage testing. A few other products now have generic versions, and other options are in development.

A generation ago, long-married couples accepted their sex lives trailing off with age, Kavaler says. Key hormone levels drop with age, reducing sex drive and causing problems such as impotence and vaginal dryness, which often makes intercourse painful.

Today, midlife divorce is more common, divorced or widowed men and women often seek new partners, and sex becomes important again. Meanwhile, they’re bombarded by ads for impotence remedies and other treatments.

“Couples in their 50s, 60s and 70s are more sexual than they’ve ever been,” says Kavaler.

Until Pfizer launched the first impotence pill, Viagra, in 1998, there were few options for men besides penile implants and injections. Viagra and Cialis each quickly topped $1 billion in global annual sales, and products for women’s symptoms eventually followed. However, price increases appear to be limiting usage for some products in the United States, where prices aren’t regulated.

Since 2010, the number of Viagra prescriptions filled in the United States has fallen 42 percent to about 5 million a year. Meanwhile, prescriptions for Cialis, which now has a popular daily pill option, have gone up slightly, according to health data firm QuintilesIMS.

Popular women’s estrogen products such as Vagifem vaginal tablets and Estrace cream also have seen prescriptions decline in recent years. Addyi, only on the market for a year, has had dismal sales.

Dr. Lauren Streicher offers women four treatment options, and most pick Vagifem. A month’s supply costs $170 and insurance coverage is limited. A generic version, Yuvafem, just launched at a slightly cheaper price.

“They go to their pharmacy and see how much it costs, and then they call me up and say, ‘I can’t do it,’ ” says Streicher, director of the Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause at Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago.

But not being able to have sex “is a deal-breaker in a lot of relationships,” she adds.

Prices based on value

The drugs’ makers insist list prices far exceed the negotiated prices insurers pay them and say they price products based on their value. According to the companies, nearly all their customers are insured. Pfizer says most insured Viagra users pay $6 to $8 per pill, for instance.

Patients unwilling to forego sex, doctors say, split pills or otherwise ration medicines, beg for scarce samples or seek copay discount coupons. Men with enlarged prostates can request Cialis because it’s also approved for that condition, usually with insurance coverage. Some women make do with over-the-counter lubricants.

Many shop for price, which can vary widely by pharmacy.

Others take a big risk, buying “herbal Viagra” at gas stations or ordering Viagra online from “Canadian pharmacies” that likely sell counterfeit drugs made in poor countries, says Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of San Diego Sexual Medicine.

Some doctors have gotten inventive.

Dr. Nachum Katlowitz, head of urology at New York’s Staten Island University Hospital, offers an alternative costing about $1 per pill at some pharmacies. The active ingredient in Viagra — sildenafil — is also in Pfizer’s now-generic blood pressure pill Revatio but at one-fifth the dose.

One of his patients, a 62-year-old hospital technician, takes several of the blood pressure pills before sex.

“I couldn’t afford it if I had to pay for Viagra,” says Robert, who asked that his last name not be used to protect his privacy.

He’s experienced modest improvements and says he and his wife of 28 years now enjoy sex twice as often.

WASHINGTON: Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are joining forces to more quickly identify the worst terrorist propaganda and prevent it from spreading online.

The new program announced Monday would create a database of unique digital “fingerprints” to help automatically identify videos or images the companies could remove.

The move by the technology companies, which is expected to begin in early 2017, aims to assuage government concerns — and derail proposed new federal legislation — over social media content that is seen as increasingly driving terrorist recruitment and radicalization, while also balancing free-speech issues.

Technical details were being worked out, but Microsoft pioneered similar technology to detect, report and remove child pornography through such a database in 2009. Unlike those images, which are plainly illegal under U.S. law, questions about whether an image or video promotes terrorism can be more subjective, depending on national laws and the rules of a particular company’s service.

Social media has increasingly become a tool for recruiting and radicalization by the Islamic State group and others. Its use by terror groups and supporters has added to the threat from so-called lone-wolf attacks and decreased the time from “flash to bang” — or radicalization to violence — with little or no time for law enforcement to follow evidentiary trails before an attack.

Under the new partnership, the companies promised to share among themselves “the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services — content most likely to violate all our respective companies’ content policies,” according to a joint announcement Monday.

When such content is shared internally, the other participating companies will be notified and can use the digital fingerprints to quickly identify the same content on their own services to judge whether it violates their rules. If so, companies can delete the material and possibly disable the account, as appropriate.

Most social media services explicitly do not allow content that supports violent action or illegal activities.

“We really are going after the most obvious serious content that is shared online — that is, the kind of recruitment videos and beheading videos more likely to be against all our content policies,” said Sally Aldous, a Facebook spokeswoman.

The White House praised the joint effort. “Today’s announcement is yet another example of tech communities taking action to prevent terrorists from using these platforms in ways their creators never intended,” said National Security Council spokesman Carl Woog.

