Gas prices increase

Gas prices increase

YOUNGSTOWN

Northeast Ohio gas prices increased by 9 cents this week, according to AAA East Central’s Fuel Gauge report. Northeast Ohio’s average price is $2.349 compared with $2.263 during the week of March 16. This time last year, gas averaged $3.561.

Youngstown’s average is $2.303.

Vallourec award

YOUNGSTOWN

The North America affiliates of Vallourec, including the Youngstown-based Vallourec plant, received the prestigious Total Satisfaction Award among global oilfield-product manufacturers in the independent EnergyPoint Research 2014 Oilfield Products Customer Satisfaction Survey.

EnergyPoint Research is the leading publisher of customer-satisfaction ratings for the oil and gas industry.

Vallourec also received the highest ranking in Performance and Reliability, as well as eight other categories. The company has consistently ranked at or near the top in many categories since the survey began.

Vallourec Star in Youngstown is at 2669 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Ohio home sales up

COLUMBUS

The number of homes sold across Ohio in February rose 6.1 percent from the level posted in February 2014, the market’s sixth-consecutive monthly year-over-year gain, according to the Ohio Association of Realtors.

Additionally, home-sales activity in February increased 3.3 percent from the level reached in January.

February’s average home price of $137,145 reflects a 5.5 percent increase from the $130,015 mark posted during the month last year.

February sales reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 127,188, a 6.1 percent gain from the 119,892 level during the month a year ago. The market also experienced a 3.3 percent rise in sales from January’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of 123,108.

Around the state, 11 of the 20 markets tracked reported upswings in sales- activity levels. The average sales price increased in 13 markets.

Swift, Microsoft, others buying up .porn suffixes

NEW YORK

The singer Taylor Swift, Microsoft Corp. and Harvard University are among those buying up .porn and .adult Web suffixes as a preemptive move before those domain names become available this summer.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is making Internet address suffixes beyond the usual .com or .org available for people and businesses to use. Though some are in Chinese or other languages besides English, others could include the likes of .music, .app or, of course, .porn.

To check what brands, groups and celebrities have bought their domain names, visit http://icmregistry.com/domaincheck . According to the site, Microsoft has bought not only Microsoft.porn but Office.porn and Office.adult as well.

Vindicator staff/wire reports