Business briefs

The pullout came after fighting between Nigerian navy troops and Ijaw ethnic militants at a village of Okerenkoko on the Escravos River.

The village is not far from the oil port of Warri, where Shell and other multinational oil firms are based.

Activists of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities accused the navy of provoking the hostilities by launching a premeditated attack on the village last Thursday. The soldiers accused the community of planning to disrupt oil facilities and attack rival communities, the activists said in a statement.

Shell's Nigerian subsidiary was evacuating employees "who are not vital to operations" from company facilities in the area, a company official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. They started leaving Saturday, he said.

Labor board investigates company's cuts of employees' salaries

MILWAUKEE -- The National Labor Relations Board and Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development are investigating Ladish Co. for docking workers' pay to correct a corporate accounting error.

The company started docking the pay of nearly 300 workers by 10 percent last month.

The company argues that because it restated profits from 2000 and 2001 for its Cudahy Forging division, wiping out more than $6.3 million in profits, it had overpaid some workers by an average $1,000 in profit-sharing payments.

The dispute has spawned union grievances that may go to binding arbitration within several months and prompted the federal and state agencies to investigate the matter.

Accounting experts said they had never heard of a company trying to recoup profit-sharing payments after a restatement.

New drug showed progress but side effects doomed effort

WASHINGTON -- The experimental vaccine withdrawn from testing after four Alzheimer's patients developed brain swelling seems to have reduced the accumulation of brain plaques associated with the disease but may have caused the dangerous inflammation, researchers report.

The vaccine did not show success against another sign of the memory-destroying disease, tangled nerves and microfibers, according to the first autopsy results of one of the affected patients in the clinical trial. The 72-year-old woman died almost two years after first receiving the vaccine in July 2000.

The 360-patient trial was halted in January 2002 and the drug, AN-1792, made by Elan Corp. of Ireland, was withdrawn after the inflammation known as meningoencephalitis was found in four subjects. Doctors later discovered 11 more people with the symptoms.

Doctors at the University of Southampton in England report that the autopsy results show that the swelling "is likely to be a consequence of the immunotherapy."

Weather, war send energy prices soaring, triggers decline in output

WASHINGTON -- Severe winter weather and jitters about war took a further toll on the U.S. economy, sending wholesale energy prices soaring and triggering declines in both manufacturing output and consumer confidence.

The government reported Friday that wholesale prices jumped by 1 percent in February, led by a 7.4 percent surge in energy costs. Output at the nation's manufacturing plants fell for the second month in three, although overall output at factories, mines and utilities managed a meager 0.1 percent gain.

Consumer sentiment, buffeted by rising gasoline prices, job layoffs and fears of retaliatory terror attacks should the United States invade Iraq, dipped in March to 75.0 from a February reading of 79.9, according to a preliminary report from the University of Michigan.

Oil prices could plunge if war is short

LONDON -- If U.S.-led forces invade Iraq, world oil prices will probably plunge from current levels and stay there -- provided the conflict ends quickly and causes little damage to production capacity in the Persian Gulf, several energy analysts said Friday.

However, a war that spills into neighboring countries or one in which Saddam Hussein sabotages his own oil fields could panic markets and trigger a spike in prices to $50 or even $60 a barrel, some said. U.S. crude prices ended trading Friday at just over $35 a barrel.<