BUSINESS DIGEST ||

Contract renewal

YOUNGSTOWN

The Western Reserve Port Authority approved a contract renewal for Volaire Aviation, an airport consultant agency, at its monthly board meeting Wednesday.

The agency has helped officials of Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, which the port authority runs, meet with several airlines, Dan Dickten, airport aviation director, said. The contract is $3,500 a month and runs through December 2020, but the authority can cancel the contract at anytime.

“We have had more meetings with airlines than we have ever had,” Dickten said.

US home sales climb 5.6 percent

WASHINGTON

Americans purchased homes at the fastest pace in nearly 11 years, as sales climbed 5.6 percent in November.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.81 million units. Home sales were last this strong in December 2006, when properties sold at annual pace of 6.42 million.

The strong demand for buying homes is a sign of an increasingly vibrant economy after a steady, eight-year expansion. The unemployment rate has fallen to a 17-year low, while more people in the younger millennial generation appear to be forming their own households and looking for places to buy. Yet the demand has done little to resolve an increasing vulnerability of the U.S. real-estate market as the number of listings has been declining on a yearly basis for two-and-a-half years.

Students defrauded by for-profits may not get full relief

WASHINGTON

The Education Department is abandoning the Obama administration’s practice of fully wiping out the student loans of those who had been defrauded by for-profit colleges and will start granting some students only partial loan relief. Under President Barack Obama, tens of thousands of students deceived by now-defunct for-profit schools had over $550 million in loans canceled in full. But Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Wednesday that process was not fair to students or taxpayers.

Selected local stocks

STOCK, DIVIDENDCLOSECHANGE

Alcoa Inc., .1249.492.97

Aqua America, .71 37.790.20

Avalon Holdings,2.06-0.01

Chemical Bank, .2754.36-0.46Community Health Sys.4.02 -0.01

Cortland Bancorp, .2821.000.75

Farmers Nat., .1615.00-0.05

First Energy, 1.44 30.61-0.40

Fifth/Third, .5230.52-0.10

FirstMerit Corp.,--

First Niles Financial, .1210.950.00

FNB Corp., .4813.90-0.15

General Motors, 1.5242.530.04

General Electric, .9217.44-0.15

Huntington Bank, .28 14.650.04

iHeartMedia Inc.,0.59-0.01

JP Morgan Chase, 1.92106.23-0.28

Key Corp, .3420.11-0.01

LaFarge, .34--

Macy’s, 1.51 25.340.09

Parker Hannifin, 2.52 199.040.97

PNC, 2.20144.95-0.15

Simon Prop. Grp., 6.60164.29-4.12

Stoneridge 24.680.27

United Comm. Fin., .12 9.21-0.14

Selected prices from Wednesday’s 4 p.m. close.