The UAW and NUMMI have reached a tentative agreement on the closing of Toyota's and General Motors' former joint venture in Fremont, Calif.

The agreement covers approximately 4,500 UAW members represented by UAW Local 2244 at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI.

Toyota said earlier this month it would offer $250 million to pay bonuses to hourly and salaried workers at the plant, which makes the Toyota Corolla sedan and Toyota Tacoma pickup.

Grocery workers this morning approved a new contract with Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., ending months of tense negotiations and averting a threatened strike.

A day after reaching a tentative agreement with the supermarket chain, some 2,000 union members agreed to a three-year deal that will boost wages and preserve benefits, said a spokesman for the area branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

After three months of negotiations, union members will vote tomorrow morning on a tentative agreement reached today with Quincy-based Stop & Shop Supermarket Co.

Jim Carvalho, a spokesman for Local 1445 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said he expects a full house when members meet at 8 a.m. at Lombardo's restaurant in Randolph.

Local 1445 represents 36,000 employees at 240 Stop & Shop supermarkets in southern New England.

Nevada legislative leaders and the governor reached a tentative agreement Saturday night to close an $887 million budget gap, and they hoped to finalize it on Sunday.

That deficit-22% of the state's two-year budget-has proved especially challenging for a state that operates one of the leanest budgets in the country.

Republican governor Jim Gibbons, who faces a tough primary battle for reelection, had framed the gap as a chance to further shrink state government. He had proposed 10% across the board cuts that included deep slashes to education as well as social services such as Medicaid. He also proposed sweeping reserve funds and raising $50 million from mining companies.

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Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Juniper Networks Inc., the second- largest maker of networking equipment, agreed to pay $169 million to settle a shareholder suit filed by New York City pension funds and other investors over backdated stock options.

The tentative agreement between Sunnyvale, California-based Juniper, the pension funds and other institutional investors requires court approval, New York City comptroller John C. Liu said in an e-mailed statement.

PORTLAND, Maine-FairPoint Communications and unions representing nearly 3,000 employees in northern New England have reached a tentative agreement on a contract as FairPoint prepares to submit its bankruptcy reorganization plan. FairPoint was seeking $30 million in concessions from workers represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America as it works to restructure its debt load and reduce costs. The unions agreed last year on a five-year contract that was set to expire in August 2013.

WASHINGTON -- Republicans on Wednesday branded the White House deal with Democrats on a budget deficit commission as a "nothing burger" because it wouldn't require votes on how to stem the red ink.

A tentative agreement would let President Barack Obama name the 18-member bipartisan commission. It would seek a compromise on the tax increases and spending cuts needed to tackle the deficit, which reached $1.4 trillion last year and could climb this year.

President Barack Obama is expected to appoint a special deficit reduction commission as part of a tentative agreement between Democrats and the White House-each trying to find the votes to raise the federal debt ceiling in the coming weeks.

New “pay-go” legislation would be enacted as part of the same package to demand future saving or revenues in advance to finance new entitlement spending or tax cuts. And the administration appears poised to put its full weight behind the effort, with Obama speaking to the deficit issue in his State of the Union address next Wednesday.

CLEVELAND - A one-day strike at the Cleveland Orchestra ended Tuesday morning with a tentative agreement but the issues that led to the dispute point to troubled times for the nation's elite classical musical ensembles amid the Great Recession.

Orchestra members struck on Monday, the first such work stoppage here in 30 years. Terms of the agreement between the orchestra's musicians and the board were not immediately released.

DAYTON, Ohio - A labor union representing thousands of retired autoworkers in Ohio and Mississippi says it has reached a tentative agreement with General Motors Corp. to provide baseline health-care coverage for retirees.

The International Union of Electronic Workers-Communication Workers of America said Tuesday that those who retired before age 65 will be offered an extra $50 million in payments. IUE President Jim Clark says those workers will now have a total of $467 million in coverage.

Kent teachers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to walk off their jobs.

Teachers will be on picket lines or at home Thursday rather than preparing for classes, which are supposed to begin Monday. The bargaining teams will resume meeting Thursday morning in hopes of reaching an agreement sometime in the next four days.

Strikes may occur at several other districts over the next few weeks.

Negotiations continue in the Everett and Lake Stevens school districts and about 100 other districts statewide. Some are expected to settle shortly.

NEW YORK — General Motors Corp. took two key steps toward its downsizing on Tuesday, striking a tentative agreement to sell its Hummer brand and obtaining the first payout of federal loans for its European division.

Reporting from Washington -- General Motors Corp. cleared a major obstacle today when it reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers union to modify its labor contract, but the road to avoiding bankruptcy is anything but clear.

GM is careening toward the government's June 1 restructuring deadline. The next step -- persuading holders of $27 billion in bonds to exchange nearly all of it for company stock -- must happen by Tuesday. Bondholders, many of them small investors, are balking at the terms of that swap, which are significantly worse than those given to the UAW.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers said itreached a tentative agreement with General Motors Corp. and theU.S. Treasury to modify the carmaker’s 2007 labor contract and ahealth-care trust for union retirees.

The UAW said it is withholding details until it schedulesand conducts explanatory and ratification meetings for members,which are being scheduled. Local leaders will learn details onMay 26, people familiar with the plan said. GM faces a probablebankruptcy filing by June 1, the government’s deadline for thecompany to restructure outside of court.

DALLAS -- Southwest Airlines Co. said Tuesday it reached a tentative agreement to give pay raises to about 5,300 customer-service employees.

Southwest didn't say how big the pay raises would be. It said the 4-year deal also includes benefit increases in exchange for giving the company more scheduling flexibility and productivity improvements.

The agreement, which still needs ratification by employees, is retroactive to last year and runs through October 2012.