Business news in brief

Merck & Co. sold $4.25 billion of bonds in a four-part offering, its biggest ever, to finance the acquisition of rival drugmaker Schering-Plough Corp., Bloomberg News reported. The maker of asthma treatment Singulair is taking advantage of investor demand for pharmaceutical-company debt to finance its acquisition, even as the rally in corporate debt shows signs of stalling, Guy Lebas, chief economist at Janney Montgomery Scott L.L.C. in Philadelphia, told the news service. Merck's sale is the biggest non-financial U.S. corporate bond offering since Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Co.'s three-part, $6 billion issue on May 7, Bloomberg data show. - Bloomberg News

Cable television boss John Malone will pay a $1.4 million penalty, after authorities said he did not follow government rules on reporting major stock purchases over a three-year period. The Justice Department announced the settlement with Malone, chairman of Liberty Media Corp., for his acquisition of shares of Discovery Holding Co. Liberty Media owns QVC Inc., West Chester. A spokeswoman for Liberty said the company had no comment on the settlement. - AP

Unisys, Blue Bell, received a fixed-price task order worth a potential $17.4 million to work on a system to coordinate commercial freight transportation services for the military. The order, granted by the U.S. General Services Administration, is for an initial five months with four one-year options and a final seven-month option. Unisys, the information-technology company, will design and develop the system. It has performed other work for the Army's Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and on its freight coordination system. - Roslyn Rudolph

Boeing Co. has again delayed the first test flight of its long-awaited 787 jetliner. The aerospace giant said it needed to reinforce small areas near the connection of the wings and fuselage before conducting the test flight, which Boeing had insisted would take place before July. A revised schedule for the flight, as well as first deliveries to customers, will not be announced for several weeks. Deliveries of the long-range widebody have been delayed four times already. - AP

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission says eliminating lucrative patent settlements between brand-name and generic-drug companies would save consumers $3.5 billion annually. The FTC has waged a yearslong campaign against "pay-to-delay" settlements, in which a branded drug company rewards a generic competitor for keeping cheaper versions of its drugs off the market. Drugmakers argue that the settlements are an efficient way to end costly patent litigation, but FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said they also deprive consumers of low-cost medicines. - AP

Grocery operator Kroger Co.'s first-quarter profit shot up 12.7 percent, as recession-hit households continue to eat at home more and seek food bargains, including buying more store brands. The nation's largest traditional grocery store chain - whose empire includes stores in the Philadelphia region - reported that profit jumped to $435.1 million, or 66 cents per share, compared with $386 million, or 58 cents last year. Sales were $22.8 billion, down slightly from $23.1 billion last year. Kroger blamed the drop on lower gas prices at its service stations. The company also operates Turkey Hill mini-markets, including those in Downingtown and Coatesville. - AP

General Motors Corp. has notified its U.S. white-collar workers that it plans to cut about 4,000 more jobs by the end of the year. Company spokesman Tom Wilkinson says workers were offered standard severance packages as well as chances to retire early if they're near retirement age. But he said some departures would be involuntary. GM already has cut about 2,600 salaried jobs this year. It plans to reduce its salaried workforce from just over 27,000 to 23,500 by Dec. 31. The Detroit automaker is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has received about $20 billion in government loans. - AP

The Obama administration filed its first unfair-trade case against China, accusing it of restricting exports of materials needed to produce steel, aluminum and other products. The administration vowed to protect the rights of American companies, and it got backing from the European Union, which filed its own case on the issue. The materials at issue include coke, bauxite, magnesium and silicon metal, the U.S. complaint notes. Wei Xin, a spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, had no immediate comment on the U.S. action. - AP

Social-networking site MySpace said it would cut 300 international positions and close at least four offices outside the United States as it looks to reduce costs and narrow its territory coverage. The move comes a week after the company said it would cut nearly 30 percent of its U.S. workforce in a bid to become more efficient. The News Corp. division has been trying to trim its payroll, bringing its staffing level more in line with its more popular rival, Facebook. Recent data from tracking firm comScore shows Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly U.S. visitors for the first time. - AP

The Obama administration plans to simplify the federal college aid form, which at 153 questions drives millions of families to give up before they finish it. Students and their families must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, to get any type of federal aid or loan. The form also is used for state and college aid programs. The administration is taking three steps to simplify the form: Shorten and streamline the online application, reducing the number of screens by about two-thirds; create a Web application to use tax data families have submitted to the IRS; and ask Congress to pass legislation that removes more than half of the financial questions on the form. - AP