A gallon of gas in Massachusetts plummets 6 cents

BOSTON — The price of a gallon of gas in Massachusetts has plummeted by 6 cents in the past week to its lowest level of the year.

AAA Southern New England reported Monday that self-serve, regular has dropped to an average of $3.32 per gallon, 2 cents below the year's previous low.

Even though the per-gallon price in Massachusetts remains 3 cents above the national average, it is now 13 cents lower than a month ago and 11 cents lower than at this time last year.

AAA found self-serve, regular selling for as low as $3.10 per gallon in Massachusetts and as high as $3.69 per gallon.

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US edge lower; H&R Block slides

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks edged lower Monday as concerns about the direction of the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy weighed on investors. Tax preparer H&R Block slumped after the company said that its attempt to sell a banking unit was getting bogged down.

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard and Poor's 500 index fell four points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,962 as of 12:24 p.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 31 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,978. The Nasdaq composite fell 18 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,457.

THE QUOTE: The stock market's bull run has faltered in recent weeks and the S&P 500 index logged its biggest monthly drop of the year in September.

Stocks rebounded on Friday after a report showed a pickup in hiring last month, but many investors remain uncertain about the outlook for the direction of stocks as the Fed nears the end of its stimulus program and considers raising rates.

"The tug of war between the bulls and the bears is ongoing now," said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial.

MINUTE TIME: The Fed is due to release minutes on Wednesday of its policy meeting last month. Investors will be watching for clues about the likely timing of any interest rate hike.

BIG SPLIT: Hewlett-Packard gained after announcing that it is splitting itself in two. One company will focus on personal computers and printing and the other on technology services such as data storage, servers and software. The stock climbed $1.72, or 4.9 percent, to $36.92.

HEALTHY MERGER: New Jersey medical equipment maker Becton Dickinson and Co. says it will pay $12.2 billion for rival Carefusion in a combination focused on medication systems for hospitals and pharmacies. Carefusion's stock jumped $10.71, or 23 percent, to $56.87. Becton climbed $8.01, or 6.9 percent, to $123.70.

BANKRUPTCY SHOCK: Apple supplier GT Advanced Technologies plunged $9.44, or 85 percent, to $1.61 after the company said that it was filing for bankruptcy. The company is developing sapphire materials for Apple's products.

ENERGY SLUMP: Oil prices fell again, dragging the energy sector lower. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 30 cents to $89.44 a barrel, its lowest price in more than two years. Energy stocks have slumped almost 12 percent in the last three months.

BLOCK SALE: H&R Block logged the biggest drop in the S&P 500 after saying that its latest attempt to sell its banking business is getting delayed in the regulatory approval process. The tax preparer said it would not be able to complete the deal before the next tax season. Its stock dropped $1.77, or 5.6 percent, to $29.89.

EUROPEAN STOCKS: Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 6,555 and Germany's DAX advanced 0.9 percent to 9,279. France's CAC 40 added 0.3 percent to 4,292.

BRAZILIAN BOOST: Brazil's stock market surged after the left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff was forced into a runoff race against Aecio Neves, a center-right challenger, who only surged in the final week of the campaign. Rousseff is promising to expand Brazil's social programs and continue strong state involvement in the economy, while Neves says he will pursue more centrist economic approaches, such as central bank independence, more privatizations and the pursuit of trade deals with Europe and the United States.

Brazil's benchmark Ibovespa index rose 4.9 percent to 57,207.

CURRENCIES AND BONDS: The dollar fell to 109.38 yen from Friday's 109.80. The euro inched up to $1.2553 from $1.2520. U.S. government bond prices were steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note held at 2.44 percent.

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Facebook closes WhatsApp purchase now worth $21.8B

NEW YORK — Facebook has closed its acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp in a deal that is now worth $21.8 billion, up from the original $19 billion deal struck, thanks in part to the social network giant's rising stock price since February.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook said Monday that it has named WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum to its board of directors. WhatsApp is by far Facebook's largest acquisition, and bigger than any that Google, Microsoft or Apple have ever done.

The deal's value raised eyebrows when it was announced on Feb. 19, though analysts said it makes sense for Facebook to buy the popular messaging service.