BRIMFIELD TWP.: An Amherst, N.Y.-based investment group has bought a strip of businesses and restaurants at The Cascades of Brimfield shopping area for $15.8 million.

Benchmark Development Corp. purchased the Corners and Village last week from the private investment group FB Cascades LLC, according to Portage County property records.

COLUMBUS: Ohio lawmakers have put plans to overhaul Ohio’s unemployment compensation system on hold.

Republican leaders in Columbus said Tuesday that they’ll take another shot next year at rebuilding the state’s unemployment fund.

There’s been growing concern about how the system is structured and how long the state’s fund that pays unemployment benefits could be sustained. Ohio and other states were forced to borrow from a federal loan fund to keep paying benefits during the recession that began in 2007.

One proposal being looked at would have temporarily increased employer contribution levels and reduced the number of weeks of benefit payouts.

House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger earlier this year said changing the unemployment compensation system was one of his year-end priorities.

WASHINGTON: A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with smartphone maker Samsung in its high-profile patent dispute with Apple over design of the iPhone.

The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a tiny part of the devices.

Apple had won a $399 million judgment against Samsung for copying parts of the iPhone’s patented design, but the case now returns to a lower court to decide what Samsung must pay.

The case is part of a series of disputes between the technology rivals that began in 2011. Apple accused Samsung of duplicating a handful of distinctive iPhone features for which Apple holds patents: the flat screen, the rounded rectangle shape of the phone, and the layout of icons on the screen.

At issue was how much Samsung is required to compensate Apple under an 1887 law that requires patent infringers to pay “total profit.” Apple said that meant all the profits from the phone sales, while Samsung argued it was limited to profits related to the specific components that were copied.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court that the law does not require damages to be based on the entire product, but can be limited to only a component of the product. The decision overturned a ruling from a federal appeals court in Washington, which said that Apple was entitled to all the profits.

But the high court declined to lay out a specific test for how such damage awards should be calculated. Sotomayor said doing so was not necessary and the justices left it up to lower courts to resolve.

Samsung had argued that the hefty award ignored the fact that its phones contain more than 200,000 other patents that Apple does not own. Apple said the verdict was fair because the iPhone’s success was directly tied to its distinctive look.

Bridgestone Americas will keep building Firestone-brand race tires in Akron for another two years.

The Nashville-based tire maker and city on Wednesday announced a two-year lease extension on what Bridgestone calls its Advanced Technology Workshop in the former

Firestone Plant One off South Main Street in Akron.

The extension will keep more than 50 highly-skilled jobs in Akron, the company said. Bridgestone said it exercised an option to extend a current agreement by two years. Any other terms involving the extension were not immediately disclosed.

“We’d like to thank our city, county and state leaders for their continued support of Bridgestone and our investments in Northeast Ohio,” Steve Charles, vice president of Product Development for Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, said in a statement.

“I am pleased that Bridgestone will continue to manufacture tires and retain jobs in our community,” Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our long and successful partnership.”

Bridgestone Americas said the race tire facility “is one of the company’s most historic and unique tire production facilities in North America."

Bridgestone has about 900 employees in Akron, including its Americas Technical Center.

Bridgestone Americas will keep building Firestone-brand race tires in Akron for a couple more years.

The Nashville-based tire maker and Akron city officials on Wednesday announced a two-year lease extension on what Bridgestone calls its Advanced Technology Workshop in the former Firestone Plant One off South Main Street in Akron. Workers there make race tires for IndyCar open-wheel racing.

The extension will keep as many as 70 highly skilled jobs in Akron through 2020, the city said.

Keeping the specialty tire plant in the city-owned building is a key part to attract and retain other businesses and could help spur future development in the area, said Sam DeShazior, Akron’s deputy mayor for economic development.

“This is sort of a boost in the arm” that Bridgestone did not decide to relocate the manufacturing plant, he said. The Bridgestone facility makes use of locally sourced materials, tools and more as part of the Akron-area automotive supply chain, he said.

“We’ll talk to [Bridgestone] about a long-term strategy to keep tires made here in Akron,” he said.

Bridgestone said it exercised an option to extend a current agreement two years. The city did not need to provide financial incentives to keep the plant, DeShazior said. The city will continue to help Bridgestone find talented employees for its Akron facilities, he said.

The city would like to see Bridgestone look at what is called “adaptive reuse” of other parts of the former Plant One, he said.

“We’d like to thank our city, county and state leaders for their continued support of Bridgestone and our investments in Northeast Ohio,” Steve Charles, vice president of Product Development for Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, said in a statement.

“I am pleased that Bridgestone will continue to manufacture tires and retain jobs in our community,” Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said in a news release.

Bridgestone Americas said the race tire facility “is one of the company’s most historic and unique tire production facilities in North America.”

Bridgestone has about 900 employees in Akron, including at its Americas Technical Center.

Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ  on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ

REAL ESTATE

Group buys Brimfield plaza

An Amherst, N.Y., investment group has bought a strip of businesses and restaurants at the Cascades of Brimfield shopping area for $15.8 million.

Benchmark Development Corp. purchased the Corners and Village last week from the private investment group FB Cascades LLC, according to Portage County property records.

RESTAURANTS

Chipotle bolsters training

Chipotle co-CEO Steve Ells said that half of the burrito chain’s more than 2,100 restaurants have less-than-excellent customer service and that the company is now training employees to clean dirty napkins off tables, make sure the soda fountain is organized and keep the glass on its front doors free of fingerprints.

Ells said at a conference Tuesday that the company let customer service slip as it focused on adding new food safety protocols after an E. coli outbreak last year sickened some customers.

AIRLINES

Alaska Airlines deal approved

Alaska Airlines has won government approval to buy rival Virgin America after agreeing to reduce its flight-selling partnership with American Airlines.

Parent company Alaska Air Group Inc. said Tuesday that it expects to close the $2.6 billion deal soon.

Seattle-based Alaska is the nation’s sixth-biggest airline, and California-based Virgin is eighth. Together, they will become the fifth-biggest.

THEME PARKS

SeaWorld cutting 320 jobs

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. is eliminating 320 jobs across the company.

The company said the goal of the restructuring is to reduce costs and improve the company’s operations. The cuts involve salaried and hourly workers.

SeaWorld makes the move after struggling with falling attendance and revenue in the face of a campaign by animal-rights activists.

The company — which closed its Aurora location in 2001 — has parks in Florida, Texas, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

BENEFITS

IKEA expands parental leave

Ikea’s U.S. division is offering longer parental leave to employees who are new parents, following similar overtures from tech companies like Netflix as it strives to keep good workers in an improving job market.

The ready-to-assemble furniture chain said Tuesday it will offer its 13,000 salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. up to four months of paid parental leave. Effective Jan. 1, the policy will apply to mothers and fathers who are birth, adoptive or foster parents.

Ikea had previously given women giving birth five days of paid leave in addition to six to eight weeks of paid disability leave.

ENVIRONMENT

Google nears energy goal

Google says that beginning next year, it believes it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world.

That’s significant, given Google’s ravenous appetite for electricity to power its offices and the huge data centers that process requests for its services.

That doesn’t mean Google will be able to power its operations solely on wind and solar power. That is impossible given the complicated power grids and regulations. But it may be in a position to offset every megawatt hour of electricity supplied by a power plant running on fossil fuels with renewable energy.

ECONOMY

Factory orders rise slightly

Orders to U.S. factories rose in October by the largest amount in 16 months but a key category that tracks business investment posted an anemic gain. Factory orders increased 2.7 percent in October, the best showing since a 2.9 percent rise in June 2015, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.

WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court unanimously sided with smartphone maker Samsung on Tuesday in its high-profile patent dispute with Apple over design of the iPhone.

The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features it copied from the iPhone were only a part of Samsung’s devices.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple had won a $399 million judgment against South Korea-based Samsung for infringing parts of the iPhone’s patented design, but the case now returns to a lower court to decide what Samsung must pay.

The case is part of a series of disputes between the technology rivals that began in 2011. Apple accused Samsung of duplicating a handful of distinctive iPhone features for which Apple holds patents: the flat screen, the rounded rectangular shape of the phone and the layout of icons on the screen.

At issue was how much Samsung is required to compensate Apple under an 1887 law that requires patent infringers to pay “total profit.” Apple said that means all the profits from the phone sales, while Samsung argued it was limited to profits related to the specific components that were copied.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court that the law does not require damages to be based on the entire product, but can be limited to only a component of the product. The decision overturned a ruling from a federal appeals court in Washington, which said that Apple was entitled to all the profits.

But the high court declined to lay out a specific test for how such damage awards should be calculated. Sotomayor said doing so was not necessary and the justices left it up to lower courts to resolve.

Samsung had argued that the hefty award ignored the fact that its phones contain more than 200,000 other patents that Apple does not own. Apple said the verdict was fair because the iPhone’s success was directly tied to its distinctive look.

Samsung already has handed the $399 million over to Apple, but was hoping to get some of that money back with a favorable Supreme Court ruling. None of the early-generation Samsung phones involved in the lawsuit remains on the market.

NEW YORK: Hop on a virtual sleigh ride to the North Pole. Stand on the “Naughty or Nice O’Meter.” Snap a selfie and see your face on a dancing elf. The Santa experience has gotten a makeover as many malls install shows and games they hope will lure shoppers who are buying more online.

About 40 malls in the United States and one in London have the high-tech Santa displays, most of them located near major cities that tend to house pricier stores. Taking photos on Santa’s lap costs about $30 and up, around the same as at other malls, but most of the malls say people can walk through without purchasing anything.

