BUSINESS DIGEST || Spots Clips grand opening

Grand opening

BOARDMAN

Sport Clips Haircuts will celebrate its grand opening of its first Youngstown-area location Friday with a ribbon-cutting at 1320 Boardman-Poland Road.

The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber will join Mike Brent, marketing coordinator, for the event at 10 a.m.

The sports-themed haircut service is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Winner expands

VIENNA

Winner Aviation announced that it has expanded its services at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport here into a hangar acquired in 2011.

The facility provides the aviation maintenance services provider with an additional 12,000 square feet of hangar space and 2,000 square feet for offices.

Winner said the new hangar will allow the company to accommodate light- to midsize passenger jets and turbine engines for maintenance and inspection.

Agency to probe GM recall response

DETROIT

The U.S. government’s auto-safety watchdog is investigating whether General Motors acted quickly enough to recall 1.6 million older-model small cars in a case linked to 13 deaths.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Wednesday night that it opened the probe “to determine whether GM properly followed the legal processes and requirements for reporting recalls.”

The agency has the authority to fine GM as much as $35 million under legislation that went into effect late last year. The previous maximum fine automakers faced per incident was $17.35 million. Automakers must report evidence of safety defects within five days of discovering them.

On Tuesday, GM doubled the number of cars in the recall for faulty ignition switches. The problem has been linked to 31 front-end crashes that caused the 13 deaths. The company also issued a rare apology, saying its process to examine the problem was not robust enough when it surfaced about a decade ago.

A chronology of events filed Monday with NHTSA by GM show it knew of the problem as early as 2004.

New-home sales boost hopes for year

WASHINGTON

A surprisingly strong pace of new-home sales last month has boosted hopes that the spring buying season will be solid enough to lift the overall economy.

Sales of new homes rebounded in January to the fastest rate in more than five years. The strength in purchases followed a slowdown that had been linked to higher mortgage rates and severe winter weather.

The report Wednesday from the Commerce Department helped support stock prices, especially shares of homebuilders.

Many economists predict that sales of both new and existing homes will rise in 2014, lifted by an improving economy and steady job growth.

Vindicator staff/wire reports