WhatsApp has been growing rapidly, especially in Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia. It has more than 500 million users.

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US stocks open higher on corporate deals

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are opening higher as investors welcome the latest batch of corporate deal news.

Hewlett-Packard rose 5 percent after the big technology company agreed to split in two companies.

Medical equipment maker Becton, Dickinson and rival CareFusion both soared after the companies agreed to combine in a $12.2 billion deal.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 72 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,08 in the first few minutes of trading Monday. The Dow soared 208 points on Friday on a pickup in hiring by U.S. employers last month.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,975. The Nasdaq composite rose 13 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,488.

Bond prices were steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note held at 2.44 percent.

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Hilton selling Waldorf Astoria New York for $1.95B

MCLEAN, Va. — Hilton Worldwide is selling the Waldorf Astoria New York to Chinese insurance company Anbang Insurance Group Co. for $1.95 billion.

Hilton will continue to manage the storied hotel for the next 100 years as part of an agreement with Anbang.

The Waldorf Astoria New York has restaurants including Peacock Alley, Bull and Bear Prime Steakhouse and Oscar's. The companies said Monday that the property will undergo a major renovation.

In March 1893, millionaire William Waldorf Astor opened the 13-story Waldorf Hotel. The Astoria Hotel opened four years later. The Waldorf Astoria New York, on Park Avenue in Manhattan, opened in 1931, according to the company's website. At the time it was the largest hotel in the world. The hotel became an official New York City landmark in 1993.

Hilton Worldwide plans to use proceeds from the hotel's sale to buy additional hotel assets in the U.S.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. was taken private in 2007 by private equity firm Blackstone Group LP. The hotel chain returned to public stock markets in December 2013. The McLean, Virginia, company is the world's largest hotel group with more than 690,000 rooms across 93 countries and territories.

Aside from Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, its brands include Hilton Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by Hilton and Embassy Suites Hotels.

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Hewlett-Packard splits off PC, printer businesses

NEW YORK — Hewlett-Packard is splitting itself into two companies, one focused on its personal computer and printing business and another on technology services such as data storage, servers and software, betting that it can drive faster sales growth with more-focused operations.

Hewlett-Packard, like other PC makers, has struggled as customers shifted toward smartphones and tablets and away from desktops and laptops. It also has been shifting its services business toward cloud computing opportunities as fewer customers opt for traditional data storage. The company has posted revenue declines in 11 of the past 12 quarters and laid off tens of thousands of people in recent years as it attempts to cut costs.

HP hopes that the two units will be worth more separately and be able to grow more quickly apart than they can together.

The planned breakup follows other big companies that have spun off business units in order to drive growth. EBay Inc. last week said it would spin off its fastest-growing segment, payment service PayPal, into a separate publicly traded company.

HP first considered breaking off its PC unit back in 2011, but decided against it. CEO Meg Whitman, who has been leading the company's turnaround for the past three years, said Monday that HP has now shored up its business enough to support the split.

"The best tactic to continue the turnaround journey is to position HP as two great new companies," she said in an interview with CNBC. "Before a few months ago we were not in the right position to do this."

Whitman said the split will give the two companies "the independence, focus, financial resources, and flexibility they need to adapt quickly to market and customer dynamics."

There are numerous reasons why HP would want to divide the businesses, including the slowdown of the PC market since the iPad debuted in April 2010, says Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White. While the PC market has shown some improving trends this year, separating into two companies gives HP the option to sell off one or both businesses if an attractive offer is made, he wrote in a note to clients.

HP's announcement may be coming now partly because the stock market has been supportive of spinoffs of late, says Jim Suva of Citi Investment Research. Also, the company's stronger balance sheet, stable PC margins, improving services profits, better financials and completion of the more difficult parts of its restructuring efforts played a role in its decision to act now, he said.

During its most recent quarter HP reported revenue of $27.6 billion, a 1 percent annual gain. It marked HP's first year-over-year increase in quarterly revenue since late 2011. Printers and computers contributed 51 percent of the company's quarterly revenue, with the rest coming from technology services like consulting, software and financial programs.