“It was a half-hour of entertainment that was free,” said Katie Mass, who took her twin daughters through Santa’s Flight Academy, a 3,000-square-foot setup at the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey.

She had gone to the mall to return some dresses, but had to stop when her 2-year-olds saw the spectacle. “They started running,” said the stay-at-home mom from Westfield, N.J.

The girls tapped touch screens, pulled levers and watched as flight suits were virtually fit over their bodies on a screen. The final stop was a two-story-tall enclosed sleigh that dropped fake snow upon them. One girl made snow angels on the floor while her sister danced under the colorful lasers. “It was extravagant and well done,” Mass said.

Malls are hoping the over-the-top Santa visits remind people what brick-and-mortar stores can offer. They’re increasingly trying to offer special experiences as they compete with online rivals, said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York retail consulting group Davidowitz & Associates.

“The parents love it, the kids love it and Amazon can’t do it,” David­owitz said.

Santa’s Flight Academy was developed by mall operator Taubman Centers Inc., which spent two years on the idea. After testing it last year at the Mall of San Juan in Puerto Rico, the company rolled it out to 11 other Taubman malls this year, replacing a low-tech ice palace that had housed Santa for years. Like other malls with elaborate Santa sets, Taubman declined to say how much it spent on Santa’s Flight Academy.

Guy Perry, a manager of a Disney Store at Taubman’s Westfarms mall in West Hartford, Conn., credited this year’s “great” store traffic to Santa’s Flight Academy. Kids come into the store and tell him how they helped Santa take flight.

“It is getting a lot of good reviews,” Perry said.

An old-school Santa display got the boot at Queens Center in New York as the mall this year installed Santa HQ, a set sponsored by HGTV.

As kids stand on the “Naughty or Nice O’Meter,” they can watch their names pop up on Santa’s “Nice List” screen. In another room, they can take a selfie and see themselves as dancing elves. In the last room, they’re handed tablets that use augmented reality technology to make it appear as if cartoon elves are popping out of the walls and packing gifts. The entire set and trees put on a light show every 20 minutes that is synchronized with holiday music.

Quite a difference from last year’s Santa setup: A couch and some Christmas trees.

“It’s Santa-meets-21st-century-technology,” said John Scaturro, a marketing manager for the mall.

Queens Center’s owner, Macerich Co., first installed Santa HQ at some malls two years ago. This year, that expanded to 15 malls from 10. As of November, sales of photos with Santa at Queens Center nearly tripled from last year, Scaturro said.

Alliance Castings Co. is temporarily idling its plant after the new year, which will result in the mass layoff of more than 400 workers.

Alliance Castings at 1001 E. Broadway is on the 26-acre site of the former American Steel Foundries that closed in 2002. 

In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing with the state, the company said the idling of the plant and mass layoff were both "due to the major downturn in rail car manufacturing and the resultant lower demand for the plant’s products."

The layoff is anticipated between Jan. 31, 2017, and Feb. 14, 2017, the company said.

"It is anticipated that approximately 435 employees will be affected by the mass layoff at our facility, and that the layoff will be temporary; however the exact duration is not known at this point," the filing said.

The company said some affected employees are represented by the United Steelworkers of America AFL-CIO CLC, Local 2211 and certain affected employees are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 54. 

WASHINGTON: Senators scrutinizing the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner homed in on brass tacks with the companies’ CEOs. OK, you say this $85.4 billion mega-deal will enhance, not quash, competition and benefit consumers. Will it actually reduce prices that consumers pay?

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson assured the members of a Senate antitrust panel Wednesday that yes, “We will bring the consumers better price options than what they have today.” He said, though, that it wasn’t possible at this point to separate how much of the anticipated savings would go to customers of the company’s DirectTV, broadband and mobile phone services.

Stephenson and Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes made the case that the combined company would push technology forward and lead to more choices for customers. “Together, AT&T and Time Warner will disrupt the entrenched pay-TV models, giving customers more options, creating more competition for cable TV providers and accelerating deployment of 5G wireless broadband,” Stephenson testified.

In hours of questioning before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, the skepticism of some senators seemed to deepen over what would be one of the largest media mergers ever.

“I have yet to be convinced” that the benefits of the merger outweigh the potential negative effects on competition, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Stephenson and Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes.

Panel chairman Sen. Michael Lee, R-Utah said, “The potential anticompetitive favoritism that the combined firm could bestow on its own products is not limited to price or access, but extends to the quality of the offerings as well.”

The deal must win approval from federal regulators. It would bind the second-largest U.S. telecommunications company with a media and entertainment conglomerate that owns CNN, HBO, the “Harry Potter” franchise and pro basketball. It’s a big-time bet on a partnership between a company that distributes information and entertainment to consumers, and one that produces it.

Critics of the merger range from industry analysts and public-interest groups to President-elect Donald Trump, who promised on the campaign trail that he’d kill the deal “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”

Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department official who leads the consumer-advocate group Public Knowledge, crystallized those concerns.

