LOCAL

LOCAL
Imaging center accredited
AUSTINTOWN -- Austintown Imaging Center, located in Forum Health Austintown Medical Park, received a three-year accreditation for MRI services by the American College of Radiology, Forum Health announced.
ACR awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards. The ACR is a national organization that serves more that 32,000 diagnostic/interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists and medical physicists. The organization focuses on programs in the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health-care services.
OHIO
Diebold counts on tellers
NORTH CANTON -- Diebold Inc. is being cautious about prospects for better profit in its voting machines business, but its automated teller machines are expected to help improve overall profitability in 2005, the company said Wednesday.
Diebold earned $62.8 million, or 87 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, compared with $59.2 million, or 81 cents per share, in the same period in 2003.
Earnings per share were at the low end of the company's guidance of 87 to 92 cents and fell 2 cents short of expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. But that result is in line with the estimate aside from settlement of voting machines lawsuits that amounted to 2 cents per share.
Power group settles suit
COLUMBUS -- American Electric Power said Wednesday it will pay $81 million to end a lawsuit and avoid criminal prosecution by federal investigators who accused the utility's traders of manipulating prices in the natural gas market.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued the company in 2003, alleging the traders sent thousands of false or misleading reports to industry publications from 2000-2002.
"False reporting and attempts at manipulating the market were an addiction for some of the traders at this company," said Gregory Mocek, director of the commission's enforcement division.
PENNSYLVANIA
US Airways consolidates
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- US Airways will consolidate reservations centers in Winston-Salem, a move that will keep hundreds of jobs in North Carolina but mean the loss of more than 800 jobs in Pennsylvania, the airline said Wednesday.
The airline picked the North Carolina location over Pittsburgh after local and state officials offered an incentives package worth $1.4 million.
The number of employees who will transfer from other sites has not been determined, the airline said. The consolidation will begin in early April and is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter 2005.
The move will bring to one location jobs now spread between four different sites: a reservations center in Greentree, Pa., that employs 785 workers; a baggage service call center in Findlay Township, Pa. (45 workers); a frequent-flyer service center at Smith-Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem (110 workers); and an existing reservations call center on Hanes Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem (850 workers).
Vindicator staff/wire reports