New PALO website

New PALO website

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown-based PALO Creative has developed a new website. The website gives is a representation of what the agency is capable of, and sets the foundation for the team to grow its expertise in new areas, PALO said. The website is palocreative.com/.

Sales hit top pace for single-family homes, condos for August

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Association of REALTORS reports the number of single-family homes and condominiums put under agreement in August reached a best-ever level for the month, increasing 9.7 percent from the pace set during the month a year ago.

The rate of purchase-contract signings in August rose 1.6 percent from the market’s July 2015 index.

Ohio’s August Pending Home Sales Index of 155.0, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 9.7 percent from August 2014. Activity in August increased 1.6 percent from the level of agreements reached in July 2015.

IRS deadline nears

WASHINGTON

The Internal Revenue Service urges taxpayers whose tax-filing extension runs out Oct. 15 to double check their returns for often-overlooked tax benefits and then file their returns electronically using IRS e-file or the Free File system.

About a quarter of the 13 million taxpayers who requested an automatic six-month extension this year have yet to file.

Shell to abandon Alaskan arctic

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its long quest to become the first company to produce oil in Alaska’s Arctic waters, darkening the nation’s long-term oil prospects and delighting environmental groups that tried to block the project.

After years of effort, Shell is leaving the region “for the foreseeable future” because it failed to find enough oil to make further drilling worthwhile.

The company has spent more than $7 billion on the effort, slogged through a regulatory gantlet and fought environmental groups that feared a spill in the harsh climate would be difficult to clean up and devastating to polar bears, walruses, seals and other wildlife.

Chipotle: Pork is back

NEW YORK

Chipotle says carnitas are back on the menu at 90 percent of its restaurants, and that the pork’s return to all U.S. restaurants should be complete by the end of November.

The Mexican food chain had stopped serving pork at about a third of its restaurants in January after it said one of its suppliers violated its animal-welfare standards.

Comcast buys stake in Universal Japan

NEW YORK

Comcast is buying a majority stake in theme-park operator Universal Studios’ Japanese arm for $1.5 billion.

Cable operator Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, will have 51 percent ownership of the business.

Universal Studios Japan opened in Osaka in 2001.

Staff/wire reports