The PC and printer business will use the name HP Inc. and retain the blue and white logo. The services business will be called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Whitman will lead the Enterprise business and serve as non-executive chairman of HP Inc. Current PC and printer chief Dion Weisler will be CEO of HP Inc.

HP is expected to complete its latest round of layoffs, between 11,000 to 16,000 people, this month. Total job cuts will now stand at 55,000, up from a planned 50,000. In her interview with CNBC, Whitman left open the possibility for further layoffs as the separate businesses determine their cost structure going forward.

The split, if approved by the company's board, is expected to close by the end of fiscal 2015. Once complete, HP stockholders will own shares of both companies.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard Co., based in Palo Alto, California, rose $1.67, or 4.6 percent, to $36.82 in morning trading. The stock is up 32 percent since the beginning of the year.

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Room escape attractions growing in US

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — I like to think of myself as relatively quick-witted, but I started having serious doubts about my cleverness as I stood handcuffed to my new Russian friend, trying get out of a prison cell.

It wasn't a real prison cell, which is why I wasn't having a panic attack. But the handcuffs were real, and being chained to another person while searching a small room for keys and clues as a clock ticked down became frustrating pretty quickly.

Believe it or not, this was all part of a game. Real-life room escape attractions began opening nearly a decade ago in Asia and Eastern Europe, but they've been popping up in North America over the past few years. The attractions trace their origins back to escape-the-room video games, where players were trapped and forced to use clues and objects in their surroundings to get out. Now that concept has moved into the real world.

Escape the Quest opened in Miami Beach in July. They offer two games — Apartment 101 and Prison Escape — with Mental Hospital coming soon. Groups of two to four have an hour to solve the puzzle and win their freedom. I participated in Prison Escape, joining a group of expat Russians in their mid-20s — Alex Belousov, Konstantin Elizarov and Lucy Omelchenko — who moved to South Florida within the past two years. Their English was heavily accented, and my Russian is nonexistent, adding a language barrier to a challenge that only about 20 percent of groups complete successfully, according to Escape the Quest manager Yuliya Pashkevich.

As Konstantin later remarked, "You don't understand us, and we understand 50 percent of yours."

So we were off to a good start.

To begin, Pashkevich explained that Prison Escape actually includes two rooms and that my new friends and I would be paired off, one pair locked in each room. We would first have to get all four into one room and then all escape together. Alex spoke the best English, so he went with me. We were all handcuffed to our partners and locked in our cells.

I promised Pashkevich I wouldn't give away any secrets, but I will say Alex and I did eventually find a handcuff key, probably much later than we should have. By working with Konstantin and Lucy through a wall, we even managed to get them into our room. And by briefly speaking in their native tongue, Alex and Konstantin figured out a math riddle that set us free with about 5 minutes to spare. I felt useless at that final math part, but even the third-string quarterback gets a ring when his team wins the Super Bowl, so I'm counting it as a win.

After escaping, Alex, Konstantin and Lucy donned old-timey, black-and-white prisoner outfits for a photo op. They agreed they had fun and that it was a unique experience they'd recommend to others.

"It was the first time seeing something like this," Konstantin said. "It was very good."

Pashkevich said the escapes, which start at $60 a group, were designed to appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds. Besides groups of friends, Pashkevich said it's also common to host families and even co-workers using it for team-building. But she added the potentially stressful room escapes can be poison to a budding romance.

"You know when it doesn't work?" Pashkevich said. "On a first date."

While room escape attractions are more stressful than actually scary, they're catching the attention of more traditional haunted house operators and theme parks.

Brett Hays, a board member of the Haunted Attraction Association and director of Fear Fair in Indiana, said he expects room escapes to feature prominently at a national trade show in St. Louis next spring. "You're going to see a lot of overlap, where companies and individuals doing haunted attractions are also going to be doing these types of events in the off season," Hays said, adding that room escapes can be popular year-round, not just around Halloween.

The challenge of room escape attractions is volume. "You have to get a lot of people through in a night to make the finances work," Hays said.

But traditional haunted attractions often feature multiple events, which could easily include a room escape, Hays said.

Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, Inc., believes the room escape concept can be modified to accommodate more participants.

"We see it as something that will come into the parks bigtime," Speigel said. "It will come in on a larger scale. You'll have large teams of people coursing through different games."

Theme parks are always looking for new ideas, Speigel said, and the critical thinking and interactivity featured in room escapes is appealing.

"The concept is limitless to the story," Speigel said. "So as long you have creative people, this can go on forever."

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Online: Escape the Quest, http://www.escapethequest.com/

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Study: Chesapeake cleanup would bring $22B boon

WASHINGTON — The Chesapeake Bay region would reap an additional $22.5 billion a year from improved hurricane protection, crab and fish production and climate stability if the Obama administration's contested plan to clean up the watershed proceeds, an environmental group says.

The assessment released Monday is based on a peer-reviewed analysis of the economic benefits to the entities — six states and the District of Columbia — charged with reducing pollution into the nation's largest estuary.

It comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is defending its cleanup plan in federal court against a challenge from farmers and 21 attorneys general who say the pollution limits are unreasonably costly and an unjustified power grab by the federal government.

The study by Spencer Phillips, an economist at Key-Log Economics in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Beth McGee, a senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, compared the benefits of the Chesapeake watershed in 2009, before the cleanup plan was being implemented by the states, with scenarios in which the bay is either fully restored under the plan or continues "business as usual" without additional pollution limits.

The analysis found that implementing the cleanup plan — which seeks to achieve 60 percent of pollution reductions by 2017, and the rest by 2025 — would yield $129.7 billion annually in benefits such as flood protection from hurricanes and other storms, improved scenery that leads to tourism, cleaner water supplies and healthy forests that reduce heat and help regulate climate.

That tally is $22.5 billion higher than the $107.2 billion of benefits the watershed provided in 2009. Without additional pollution limits, the annual economic value would drop to $101.5 billion.

The report puts the total cost of implementing the cleanup with the 64,000-square-mile watershed at $5 billion to $6 billion annually.

"We all know that reducing pollution makes great sense for our health and our environment, and today we can confirm what we have long thought: It makes good economic sense as well," said William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, which is challenging the EPA plan in court, said it had not yet seen the report so it couldn't comment on the specifics. It supports cleanup generally, but "we think environmental benefits will accrue much faster if states lead the process because they are in a better position to balance the cost and benefits associated with the cleanup effort," said spokesman Will Rodger.

At issue is the scope of EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act. In 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order for a bay restoration after decades of state inaction, prompting the EPA to seek agreements with the states that set standards to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that drain from rivers into the bay.

Farm runoff such as animal waste and fertilizer had created "dead zones" in the bay where nothing lives. It has taken a toll on marine life such as the bay's signature blue crab, according to the EPA.

In their challenge, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the attorneys general point to economic consequences for industry groups and the potential for the EPA to improperly seek new restrictions. They say ratification of the Chesapeake plan will lead to similar EPA efforts to reduce pollution from Midwest farms into the Mississippi River Basin.

Oral arguments in that federal lawsuit are expected later this year in Philadelphia.

Among the states that agreed to the Chesapeake plan, West Virginia is now opposing the EPA-led cleanup. Pennsylvania and New York are staying silent in the litigation, while Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the District of Columbia signed briefs in support.

A recent study by environmentalists found states in the Chesapeake watershed have made strides in reducing pollution but in many cases fell short in implementing practices that cut contaminants from agriculture.

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Follow Hope Yen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hopeyen1

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APNewsBreak: Trump name coming off closed casino

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The Trump name is coming off the shuttered Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City.

Trump Entertainment Resorts began removing letters spelling out the Trump name on the casino's exterior Monday morning. Also, workers removed slot machines from the casino, which shut down on Sept. 16.

The action is part of a lawsuit Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are pressing against Trump Entertainment to have their name stripped from the Trump Taj Mahal casino, and the company itself. They claim the company let the two casinos fall into such disrepair that it violated quality standards agreed to by both sides. The company is in bankruptcy and threatening to shut its last casino — the Taj Mahal — next month.

