Euro falls near $1, but European goods remain pricey

NEW YORK — Americans hunting for a bargain on a new Beemer, bottle of Chateau Margaux or Hermes handbag thanks to the sliding euro should put away their gold cards. European luxury goods sold in the U.S. still carry luxurious price tags.

The European currency has fallen 10 percent against the dollar this year. In theory, car dealerships, department stores and other companies that sell goods from Europe could pass on the savings to their American customers, said Ira Kalish, chief global economist at Deloitte, the consulting and accounting firm.

"But what would be the point of doing that?" Kalish asked. Demand for anything made in Europe is so strong that they have little trouble moving merchandise. "From their perspective, it's better to leave the price unchanged and pocket the profit."

The euro has been in a long tailspin. Last April, it was trading just shy of $1.40. Since then, it sank as low as $1.04 in March before bouncing back to $1.10 on Monday.

In other words, you used to have to pay $1.40 to buy a single euro; today, you pay just $1.10.

So where are the bargains? There's no reason to think that prices for Italian shoes and French red wines will fall along with the euro, analysts said. Part of the reason is that most European consumer products sold in the U.S. aren't aimed at most consumers. Armani, Hermes, and Prada cater to the affluent, selling well-made products as well as the perception of prestige and status. They have an image to maintain and slashing prices isn't part of it, Kalish said. Loyal customers might consider it, well, gauche.

"If a luxury product becomes really cheap, they might think, 'Why am I buying it, then?'" Kalish said. "The high price makes it attractive for some people."

WINE

Bill Earle, president of the National Association of Beverage Importers, said customers shouldn't expect to see cheaper prices for French and Italian wines anytime soon.

Part of the explanation, Earle said, is that U.S. importers pay well in advance for wines that often take years to age. With Brunello di Montalcino from Italy, for instance, the wine sits in an oak barrel for about four years before it's ready.

"One way to look at it is, the earliest you're going to see cheaper Brunello is in 2019," Earle said.

But even then, there's no guarantee that businesses will pass on savings to customers. Earle said a bottle of wine has to pass through layers of businesses before it shows up on the shelves — importers, distributors and retailers — and each business has its own costs. Because currency markets can be volatile, businesses are slow to cut prices because any savings could quickly vanish with a sudden swing in currency trading.

Doug Bell, a wine buyer for Whole Foods Market, also said he doesn't think people will see a significant fall in prices for European wines. Any drop would start showing up with the 2015 vintage, and even then, he said, other factors, such as bad weather, could easily offset a currency move.

The only way people might benefit from cheaper European wine, Earle said, is if they're "bringing it over on an airplane."

WATCHES, HANDBAGS

Similarly, anyone looking to score a Chanel handbag on the cheap is in for a letdown. Chanel's classic handbag carried a $4,900 price tag last year, according to Robert Burke and Associates, a luxury consulting firm. That's up from $2,250 in 2007.

Chanel is reportedly tweaking prices in other parts of the globe while leaving them alone at its U.S. stores. Robert Burke said he expects other luxury retailers to follow Chanel's cue. Demand remains so solid for these products in the U.S. that high-end retailers have no reason to pare prices. It would only tarnish their elite image.

Nate Herman, vice president of international trade for the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said higher manufacturing costs give these companies another reason to keep prices high. Over the past decade, luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Prada shifted some of their production to Asia, as manufacturers in the region improved their ability to craft high-end goods. As a result, the euro's fall against Asian currencies has driven up their costs.

CARS

It's the same story with German luxury cars. Americans with a taste for fancy rides are already able to afford them, so there's no need for Mercedes-Benz, BMW or Audi to pass along the benefit of a falling euro to customers by slashing prices.

Demand for these German cars remains solid. Audi's U.S. sales climbed 15 percent last year, while Mercedes's sales rose nearly 10 percent and BMW's 6.5 percent. Each company is likely to pocket the extra money from exchanging dollars to euros, no matter whether the cars are made overseas or in the U.S.

The exception might be Volkswagen, whose U.S. sales sank 3 percent last year. The company behind the Beetle, Golf and Touareg could use the weak euro to cut prices and lure more buyers.

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AP Business Writers Anne D'Innocenzio in New York and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

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US stock indexes gain in quiet trading; oil price surges

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks rose in quiet trading on Monday. The price of crude oil jumped, helping to push Chevron, Exxon Mobil and other oil and gas companies up. Many overseas markets remain closed for holidays.

