Business news in brief

Storms deal blow to state's corn growers

Arkansas farmers in Cross, St. Francis and Poinsett counties are regrouping after strong storms this week broke corn stems.

"Unfortunately, with rain comes wind this time of year," said Jason Kelley, extension wheat and feed-grains agronomist for the University of Arkansas System's Division of Agriculture. "If the stem snapped below where the ear would be, then yes, the plant is done."

Storms earlier in the year might have pushed down corn, giving it some potential to rebound. But late in the season, a broken stem means the corn can't be harvested.

Arkansas farmers harvest about 550,000 acres of corn a year, according to 2014 data from the University of Arkansas.

-- Claire Williams

Berkshire: Stake in Apple cost $976M

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. paid $99.49 a share for a stake of 9.81 million shares in Apple Inc., according to a recent regulatory filing that gives fresh details on the investment.

Berkshire paid about $976 million for the stake, Berkshire's Geico unit said in a document for insurance regulators. A May filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed that billionaire Warren Buffett's company owned that number of shares as of March 31, without detailing the cost of the purchases or the month in which they were acquired.

The holding was initiated by one of Buffett's investment managers, Todd Combs or Ted Weschler. Though Buffett's deputies may deviate from his well-known avoidance of technology stocks, they tend to follow his deeper ideas about investing, including buying stocks at prices where they believe there's a "margin of safety" -- or a buffer against losses.

When Berkshire bought Apple, the shares had slumped amid a slowdown in iPhone sales. The rebound that Berkshire is counting on is yet to materialize, however. Shares fell Friday to close at $95.33.

Buffett didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

-- Bloomberg News

Sales up, Ford halves break at 3 plants

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford is knocking a week off the traditional two-week summer shutdown at three SUV plants to handle increased demand.

The company said it will use the extra week of production to make another 22,000 SUVs at factories in Louisville, Ky.; Oakville, Ontario; and Chicago.

The factories make the Ford Escape, Edge, Flex and Explorer sport utility vehicles and Lincoln counterparts.

Sales of the four Ford SUVs are up 8.5 percent through May to just over 305,000.

Ford's pickup plant in Louisville also will shut down for only a week as it switches to a new Super Duty F-Series truck. The rest of the company's North American plants will close for maintenance and machine retooling as scheduled from July 4 to 15.

-- The Associated Press

$50 oil suits meeting debt, Caracas says

Crude prices around $50 a barrel will be enough for Venezuela to avoid a default on its foreign debt, Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg Television from Russia at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"Fifty dollars [per barrel] is enough," Del Pino said. "It's good for our economy." The country's average production cost was about $12 a barrel, he said.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company of which Del Pino is also president, will be able to make payments on its dollar bonds due later this year, Del Pino said. Petroleos de Venezuela, as the Caracas-based company is known, has interest and principal payments totaling $1.4 billion due in October and $2.8 billion due in November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Crude's rally from a 12-year low at the start of the year to near $50 a barrel is helping Venezuela's ability to repay debt. Still, prices are well short of the $121.06 a barrel the South American country needs to balance its budget, according to RBC Capital Markets. Venezuela, which depends on oil for 95 percent of its export revenue, remains the country most at risk of failing to pay its debt in the world, according to credit-default swaps.

-- Bloomberg News

Nurses to strike at 5 Minnesota hospitals

MINNEAPOLIS -- About 4,800 nurses are preparing to start a one-week strike at five hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in a dispute over health insurance.

Minnesota Nurses Association members plan to walk out at 7 a.m. Sunday at hospitals operated by Allina Health -- Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis, Mercy in Coon Rapids, United in St. Paul, Unity in Fridley, and the Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis. Allina said it plans to keep the facilities operating close to normally with a smaller staff of replacement nurses.

Officials on both sides said Friday that there was no chance of averting the walkout.

"It's disappointing and disheartening and not where we wanted to be, but this is where we are, so I do think that's inevitable," said Dr. Penny Wheeler, president and Chief Executive Officer of Allina Health.

Minnesota Nurses Association spokesman Rick Fuentes said the two sides had planned to meet Friday, but only to discuss procedures for returning to work.

-- The Associated Press

FedEx drug trafficking case dropped

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped their nearly two-year-long criminal case against FedEx alleging the shipping giant knowingly delivered illegal prescription drugs from pill mills to dealers and addicts.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco dismissed the charges at the request of prosecutors.

The judge's two-page order did not indicate why prosecutors had decided to drop the case just days after a trial began.

FedEx attorneys said before the trial that two Drug Enforcement Administration officials who regularly talked to the company were willing to testify that they never told FedEx to stop shipping for any online pharmacies.

The U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed in a statement that it had asked Breyer to dismiss the indictment but also did not say why.

FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement that the company has always been innocent and the case should never have been brought.

-- The Associated Press

Business on 06/18/2016

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