“There are too few players in these markets already. They are heavily concentrated,” he told the panel. The concentration of market power could “harm the democratic process” as well as consumers’ pocketbooks, Kimmelman warned.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire sports and media mogul who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, played evangelist for the deal in a fast-moving world of media and entertainment content. Consider Facebook’s mergers with WhatsApp, Snapchat and others, he testified: Those deals are driving innovation. Old media like Time Warner can’t compete with the likes of Facebook if they can’t merge.

What about Trump’s avowed opposition?

Stephenson says he’s confident the merger will be approved despite the president-elect’s objection.

The Justice Department, and possibly the Federal Communications Commission under the incoming Trump administration, will put the proposed deal under close scrutiny. Even assuming the merger is approved, some experts believe regulators might saddle the combined company with so many conditions that the deal would no longer make sense.

Time Warner makes TV shows and movies, while AT&T gets that video to customers’ computers, phones and TVs.

The concern is that AT&T might try to make its broadband service stand out by tying it to Time Warner’s programs and films. That, critics say, could limit consumer choice.

Because of Time Warner’s shows and movies — including “Game of Thrones” and the “Harry Potter” films — and AT&T’s ability to gather information about its tens of millions of customers, AT&T thinks it could do a better job tailoring ads and video to user preferences. It could then create more attractive subscription packages suited for phones, where people are increasingly watching video.

But many consumers already consider ads that know everything about them creepy or invasive, and digital-rights groups complain that any preferential deal AT&T could offer with, say, HBO, would hurt competition.

NEW YORK: Starbucks, looking to the future as its longtime CEO moves to other projects, plans to open 12,000 new locations within five years to boost its number of coffee shops worldwide by almost 50 percent.

The Seattle-based chain is also adding more food to its menu next year, including organic soups, gluten-free breakfast sandwiches and a wheat-free cooked egg product. And sometime in 2017, customers will be able to talk to the Starbucks app to order a latte or cookie instead of tapping their smartphones.

Starbucks outlined its five-year growth plans to investors on Wednesday, about a week after it announced that Howard Schultz, who has built Starbucks into a global brand with 25,000 locations since first joining the company more than 30 years ago, would step down as CEO in April. Starbucks has been facing increasing competition from Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s as those companies add more specialty coffee drinks to their menus.

About 5,000 of the 12,000 stores Starbucks plans to open by 2021 will be in China. The company said again that it expects China to eventually overtake the U.S. as its largest market, but didn’t say when it expects that to happen. Today there are about 2,500 stores in China and more than 13,000 in the U.S.

Starbucks also wants to get more customers to buy lunch at its shops by offering organic soups and adding more sandwiches and wraps. Iced beverages, such as cold brew coffee and iced lattes, are expected to become more popular in the next five years and account for about half of beverage sales, the company said.

An app update next year will use artificial intelligence technology to let customers order by voice and have the app respond immediately with a message. In China, the company said it is teaming up with popular messaging app WeChat to let users buy digital Starbucks gift cards for their friends.

Investors also got to hear from Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson, who will replace Schultz as CEO in April. Schultz, who will become executive chairman, stressed again Wednesday that he wasn’t leaving the company and will oversee the growth of its high-end Starbucks Reserve Roasteries stores. But he made clear that Johnson will ultimately be in charge.

“He’s got the last word,” Schultz said.

Since returning as CEO in 2008, Schultz oversaw the expansion of the chain’s food and beverage offerings and the growth of its popular loyalty program and mobile app. Starbucks has credited the rewards program and app for helping consistently increase sales in the U.S., although growth has slowed more recently and traffic slipped in the latest quarter.

Schultz has said such technology adaptions will become increasingly critical for brick-and-mortar retail businesses to thrive as shopping habits change. Johnson has a technology background, having spent years at companies such as Microsoft and Juniper Networks.

Starbucks Corp. shares, which had been down about 2 percent since the CEO announcement, gained 2.1 percent to $58.66 on Wednesday.

—————

Contact Joseph Pisani at http://twitter.com/josephpisani .

OIL/GAS

State reimburses FirstEnergy

Ohio economic development officials announced this week that they have reimbursed Akron-based FirstEnergy for $14 million spent toward cleanup of a site that will be used for a major ethane “cracker” project in Belmont County, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

A clear site was requested by PTT Global Chemical of Thailand, a business that is exploring the feasibility of building a plant near the village of Shadyside at the site of FirstEnergy’s R.E. Burger power plant, which closed in 2011. FirstEnergy supervised the demolition of the plant and the cleanup of the site this year.

Pennsylvania fines driller

Pennsylvania environmental regulators have fined a natural-gas driller more than $3.5 million for violations at 10 well sites and six pipeline locations.

The Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday that subsidiaries of Rice Energy Inc. operated an unpermitted wastewater impoundment that leaked, improperly constructed wells, violated rules for erosion and sediment control, failed to obtain permits and committed other infractions.