KEEPING SCORE: As of 1:10 p.m. Eastern time, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 18 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,085. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 161 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,924, and the Nasdaq composite rose 39 points, or 0.8 percent, to 4,926.

JOBS: With the stock market closed in observance of Good Friday, the Labor Department reported late last week that employers added just 126,000 workers to their payrolls in March, the smallest gain since December 2013. For investors, it was mixed news. The report was another sign of weaker economic growth, but it also added more pressure on the Federal Reserve to put off raising interest rates. Historically low rates have helped fuel the stock market's long run.

RESPONSE: "Had the market been open on Friday, we would have probably had a triple-digit decline in the Dow," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Harverford Trust. "The fact that we had a weekend to digest put it in perspective. I think more investors are coming to the conclusion that this soft patch is temporary."

FRIES WITH THAT? Companies in the services industry expanded at a slightly slower pace in March. The Institute for Supply Management reported Monday that its services index slipped to 56.5 last month, from 56.9 in February. Any reading above 50 reflects growth.

CRUDE: Benchmark U.S. crude jumped $2.57, or 5 percent, to $51.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude rose $2.69, or 5 percent, to $57.67 a barrel on the ICE exchange in London. The gains helped drive gains in energy-sector stocks. Transocean, an operator of drilling rigs, jumped 87 cents, or 6 percent, to $15.86.

A DEAL: Ventas announced plans to buy Ardent Medical Services, a privately owned hospital chain, for $1.75 billion and spin off most of its skilled nursing facilities. Ventas, an investment trust focused on health care, surged $3.73, or 5 percent, to $76.97.

NOT YET: The planned merger between Hudson City Bancorp and M&T Bank has run into another delay. Hudson City said the Federal Reserve won't sign off on the deal before April 30, a deadline for the merger to move ahead. Hudson City Bancorp sank 61 cents, or 6 percent, to $9.88, while M&T dropped $3.09, or 2 percent, to $124.13.

BONDS: U.S. government bond prices fell, driving the yield on the 10-year Treasury note up to 1.90 percent. Bonds had surged following the employment report on Friday, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to its lowest level in two months.

QUIET ELSEWHERE: Major markets in Europe were closed for Easter Monday. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed with a loss of 0.2 percent, while Seoul's Kospi gained 0.1 percent. India's SENSEX surged 0.9 percent. Many other major markets, including those in Australia and China, were closed.

CURRENCIES: The euro gained against the dollar, rising to $1.0989 from $1.0895 on Friday. The dollar was little changed against the Japanese currency at 119 yen.

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Massachusetts gas up by a penny per gallon

BOSTON — The price of a gallon of gasoline in Massachusetts has inched up by a penny in the past week.

AAA Northeast reports Monday that its weekly price survey found self-serve, regular selling for an average of $2.33 per gallon.

Despite the 1 cent increase over a week ago, gas remains 12 cents per gallon lower than a month ago and $1.19 lower than at the same time a year ago.

The Massachusetts average is also 6 cents per gallon lower than the national average.

AAA found self-serve regular selling for as low at $2.13 per gallon and as high as $2.55.

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Volkswagen seeks to increase planned expansion by 25 percent

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Volkswagen is seeking to add to a planned expansion announced last year to produce a new sport utility vehicle in Tennessee.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports  documents show the automaker wants to add an additional 130,153 square feet to the original expansion, 25 percent more than first planned. The additional expansion will add about $18 million to the $900 million project.

VW plant spokesman Scott Wilson said the company has decided to increase the size of the body shop to accommodate future production needs. He said that doing that now will save money and give VW flexibility as it makes changes to the way it assembles vehicles.

VW is scheduled to go before a local industrial development board on Tuesday to seek permission for the new expansion proposal.

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Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press, http://www.timesfreepress.com

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Turkish prosecutor seeks to block social media

ISTANBUL — A Turkish prosecutor has ordered Internet providers to block social networking sites, including Twitter and YouTube, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

The request stems from postings of photos that show militant Marxists pointing a gun at a prosecutor who died last week in a shootout between police and the Marxists who were holding him hostage.

Government officials have blasted Turkish media for posting the images, which they have called anti-government propaganda. The prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz, was shot in the head during the standoff and died in a hospital soon after.

It wasn't immediately clear how the social media order was being carried out, but the government-run Anadolu Agency quoted the Union of Internet Providers as confirming that access to Twitter and YouTube has been blocked. Some users could still access the sites, while others reported being blocked.

