AUTOMOTIVE

AUTOMOTIVE
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DETROIT -- Toyota Motor Co. is recalling 22,228 Tacoma pickups because the parking brake may not work, the automaker and federal safety regulators said Tuesday.
Tacomas from the 2005 model year with automatic transmissions are involved in the recall.
Toyota spokesman John Hanson said the company recalled the vehicles after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received eight complaints. No injuries have been reported due to the defect, Hanson said.
Toyota said the lock nut on the parking brake cable may not have been properly tightened and can loosen and come off. If that happens, the vehicle could roll if it's stopped on a slope and the transmission isn't in park.
Toyota will notify owners of the recall next month. Dealers will tighten the lock nut for free.
FOOD
Milwaukee company voluntarily recalls beef
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Emmpak Foods Inc. said Tuesday it has voluntarily recalled about 123,000 pounds of ground beef because of concerns the meat was contaminated with hydraulic fluid at a plant.
The company shipped most of the meat to retail distributors in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. About 22,000 pounds went to Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania, according to the company.
The problem was discovered after a customer complained to the U.S Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The company has received no reports of anyone getting sick because of the meat, spokesman Mark Klein said.
The various kinds of meat were packaged in one-pound containers with the code EST20654 inside the USDA mark of inspection. The packages are marked with Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2 sell-by dates.
Emmpak set up a hotline, 1-866-567-7899, for people with questions about the recall. Anyone who bought the recalled meat can return it for a refund.
OIL
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Crude futures headed lower Tuesday afternoon as traders weighed the possibility of a production cut by OPEC next month and awaited the next weekly petroleum supply report from the U.S. government.
A well-supplied gasoline market and the waning home-heating season kept some downward pressure on prices, traders said.
INSURANCE
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NEW YORK -- A former senior executive at Marsh & amp; McLennan Cos. and two employees at American International Group Inc. pleaded guilty Tuesday in the state's probe of bid-rigging and price-fixing in the insurance industry.
Joshua Bewlay, a former managing director at Marsh; John Mohs, a vice president in a unit of AIG; and Carlos Coello, an AIG underwriter, entered their pleas in state court.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said the defendants are expected to testify in the broadening case.
Bewlay and Mohs pleaded guilty to scheming to defraud, which carries up to four years in prison. Coello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of the offense, punishable by up to a year in jail. Their sentences will depend on their level of cooperation with prosecutors.
Spitzer sued Marsh last fall and implicated AIG and several other major insurance companies. Spitzer said brokers throughout the industry took payoffs from insurance companies to steer clients their way. Brokers are supposed to find customers the best prices.
In January, Marsh executives insisted the wrongdoing was committed by a few individuals who violated company policy. The company apologized and agreed to pay $850 million in restitution to end Spitzer's investigation.
Marsh also promised to adopt reforms. It eliminated the practice of receiving any form of contingent compensation from insurance companies.
RETAIL
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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Circuit City Stores Inc., which has struggled to keep up with industry leader Best Buy, said Tuesday that a Boston investment firm made a $3.25 billion unsolicited offer to take the company private. Shares of the nation's No. 2 chain of consumer electronics stores surged.
Highfields Capital Management, which holds a nearly 7 percent stake in Circuit City, made the offer after expressing dissatisfaction with the retailer's current performance. The bid represented a premium of nearly 20 percent to Circuit City's share price of $14.23 at the close of trading Monday.
Shares of Circuit City rose $2.50, or 17.6 percent, to $16.73 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $10.18 to $17.87.