Regulators say the violations took place over several years at sites in Washington and Greene counties, in Western Pennsylvania. Rice has already paid the fines.

UTILITIES

PUCO rules on price gouging

Price gouging is no longer allowed by companies that resell utilities in apartments and condominiums, according to a long-awaited ruling from Ohio utility regulators, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

With a 3-1 ruling on Wednesday, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has found that so-called “submeter” companies can be regulated. This is a notable shift from before, when there were no clear rules.

The PUCO opened its investigation a year ago in response to customer complaints.

The next task is to determine what constitutes gouging, a process that officials will begin next month. Interested parties can submit comments on the subject until Jan. 13.

HYDRAULICS

Parker Hannifin plant closing

Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin has filed notice with the state of Ohio that it will permanently close its gear pump plant in Youngstown by April, putting 19 employees out of work.

The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services posted the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing Monday.

Earlier this year, the company closed a pneumatic plant on Home Avenue in Akron, affecting 75 employees.

CREDIT

Consumer borrowing slows

Consumers increased their borrowing in October at the slowest pace in four months as growth in credit card debt and the category that covers auto loans and student loans slowed.

Total borrowing rose $16 billion, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. The October increase was the smallest since June.

Revolving credit, which covers credit cards, increased $2.3 billion in October. The non-revolving category, which covers auto loans and student loans, rose $13.7 billion in October.

Economists watch borrowing trends to gauge how consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, will fare.

COFFEE

Starbucks outlines strategy

Starbucks plans to open 12,000 new locations within five years to boost its number of coffee shops worldwide by almost 50 percent.

The Seattle-based chain is also adding more food to its menu in 2017, and soon customers will be able to talk to the Starbucks app to order a latte or cookie instead of tapping their smartphones.

Starbucks outlined its five-year growth plans to investors on Wednesday, about a week after it announced that Howard Schultz, who helped build the brand, would step down as CEO in April.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.

WASHINGTON: Senators questioning the logic of a proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner turned their focus to the nickels and dimes of the issue, at least as to how the $85.4 billion mega-deal would affect Americans. OK, you say this huge merger will enhance, not quash, competition and benefit consumers. Will it actually reduce prices that consumers pay?

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson assured the members of a Senate antitrust panel Wednesday that yes, “We will bring the consumers better price options than what they have today.” He said, though, that it wasn’t possible at this point to separate how much of the anticipated savings would go to customers of the company’s DirectTV, broadband and mobile phone services.

Stephenson and Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner’s CEO, made the case that the combined company would push technology forward and lead to more choices for customers. “Together, AT&T and Time Warner will disrupt the entrenched pay-TV models, giving customers more options, creating more competition for cable TV providers and accelerating deployment of 5G wireless broadband,” Stephenson testified.

In hours of questioning before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, the skepticism of some senators seemed to deepen over what would be one of the largest media mergers ever.

“I have yet to be convinced” that the benefits of the merger outweigh the potential negative effects on competition, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Stephenson and Bewkes.

Panel chairman Sen. Michael Lee, R-Utah said, “The potential anticompetitive favoritism that the combined firm could bestow on its own products is not limited to price or access, but extends to the quality of the offerings as well.”

The deal, which must win approval from federal regulators, is a big-time bet on a partnership between a company that distributes information and entertainment to consumers, and one that produces it.

Critics of the merger range from industry analysts and public-interest groups to President-elect Donald Trump, who promised on the campaign trail that he’d kill the deal “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”

Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department official who leads the consumer-advocate group Public Knowledge, crystallized those concerns.

The concentration of market power could “harm the democratic process” as well as consumers’ pocketbooks, Kimmelman warned the panel.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire sports and media mogul who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, played evangelist for the deal in a fast-moving world of media and entertainment content. Consider Facebook’s mergers with WhatsApp, Snapchat and others, he testified: Those deals are driving innovation. Old media like Time Warner can’t compete with the likes of Facebook if they can’t merge.

What about Trump’s avowed opposition?

Stephenson says he’s confident the merger will be approved despite the president-elect’s objection.

The Justice Department, and possibly the Federal Communications Commission under the incoming Trump administration, will put the proposed deal under close scrutiny. Even assuming the merger is approved, some experts believe regulators might saddle the combined company with so many conditions that the deal would no longer make sense.

WASHINGTON: U.S. employers posted fewer jobs in October than the previous month, but job openings are still at a mostly healthy level that points to steady hiring ahead.

Job openings slipped 1.8 percent to 5.5 million, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Hiring also fell to just under 5.1 million, while the number of people quitting declined to about 3 million.

While solid, the data weakened from September, suggesting that hiring is unlikely to accelerate beyond its current moderate pace anytime soon. Growth has been sluggish for most of this year, though it picked up in the July-September quarter.