The agency said access was blocked because Twitter and YouTube didn't remove images of the prosecutor despite an official notification. It says the Internet Providers notified Twitter and YouTube, but video, photographs and audio continued to be posted on these sites. The Turkish telecommunications authority wouldn't immediately comment.

Twitter said Monday it was working to restore access to users in Turkey and Bulent Kent, the head of the Internet Providers Union, told Anadolu that the ban on Twitter was expected to be lifted soon.

"We are aware of reports of interruption of our service in Turkey, and we are working to restore access for our users as soon as possible," the company said in Turkish and in English through its @policy account.

The journalists group, Turkish Press Council, said that while it understood the authorities concerns over the publication of the prosecutors' photographs, it said banning social media websites was in conflict with democracy.

"It is meaningless to totally shut down social platforms — which contain billions of useful information — to the use of the Turkish people because of some unsuitable content," the group said.

Users meanwhile were sharing information on how to get around the ban on the Internet.

Last year, Turkey blocked access to YouTube and Twitter after audio recordings of a secret security meeting or tapes suggesting corruption by government officials were leaked on the social media sites. Turkey's highest court, however, overturned the bans, deeming them to be unconstitutional.

Previous moves by Turkish authorities to block the social media networks have provoked widespread criticism by Western governments and human rights organizations.

Many tech-savvy users, including former President Abdullah Gul, had found ways to circumvent the bans both on Twitter and YouTube while they were in place.

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Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.

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State posts details of $225M Exxon settlement on website

TRENTON, N.J. — Details of New Jersey's proposed $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil over pollution around refineries in Linden and Bayonne were posted online Monday, starting the clock on a legal process that will stretch into June and giving vocal opponents an opportunity to persuade a judge to kill the deal.

Details of the proposed deal struck last month between the attorney general and the Texas-based oil company were published on the Department of Environmental Protection's website.

Here's what you need to know about the four-page proposal:

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HOW IT WORKS

The Department of Environmental Protection said the public has 60 days to comment and then it will decide whether to approve the agreement, which it is expected to do.

Then, Judge Michael Hogan will issue a ruling on the offer. If he does not sign off, he may decide what the damage award should be, though it is common with agreements such as the one between the state and Exxon to be approved by the judge.

Commenting on the settlement gives the commenter standing to pursue an appeal.

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THE DEAL'S DETAILS

In addition to the Linden and Bayonne sites, the proposed settlement would resolve pollution claims at 16 service station sites across the state. It also proposes resolving claims at all services stations in New Jersey where, the department says in a news release, there was little or no damage and where there was no evidence of MTBE, a chemical compound used a gasoline additive. The department said litigating over these sites would cost taxpayers more than their expected value.

The $225 million proposal would be the second-largest natural resource settlement against a corporate defendant in the country's history and the largest in state history, the department said in a statement. Only the Exxon-Valdez payout was larger.

"We have vigorously litigated this case for the good of the environment and for the people of New Jersey," DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said in a statement. "On top of the historic payout for this natural resources damages settlement, there is no cap on what ExxonMobil must spend to complete the remediation work. ExxonMobil is also obligated to remediate all of the other, though far less contaminated, sites included in the proposed agreement."

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POLITICALLY VOLATILE

News of the proposed settlement has become a political lightning rod because a report in the court documents had estimated that the state might recover up to $8.9 billion. Leaks of the deal appeared in the press before the attorney general discussed the details, and the Democrat-led Legislature criticized Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration for accepting pennies on the dollar.

New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel bashed the proposal. "It's really the largest sellout in history," he said in an interview.

Christie has publicly emphasized that Exxon Mobil must still clean the site.

"Under this settlement, ExxonMobil's obligation to remediate the refinery sites - exclusively at its cost, which will be substantial -- is reaffirmed," acting Attorney General John Hoffman said in a statement.

It's unclear how much cleanup will cost. Exxon Mobil will not speculate on the remediation process, said spokesman Todd Spitler said in a statement. Since 1991, the company has spent about $260 million to clean up the Linden and Bayonne sites under DEP supervision, Spitler said.

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BUDGET BATTLE

If the deal goes forward, the settlement money would not be available until the start of the fiscal year — July 1 — at the earliest, Hoffman said last month.

How that money is disbursed has also become the subject of a fierce debate. Under current law and as Christie proposed in his 2016 budget, the first $50 million of money recovered from natural resources settlements would go toward site cleanup and the rest would go toward the general fund. The Democratic-controlled Legislature has sent Christie a bill that would require half of the money from settlements of more than $50 million to be spent on cleanup. Christie has until May to decide if he'll veto the bill.

