Gasoline prices fall

Gasoline prices fall

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning Valley gas prices fell 4 cents during the past week.

The average price for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline is $3.28, down from $3.32 last week and two cents higher than the state average of $3.26, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge report.

Gas prices are down 32 cents since last month but remain about 50 cents higher than they were a year ago.

A steady decline in oil prices has brought down the cost of gasoline prices.

Auto-parts store to replace bakery

YOUNGSTOWN

A former bakery will be replaced by an auto-parts store, says a local real-estate broker.

James Grantz, a broker associate at local real-estate firm Edward J. Lewis Inc., confirmed that a national auto-parts store is planning to put a new location on the site of the former Cake Creations Etc., 4161 Market St.

Grantz said the same auto-parts company bought a former used-car lot to the west of Dunkin’ Donuts, 4299 Boardman-Canfield Road, in Canfield. Grantz declined to identify the auto- parts company and did not know when construction will begin.

Protesters fined

CINCINNATI

Cincinnati protesters who are part of the Occupy Wall Street movement say they’ve been fined for refusing to leave a city park.

Leaders of Occupy Cincinnati say in a statement that 22 demonstrators were issued citations and each fined $105 late Sunday when they chose to stay in downtown’s Piatt Park after police told them to leave.

As in other states, the Cincinnati protesters say most of the nation’s wealth is controlled by just 1 percent of the population and that they represent the other 99 percent.

WCPO-TV reports they were cited under a Cincinnati law requiring protesters to have a permit to stay in a public place after hours.

No arrests have been reported.

A group called Occupy Youngstown is planning a similar rally Saturday.

Nobel in economics

princeton, n.j.

Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent have no simple solutions to the global economic crisis. But the work that won them the Nobel Prize in economics Monday is guiding central bankers and policymakers in their search for answers.

The two Americans, both 68, were honored for their research in the 1970s and ’80s on the cause-and-effect relationship between the economy and government policy.

Sims is a professor at Princeton University. Sargent teaches at New York University and is a visiting professor at Princeton.

Among their achievements, the two Nobel laureates — working separately for the most part over the years — devised tools to analyze how changes in interest rates and taxes affect growth and inflation.

Vindicator staff/wire reports