The data follows last week’s jobs report, which showed that employers added 178,000 jobs, matching this year’s average monthly gain. The unemployment rate fell to a nine-year low of 4.6 percent.

Last week’s jobs figure is a net gain after layoffs, quits and retirements are subtracted from overall hiring.

Wednesday’s data comes from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, or JOLTS, and are more detailed and provide a fuller view of the job market.

Job openings fell the most in professional and business services, which includes largely higher-paying jobs in areas such as engineering, accounting and information technology. They also dropped in construction, financial services, and in hotels and restaurants. Openings rose in retail and health care.

The gap between job openings and hiring is a sign that companies may be struggling to find the qualified workers they need. The number of available jobs has risen 2 percent in the past year, while total hiring has dropped 2.2 percent. With the unemployment rate low, companies have a smaller pool of available workers to choose from.

That disparity may force employers to offer higher pay in order to attract more applicants to fill those openings. That could accelerate pay increases nationwide.

The number of Americans quitting their jobs fell in October but has jumped 6.8 percent in the past year, a positive sign that could also push wages higher. Quitting is generally a sign of confidence in the job market and typically occurs when employees leave for another job at higher pay. Quitting can also increase as employers actively recruit workers who already have jobs.

WALL STREET

Stocks soar to highs again

After a quiet start, major U.S. stock indexes again set all-time highs Thursday afternoon as the market built on a surge the previous day. Banks continued to lead the way as bond yields jumped, and small-company stocks soared again.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 65.19 points, or 0.3 percent, to 19,614.81. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 4.84 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,246.19. The Nasdaq composite jumped 23.59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 5,417.36.

Bond yields in the U.S. and Europe, particularly in heavily indebted countries, jumped after the European Central Bank surprised investors by saying it will reduce the size of its monthly bond purchases. That sent interest rates higher, making it more profitable for banks to lend.

Energy companies rose with the price of oil and companies that make chemicals and other basic materials also climbed. Industrial companies and makers of household goods slipped, which held stocks back from even larger gains.

EMPLOYMENT

Fewer file for jobless benefit

Fewer Americans signed up for unemployment benefits last week, another sign the U.S. job market remains healthy.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly claims for jobless aid slid by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 258,000. The less-volatile four-week average rose by 1,000 to 252,500. Overall, 2.01 million Americans are collecting unemployment checks, down 10 percent from a year ago.

Claims have come in below 300,000 for 92 straight weeks, longest such streak since 1970. The applications are a proxy for layoffs, and the low numbers suggest that employers are hanging onto their workers and that most Americans enjoy job security.

ECONOMY

Household wealth rises

A healthy increase in home values and higher stock prices drove up U.S. household wealth in the July-September quarter, though the gains are largely concentrated among wealthier Americans.

The Federal Reserve said Thursday that real estate values increased $554 billion in the third quarter, while Americans’ stock and mutual fund portfolios rose $494 billion. Total household wealth, which includes checking and savings accounts and subtracts mortgages and other debt, increased 1.8 percent to $90.2 trillion. The rise suggests that Americans’ finances are improving, with more families building equity in their homes.

PHARMACEUTICALS

AstraZeneca to cut U.S. jobs

British-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca says it is eliminating about 700 jobs in its U.S. commercial business.

The company said Thursday that the cuts affect about 120 people at its U.S. headquarters in Delaware. It also impacts sales and non-sales positions across the United States, and include roughly 80 vacant positions.

AstraZeneca, which once employed close to 5,000 workers in Delaware, announced in 2013 that it was cutting 1,200 jobs at its Wilmington headquarters. The latest job cuts will leave AstraZeneca with about 1,500 employees in Delaware.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.

If it’s true that an army travels on its stomach, will better snacks keep passengers loyal to one airline?

Delta Air Lines is rolling out new snacks for customers in the main cabin, including brand-name yogurt bars and pretzels. Some will come in larger portions than before because, Delta has figured out, that’s what customers crave.

The menu move comes about a year after United Airlines brought back snacks by offering noshes like stroopwafels — a gooey Dutch confection — and better coffee. Earlier this year, American Airlines restored snacks on domestic flights.

Airline executives say they’re focusing on both big and little things in the battle for customers. For decades, air travelers took it for granted that they would be served meals or snacks as part of their ticket price. Airlines gradually took away that perk to save money, but came off looking Scrooge-like.

Delta said Thursday that beginning next week, it will retire the airline’s brand of peanuts and pretzels and replace them on longer flights with Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels, Squirrel honey-roasted peanuts and NatureBox yogurt bars.

Fans of the Biscoff cookies need not fret — those are staying.

Delta also is testing sandwiches and other meals in economy on some flights.

HAGERSTOWN, MD.: The trucking industry scored a victory this week when Republican lawmakers effectively blocked Obama administration safety rules aimed at keeping tired truckers off the highway. But there’s more coming down the road.

