In brief: Hecla Mining’s buyout of Revett Mining wraps up

Hecla Mining Co. has finalized the purchase of a Spokane Valley company that owns a large silver-copper deposit in Montana, officials said Monday.

Hecla announced the $19 million stock deal in late March. Shareholders of Revett Mining Co. will receive 0.1622 share of Hecla stock for each Revett share they own. Revett’s primary asset is the Rock Creek Project, which is considered one of North America’s largest undeveloped silver-copper deposits.

“We welcome the Revett shareholders to Hecla and share their vision of seeing Rock Creek becoming a large, responsibly-operated, silver mine,” said Phillips S. Baker Jr., Hecla’s president and CEO.

With Revett’s sale finalized, its shares will stop trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange this week.

Passwords not so safe, password service says

SAN FRANCISCO – A Web service that promises to help people keep their passwords secure has reported that hackers may have obtained some user information – although not actual passwords – from its network.

LastPass, which stores multiple passwords in encrypted form, warned Monday that it had detected “suspicious activity” on its own computer system. That led to the discovery that some users’ email addresses, password reminders and encryption elements were compromised. The company said its investigation found no evidence that individual passwords or user accounts were breached.

The company is advising users to change their LastPass master passwords, which are used to retrieve encrypted individual passwords for the users’ other online services or accounts. But it said they don’t need to change individual passwords for all their accounts.

WASHINGTON – Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell in April, the first setback since October.

The Treasury Department says total holdings slipped to $6.14 trillion, down 0.6 percent from the record level of $6.18 trillion in March.

China, the No. 1 foreign holder of U.S. government debt, boosted its holdings a slight 0.2 percent to $1.26 trillion in April following a 3 percent rise in the previous month. The big March advance allowed China to regain the top spot in foreign ownership of Treasury securities after having relinquished the No. 1 ranking in February.

Japan, which had briefly surpassed China, trimmed its holdings by 0.9 percent in April to $1.22 trillion. It remained in second place.

Demand for U.S. government debt is expected to remain strong this year.

GM ignition switches blamed for more deaths

DETROIT – The death toll from faulty ignition switches in General Motors small cars has risen by three to 114.

Victims’ families are being offered compensation of at least $1 million each by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who was hired by GM last year.

In addition, Feinberg will make offers to 229 people who were injured in crashes caused by the switches in the Chevrolet Cobalt and other older cars.

GM recalled 2.6 million of the cars last year.

Feinberg’s compensation fund received 4,342 claims by the Jan. 31 deadline. About 3 percent remain under review. About 90 percent were deemed deficient or ineligible.

So far, Feinberg has made 245 compensation offers; 179 have been accepted and six rejected, Camille Biros, deputy administrator of the compensation fund, said in an email. Sixty offers are still being considered, she said.