"This is a very important step for us," Ivanka Trump told The Associated Press on Monday. "It was pretty cut and dry: when we gave them a license to use our name, it was contingent on quality control and performance. They did not meet the high standards of luxury in every other asset in the Trump brand."

Trump Entertainment officials declined comment.

While simultaneously seeking to have the Trump name removed from the Taj Mahal, and from Trump Entertainment Resorts, Ivanka Trump said her father is still considering trying to acquire the Taj Mahal from bankruptcy court and save it.

In a statement, Donald Trump emphasized he has had nothing to do with the company other than licensing his name to it since 2009.

"I am saddened to see that the current managers and owners of the Trump Plaza and Trump Taj Mahal were unable to operate these properties to the highest standards of luxury and success as required under the license agreement and consistent with my name and reputation," he said. "Because of constant defaults of the standards stipulated in the license agreement, I had no choice but to terminate the license agreement and require TER to remove the Trump name from both buildings."

Trump Entertainment is in bankruptcy court in Delaware, seeking permission to terminate the pension plans of the 2,800 or so Taj Mahal employees. A judge last week refused to immediately let them do so, but scheduled additional hearings on that request and other cost-saving measures.

Trump Entertainment has said that without significant cost relief from the union, including the elimination of employees' pension and health care, and an injection of $100 million from billionaire investor Carl Icahn, it will close the Taj Mahal on or before Nov. 13.

Icahn holds most of the company's debt, and has said he will consider acquiring the Taj Mahal by converting its debt into ownership only if a series of governmental concessions are made. They include a request that Atlantic City drastically slash its tax assessment of the company's property — something Mayor Don Guardian has already ruled out.

Union president Bob McDevitt said Monday that Local 54 will block traffic in an act of civil disobedience Wednesday night to protest giveback demands at the Taj Mahal.

"What gives these high-priced lawyers the right to come down here and tell me I can't have my health care plan anymore?" asked Al Kare, a food server at the Taj Mahal for 18 years. "We make an average of $12 per hour. I earn my health care plan and my dignity, and these vultures can't have either one."

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Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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Obama meets bank regulators over Wall Street rules

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met Monday with top financial regulators at the White House to discuss progress implementing Wall Street rules, a year after warning that bank overseers needed to display more urgency about limiting risky practices in the financial industry.

The meeting included new Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who has signaled an aggressive stance by the Fed toward regulation of big banks. The session comes four years after Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis.

Obama a year ago voiced concern about the slow pace with which new rules were being adopted. At the time, regulators had completed rules on only 40 percent of the nearly 400 missed regulation required by the law.

So far this year, 55 percent have been finalized and rules have been proposed for 21 percent. Nearly a quarter of the regulations called for in the law have not yet been proposed, according to an analysis by the law firm of Davis Polk, which has been tracking progress on the bill.

Among rules enacted since Obama pushed for action last year is a ban on the largest banks from trading for their own profit in most cases. That regulation, known as the Volcker rule, is considered one of the more significant changes to financial laws because it seeks to rein in high-risk trading on Wall Street. Though adopted, however, that rule won't take effect for the biggest banks until mid-2015.

Some supporters of the law, such as former chief regulator Sheila Bair, have complained about the slow pace of the regulatory writing effort. Bair, a former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has said the financial system is safer but said some financial institutions are bigger and more concentrated than before the crisis.

Yellen has suggested that the current regime of rules under the 2010 legislation may not be sufficient to prevent the kind of risk-taking that touched off the financial crisis and nearly toppled the banking system.

Yellen said recently that the biggest banks operating in the U.S. may need to hold additional capital to withstand periods of financial stress, and that firms that aren't banks but have deep reaches into the financial system might also need to meet tougher rules. Those firms include money-market mutual funds, private equity and hedge funds, a point Bair has also made.

At a Senate hearing last month, Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo outlined several proposals that regulators are working on which would push the biggest U.S. banks to shrink and become less of a risk to the financial system. The proposals include imposing additional capital requirements for the eight largest banks that exceed the levels mandated by international regulators. That means the banks would have to set more reserves aside and raise more money to increase their cushions against unexpected losses.

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Associated Press Business Writer Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.

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