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Online: http://bit.ly/19Y7psi

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Modi blames changing lifestyles for India's rising pollution

NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday blamed the changing lifestyles that have come with India's economic development for rising pollution levels that have given the country some of the world's dirtiest air.

With his government rolling out a new air quality index to 10 of the nation's cities, Modi urged Indians to curtail waste and conserve resources even as they become wealthier, in order to prevent an environmental catastrophe.

"Until we focus on our lifestyle and get the world to focus on it, we will not succeed despite all other measures being taken," Modi told state environment ministers in New Delhi.

"It is difficult to convince the developed nations about this," he added, but said India should set an example.

Air pollution kills millions of people every year, including more than 627,000 in India, according to the World Health Organization.

India announced plans last year for the air quality index, releasing a draft proposal in October based on New Delhi's small network of air quality monitors. Experts have criticized New Delhi's readings as erratic and unreliable, calling for more transparency and rigor in the data.

They also said using an air quality index in 10 cities was a welcome step for raising public awareness of pollution dangers, but was still far below what is needed. The WHO puts 13 Indian cities in the world's 20 most polluted — with New Delhi deemed the filthiest — while pollution levels even in the countryside are often several times above what is deemed safe.

Environmental activists said the index had little value without offering advice on how to cope with high pollution levels, or announcing any measures to reduce pollution.

"Given the scale of air pollution and the impact it has on the public in Delhi and many other cities across the country, we had expected the government to address the issue with more rigor and responsibility," Greenpeace said in a statement.

The index — a simple ranking of pollution over a 24-hour period as good, satisfactory, moderately polluted, poor, very poor or severe — will be used New Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Faridabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. A few of the cities, however, have just one air monitor. New Delhi has 20 in operation, but even that is deemed very low.

The index's scale may also downplay pollution levels. For example, Monday's pollution level at the U.S. Embassy in central Delhi was described as "moderately poor" on the Indian scale. But that same level is considered "unhealthy" by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency.

"It is time to push for aggressive and time-bound action in Delhi and other Indian cities to meet clean air standards and reduce the public health risk," said the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, a research and lobbying group.

Already, many of New Delhi's 4.5 million children have reduced lung capacity, according to a study by the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute of Kolkata submitted to India's Central Pollution Control Board two years ago — yet made public by Indian media only last week. The researchers found that, out of about 11,000 children studied over years, one-third showed lung disease or deterioration.

While there is scant reliable data on respiratory illness in India, doctors said the number of respiratory illnesses is rising and the cases they see are becoming more serious.

"By 35, you tend to have lungs which start behaving like a smoker's lung," says Dr. Pankaj Syal, a lung specialist at PSRI Hospital in the capital. "Not only are the cases rising, we are having difficulty controlling patients' (cases) which were easily controlled earlier on."

India's air pollution comes mostly from coal-fired power plants, crop burning, domestic cooking with firewood or cow dung, and vehicles burning diesel fuel. The incomplete burning of these fuels produces black carbon, which constitutes most of the tiny particulate matter known as PM2.5, and can lodge and fester in human lungs. Black carbon is also blamed for up to 20 percent of global warming.

Anxious to grow its economy, India has made building electricity capacity a top priority. It plans to boost solar and wind power, but also plans to triple its coal-fired electricity capacity to 450 gigawatts by 2030.

Modi also complained that other nations were thwarting India's clean-energy ambitious by not selling it nuclear fuel.

"See the irony," Modi said. "The world gives lecture on climate, but if we tell them that we want to move forward in nuclear energy as it's a good path for environment protection, and when we ask them to provide necessary fuel for nuclear energy, they refuse."

India's lack of progress in building nuclear capacity, however, is largely a result of its reluctance to allow U.S. tracking of fissile material as well as its law making U.S. nuclear suppliers — not operators of nuclear plants — liable for accidents. Modi's government has been discussing ways to placate those concerns.

The country's planned coal expansion will at least double sulfur dioxide levels, along with those of nitrogen oxide and lung-clogging particulate matter, according to a study published in December by Urban Emissions and the Mumbai-based nonprofit group Conservation Action Trust.

It remains unclear how India plans to keep pollution from escalating further. It still has no regulations for pollutants like mercury or sulfur dioxide, a carcinogen that causes acid rain and respiratory illness, while both coal-plant emissions and vehicle fuel standards remain below Western norms.

