In brief: Boeing incentives pass Missouri Senate

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri’s enticement package for a new Boeing assembly plant cleared its most daunting obstacle Wednesday as state senators passed a plan that could offer up to $1.7 billion of incentives over two decades.

The Senate’s 23-8 vote in a special session sends the measure to the House, where final approval could come as soon as Friday.

Then it will be up to Boeing to determine how Missouri’s offer stacks up.

Missouri is among more than a dozen locations invited by Boeing to bid on assembling all or part of its new 777X airplane.

Railways to provide benefits to gay workers, their spouses

SEATTLE – The nation’s largest freight rail carriers have announced they will provide health benefits to the same-sex spouses of their employees, one day after legally married, gay engineers filed a federal lawsuit in Seattle.

Gus Melonas, a spokesman for BNSF Railway Corp., read the statement from the National Railway Labor Conference to the Associated Press on Wednesday. The conference represents the railroad companies in dealings with labor groups.

The statement said the carriers will provide dependent health coverage to same-sex spouses beginning Jan. 1, even though the conference does not believe it is required by law or by existing collective bargaining agreements.

Newsweek to be printed again, rely mainly on subscriptions

NEW YORK – Paper copies of Newsweek will again roll off the presses starting next year.

Editor-in-Chief Jim Impoco says the news magazine’s owners, IBT Media, want to “hit the reset button” and move to a business model where a weekly print magazine would be mainly supported by subscription fees instead of advertising.

Impoco said in an interview Wednesday that officials haven’t decided how much the magazine will cost, but it’s expected to be less than $10 per issue.

Newsweek ceased print publication at the end of 2012.

Paper clips

• Philip Morris International Inc. is buying a 20 percent stake in Megapolis Distribution BV, the holding company for its Russian cigarette distributor, for $750 million.

• South Korea’s economy grew 3.3 percent in the July-September period over a year earlier, the fastest rate since the fourth quarter of 2011, The Bank of Korea said today.

• Fifth Third Bancorp will pay $6.5 million to settle charges of improper accounting of commercial real estate loans during the financial crisis. As the real estate market slumped in 2007 and 2008, the number of borrowers failing to repay loans climbed. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Fifth Third decided to sell some of its problem loans, but continued to classify them as “held for investment” even though they should have been listed as “held for sale.”

• The Walt Disney Co. is raising its annual dividend to 86 cents from 75 cents. Disney said it is boosting its dividend by 15 percent after its third-consecutive year of record net income, earnings per share, and revenue. The Burbank, Calif., company’s next dividend is payable Jan. 16 to shareholders of record on Dec. 16.

• Deere & Co. said Wednesday that its board of directors approved an increase to the company’s share buyback program. It also declared a quarterly dividend. The tractor maker said it will boost its share buyback program by $8 billion. It still has about $1 billion remaining from a $5 billion share buyback program announced in May 2008.