U.S.: Mites at port no threat

Fifty truckloads of new automobiles were released Friday from the Pier 98 Annex after government inspectors determined that tiny red insects found on the vehicles presented no hazard.

U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologists concluded the little red arachnids were of the species Trombidiidae, commonly known as red velvet mites or rainbugs.

After a truck driver spotted the insects Thursday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection placed an agriculture hold on the trucks and their cargo, new automobiles from South Korea.

"Operations may resume" at the port facility, Customs spokesman Stephen Sapp said after the lifting of the hold.

- Paul Nussbaum

Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. shareholders approved a one-for-four reverse stock split, the company said Friday. Inovio plans to announce later this year the effective date of the reverse split. Inovio develops vaccines to treat cancers and infectious diseases. - Bob Fernandez

Dozens of convention decorators - representing companies that manage and assemble conventions - met for lunch at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Tuesday to learn about the center's new customer satisfaction agreement signed by the center's four unions two weeks earlier. Work rules in the new agreement have led to shortened set-up and dismantling times, show organizers say. - Jane M. Von Bergen

Cox Communications, the nation's third-largest cable company, says it plans to boost Internet download speeds to 1 gigabit per second starting in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha, Neb., late this year. The move will bring its service in line with Google's fiber rollout in Kansas City, Provo, Utah, and Austin, Texas, and an AT&T rollout in Austin. Cox said it will add the super-fast Internet speed to any new residential construction in its cable territory nationwide. - AP

Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. agreed to pay $324.5 million to settle an employee antitrust lawsuit over claims they conspired to suppress salaries by not recruiting one another's workers. Lawyers for employees who sued the companies are seeking a judge's preliminary approval of the deal, according to a California federal court filing. The accord covers 64,000 technical employees. Workers planned to seek $3 billion at a trial that was set for May 27. - Bloomberg News