And while already the world's third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, India is still home to at least 300 million people with no electricity at all, while hundreds of millions have just a couple of hours a day. Bringing them all onto a 24-hour electricity grid fueled primarily by coal could jeopardize global efforts to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Modi suggested Indians would have to be more energy efficient in order to disprove international perceptions that it did not care about the environment.

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Follow Katy Daigle on Twitter: http://twitter.com/katydaigle

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Strikes proliferate in China as working class awakens

NANLANG TOWNSHIP, China — Timid by nature, Shi Jieying took a risk last month and joined fellow workers in a strike at her handbag factory, one of a surging number of such labor protests across China.

Riot police flooded into the factory compound, broke up the strike and hauled away dozens of workers. Terrified by the violence, Shi was hospitalized with heart trouble, but with a feeble voice from her sickbed expressed a newfound boldness.

"We deserve fair compensation," said Shi, 41, who makes $4,700 a year at Cuiheng Handbag Factory in Nanlang, in southern China. Only recently, she had learned she had the right to social security funding and a housing allowance — two of the issues at stake in the strike.

"I didn't think of it as protesting, just defending our rights," she said.

More than three decades after Beijing began allowing market reforms, China's 168 million migrant workers are discovering their labor rights through the spread of social media. They are on the forefront of a labor protest movement that is posing a growing and awkward problem for the ruling Communist Party, wary of any grassroots activism that can threaten its grip on power.

"The party has to think twice before it suppresses the labor movement because it still claims to be a party for the working class," said Wang Jiangsong, a Beijing-based labor scholar.

Feeling exploited by businesses and abandoned by the government, workers are organizing strikes and labor protests at a rate that has doubled each of the past four years to more than 1,300 last year, up from just 185 in 2011, said Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, which gathers information from China's social media.

"What we are seeing is the forming of China's labor movement in a real sense," said Duan Yi, the country's leading labor rights lawyer.

That's prompted crackdowns by authorities, and factory bosses have fired strike organizers. Although authorities have long ignored labor law violations by companies, activists say authorities now dispatch police — and dogs, in at least one case — to factories to restore order or even restart production. They have also detained leading activists and harassed organizations that help workers.

China's labor law, which went into effect in 1995, stipulates the right to a decent wage, rest periods, no excessive overtime and the right of group negotiation.

Workers are allowed to strike, but only under the government-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions — which critics say is essentially an arm of the government that has failed to stand up for workers.

Workers who organize on their own can be arrested, not for striking but on charges such as disrupting traffic, business or social order. In Shenzhen, worker representative Wu Guijun was charged with gathering crowds to disrupt traffic, but was released with no conviction after a year in detention.

Migrant factory workers are perhaps the vanguard of this movement, but labor activism is slowly spreading among a working class that, all told, forms more than half of China's 1.4 billion.

"The working class has not yet fully woken up," said Qi Jianguang, 27, who was sacked from his job at a golfing equipment company in Shenzhen for leading a strike last summer. Lack of effective organization is another challenge. But he said that a common appeal for equitable and dignified treatment is serving to unite the laboring classes.

Deep suspicion of labor activism among authorities is rising. In February, the ACFTU's party chief, Li Yufu, warned that hostile foreign forces were using illegal rights groups and activists to compete for the hearts of the workers, sabotaging the unity of the working class and of the state-sanctioned union.

Zhang Zhiru, who runs a small labor group helping workers defend their rights, has been repeatedly harassed by police. He said the government will continue thwarting efforts at labor organizations because it considers them "making trouble."

But he remained optimistic.

"The social development and the increasing awareness of workers about their need to protect their rights will push the society forward," he said.

In March, workers returning from the Chinese New Year break to the thousands of factories in the Pearl River delta region near Hong Kong staged three dozen strikes at companies such as Stella Footwear, Meidi Electronics and Hisense Electronics.

Some fight for mandated severance pay, some for back social security payments and some for equal pay for out-of-town workers who typically earn less than local city residents. All of these actions have been on factory grounds because workers have grown impatient with government mediation rooms or courts.

"In many cases, lawsuits cannot ensure that workers' rights are protected, so the workers now are turning to collective negotiations or even organizing into a group to gain more, and to save time," Duan said.

While many labor activists have been harassed and detained, few have been convicted. In the only known case of workers involved in organized actions being criminally punished in recent years, Meng Han and 11 other security guards at a state hospital in Guangzhou were convicted in April 2014 of gathering crowds to disrupt social order after they staged a strike to demand equal pay and equal social security for local and out-of-town workers.

In the Pearl River Delta town of Nanlang, the handbag factory where Shi worked is one of many lining the main drag that leads to a group of parks honoring the town's most famous son, Sun Yat-sen, and the 1911 revolution he led to build a republic in China.