The American Trucking Associations is pledging to come back next month, when Republicans will control the White House and Congress, and try to block state laws that require additional rest breaks for truckers beyond what federal rules require. The group says there should be one uniform national rule on work hours for interstate truckers and that the extra breaks aren’t necessary for safety.

The trucking industry’s latest triumph has caused concern among safety advocates that it may signal the start of a broad rollback of transportation safety regulations once there’s no longer a Democratic president to check the tendency of Republican lawmakers to side with industry.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to be an open season on safety in this coming Congress,” said Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board during the Clinton administration.

Shippers and some segments of the trucking industry probably will also push for long-sought goals of increasing the weight limit on trucks to more than 90,000 pounds and increasing the length of individual trailers in double-trailer combinations from 28 feet to 33 feet, safety advocates said. The trailers in single-trailer trucks can be up to 53 feet, but trailers in trucks with two trailers currently can’t be more than 28 feet.

“It’s going to be very tough because the companies really care about the cost. They don’t care about the safety no matter what they say,” said safety advocate Joan Claybrook.

The provision that Republicans added to a must-pass government spending bill this week suspends regulations issued by the Obama administration requiring truckers to take two nights off to rest if they take only the minimum break before starting a new workweek. Drivers for companies that operate on a seven-day schedule can work as many as 80 hours in a workweek through a combination of driving and other work, like loading and unloading.

Truckers are required to take at least a minimum 34-hour break before starting a new workweek.

But the trucking industry objected to requirements that the 34 hours include two periods from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sleep scientists say rest during the early morning hours is critical for people to feel refreshed. The suspension means truckers can head out on the road again during those hours if the 34-hour break has elapsed.

Another regulation that prevents truckers from using the 34-hour break to start a new workweek twice within a seven-day period was also suspended.

SAN FRANCISCO: It may not be much longer before bank branches join video-rental stores and record shops as relics of a bygone era.

Silicon Valley is pressuring banks to change their ways or risk becoming the latest industry overtaken by technology. Hundreds of startups are offering easier and cheaper ways to save, borrow, spend and invest. They are doing it by shifting the battleground to smartphone apps and websites, which function as digital offices that are accessible around the clock with minimal staffing, and by lowering fees.

Given how much customers dislike it, the financial services industry seems ripe for “disruption,” as Silicon Valley likes to call industry upheaval. These financial technology, or “fintech,” startups may also soon get further validation from a key banking regulator. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry last week announced plans for a special national bank charter that would allow fintechs to offer their products without having to get regulatory approval state to state. Part of Curry’s motivation lies in his belief that fintech can help consumers who either don’t want or can’t afford to establish accounts with traditional banks.

At this point, the fintech sector hasn’t proven it can be a viable or trustworthy alternative to traditional banks and stock brokerages. Few of the startups have ever posted a profit, and one of the biggest, the Lending Club, is trying to recover from a breakdown that triggered the resignation of CEO Renaud Laplanche earlier this year. The Justice Department is investigating the events that led to Laplanche’s abrupt departure.

“The disruption in banking is coming later than other areas because of the complexity of the regulations and the amount of trust required,” Laplanche said in an interview earlier this year, while he was still CEO. “Trusting you with my savings is not like booking a trip online.”

Banks, meanwhile, have demonstrated their resiliency and resourcefulness. With the help of taxpayer-backed bailouts, the industry has survived a financial crisis of its own making, and now appears to be tackling the fintech threat. They are closing branches, laying off workers, pouring money into their own technology departments and even buying or teaming up with fintech startups.

A recent survey of the financial services industry by the research firm Gartner Inc. found that 70 percent of respondents considered fintech startups to be a bigger threat than their traditional rivals.

With their guard up, the much bigger banks are more likely to drive many of the fintech startups out of business if they don’t acquire them first, says Gartner analyst Rajesh Kandaswamy. But even in that scenario, he predicts “many of the ideas coming out of fintech will survive in one way or another, which will be beneficial for consumers.”

About $850 billion in consumer banking revenue in the United States alone is at stake. Fintech captured just 1 percent of that last year, according to a Citibank study. By 2023, though, Citibank expects fintech to control 17 percent of a $1.2 trillion market.

“During the next 10 years, we are going to create an international company that will be like nothing the financial services industry has ever seen,” boasts Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood, a stock brokerage that does not charge any commissions for its more than 1 million customers to buy and sell shares. To make money, Robinhood recently introduced a $10 monthly service that allows trading when the stock market is closed and offers higher borrowing limits.

Although many consumers rarely expect big banks to act in their best interests, they typically consider them to be a safer place to keep money because of their long histories in business, says Forrester Research analyst Oliwia Berdak.

Most fintechs are still mining venture capitalists and other financiers as they try to gain a foothold. More than $50 billion has been invested in the sector since 2010, with all but $10 billion coming in the last two-and-a-half years. Even some of those investors believe fintechs may be underestimating the degree of difficulty facing them.