Earlier this year, the 280 or so workers, mostly women, went on strike to demand a still-unpaid but promised bonus of about $150 for last year. They ended the strike when factory management shelled out the money.

But in early March, the bosses announced fewer overtime hours and fewer workdays due to the global economic slump, and yanked a $5 bonus given to every female worker on March 8, International Women's Day.

The workers went on strike again, demanding back payments into social security funds, housing allowances and — believing the factory was on its last legs — the right to a severance package if they quit.

This time, the management did not budge.

Inside the town's government building, a Japanese man who identified himself as the factory's former general manager but declined to give his name said through an interpreter that the company had no choice but to cut hours when it failed to receive enough orders. He said workers kept making new demands, and that the factory had to call in police after surveillance cameras showed workers engaged in sabotage.

A Nanlang government statement said it dispatched a team March 24 to persuade the workers to return to work, but that some of them were flattening tires, destroying a surveillance camera, displaying banners and preventing other workers from returning to the workplace. Four workers were detained.

Workers said they were holding a peaceful rally when police attacked them.

"They were pulling our hair, smashing cell phones so we could not take photos," said a worker who gave only her family name, Cao. She was later taken to a police station, where she said she was handcuffed, deprived of sleep and food, and was lectured on her wrong behavior before being freed the next morning.

"I told them we are defending our own rights," Cao said. She and 10 other workers were fired.

Shi, who had been hospitalized after the police raid, said the incident eroded her trust in authorities.

"We were hoping the government would be on our side," she said, "but how could we have ever imagined that we would see the police pour in instead."

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US service firms grew at slightly slower pace last month

WASHINGTON — U.S. service firms expanded at a slightly slower yet still healthy pace in March, an encouraging sign after multiple reports last week pointed to a slowing economy.

The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its services index slipped to 56.5 last month, from 56.9 in February. Any reading over 50 indicates expansion.

A measure of sales fell last month and dragged down the overall index. But gauges of hiring and orders rose, evidence that services firms may see solid growth in the coming months.

That suggests that recent signs of a weakening economy could prove temporary. The services figures come after a disappointing jobs report last week, which echoed a slew of other weak economic data this month. Employers added just 126,000 jobs in March, the fewest in 15 months.

"Based on this survey, rumors of the demise of the US economy have been greatly exaggerated," Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients.

At the same time, service firms covered by the report, which include health care providers, hotels, restaurants, construction companies, and banks, are less affected by some of the trends which have held back manufacturing. Factory output has slowed partly because of a rapid rise in the value of the dollar, which makes goods exports more expensive.

Manufacturing firms were also hit by a labor dispute at ports in California, which delayed the shipping of needed parts and components.

Fourteen of 18 services industries reported growth in March, led by real estate, hotels and restaurants, and transportation and shipping.

Still, many analysts now forecast that the economy barely expanded in the first three months of this year. Growth has slowed dramatically in the last six months.

The ISM is a trade group of purchasing managers. Its survey of services firms covers businesses that employ 90 percent of the American workforce, including retail, construction, health care and financial services companies.

The ISM's manufacturing index, released last week, fell for the fifth straight month in March. In addition to the strong dollar, factories have been held back by cheaper oil, which has hurt orders for steel pipe and other equipment.

Home construction has been weak despite low mortgage rates. And Americans are still cautious about spending, even with a sharp plunge in gas prices since last June.

Growth has faltered as a result. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, down sharply from a blistering 4.8 percent in the six months from last April through November.

Most analysts expect it slowed even further in the January-March quarter. Harsh winter weather may have been partly to blame. But paychecks are still barely keeping up with inflation, even as the unemployment rate has fallen. That is likely weighing on spending and growth.

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Sam's Club, Kroger pull all Blue Bell Ice Cream products

DALLAS — Two other large retailers have decided to pull Blue Bell Ice Cream from their shelves as a precautionary measure after the company announced it was temporarily closing an Oklahoma production plant.

Sam's Club and Kroger have joined H-E-B in halting sales of Blue Bell products. The dairy company based in Brenham, Texas, last month issued a recall after ice cream contaminated with listeriosis was linked to three deaths at a Kansas hospital.

The foodborne illness was tracked to a production line in Brenham and later to a second line in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Blue Bell announced Friday that it had stopped all production at the Broken Arrow plant.

Company spokesman Gene Grabowski confirmed Monday that the number of large retailers pulling the ice cream has grown.

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