The region’s Purchasing Manager’s Index came in at 49.7 for the month with numbers below 50 indicating business activity in retreat. The manufacturing index for the region came in at 49, the highest level in six months.

A day after financial leaders in Europe agreed to support Greece with an emergency bailout loan of $172 billion, investors were back to focusing on fundamentals.

The National Association of Realtors said the supply of existing homes on the market fell for the second consecutive month in January. NAR said there was a 6.1-month supply of homes on the market at the current pace of sales. That is down from a 6.2-month supply in December.

A smaller supply indicates prices could rise.

In other business news, the International Council of Shopping Centers said retail receipts in the U.S. jumped 3 percent in the week ending Saturday, as shoppers looked for winter clear out sales, took some interest in spring merchandise and spent some money on Valentine’s Day.

By close of trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 27.02 points or 0.21 percent to 12,938.67. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gave up 4.55 points or 0.33 percent to 1,357.66. The Nasdaq composite index lost 15.40 points or 0.52 percent to 2,933.17.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 1,193 stocks advanced and 1,855 declined on a volume of 3.4 billion shares traded.

The benchmark 10-year treasury note rose 17/32 to yield 2.007 percent.

The euro rose to $1.3248 from Tuesday’s $1.3236. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 80.24 yen from 79.75 yen.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 0.96 percent, 90.98 points, to 9,554.00.

In London, the FTSE 100 index slipped 0.2 percent, 11.65, to 5,916.55

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country’s brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he’s addressing the nation’s post-recession period.

But trouble could be ahead: Still-struggling Americans are fretting over rising gasoline prices. Just weeks before the summer travel season begins, the Associated Press-GfK survey finds pump prices rising in importance and most people unhappy with how Democratic president has handled the issue.

It’s seemingly no coincidence that Obama this week is promoting the expansion of domestic oil and gas exploration and the development of new forms of energy.

It’s his latest attempt to show that he, more than any of the Republican presidential contenders, knows that voters’ pocketbooks remain pinched even as the economy improves overall. And on that question of empathy, solid majorities continue to view him as someone who “understands the problems of ordinary Americans” and “cares about people like you,” the AP-GfK survey found.

There is evidence that the nation is becoming markedly more optimistic, and that Obama benefits from that attitude.

Thirty percent in the poll describe the economy as “good,” a 15-point increase since December and the highest level since the AP-GfK poll first asked the question in 2009. Roughly the same share say the economy got better in the past month, while 18 percent said it got worse, the most positive read in over a year.

Looking ahead, four in 10 said they expect the economy to get better in the next year and a third said they think the number of unemployed people in the U.S. will decrease, the highest share on either question since last spring. A quarter of those surveyed said they expect the economy to get worse over the next 12 months, while 31 percent said it would stay the same, the poll found.

As optimism has risen, Obama has received a corresponding bump in his approval rating for handling the economy. Forty-eight percent now say they approve of how he’s handling it, up 9 points from December.

Still, for some it’s hard to sense an improvement – or give Obama credit for it – when any extra money is being gobbled up at the gasoline pump.

“I give him credit for trying to make improvements, but I don’t believe it’s had that much effect,” said Michael Lee Real of Indianola, Iowa, a city water authority worker who counts himself as a Republican-leaning independent. The cost of gasoline is “one of the big things,” says Real, 58. “It fluctuates so much, it makes it hard for me to budget my money.”

Overall, seven of 10 respondents called gas prices deeply important, up 6 points from December. Those who view gas prices as “extremely important” rose 9 points, to nearly 39 percent.

The average cost of a gallon has risen 30 cents in that time, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Views on the president’s handling of the issue are about the same as in December: Six in 10 respondents disapprove, including 36 percent who strongly feel that way, while 39 percent approve.

Presidents don’t have a great deal of control over oil or gas prices, which now are being influenced by higher U.S. demand and tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. But few factors generate as much interest and anxiety among Americans. The rise in prices, faced almost daily by voters, could undercut Obama’s argument that he’s strengthening the economy and making families more financially secure.

Though Obama’s approval rating on the economy has climbed, his negative rating on handling gas prices is stagnant. Just 39 percent approve of what he’s doing there, and 58 percent disapprove.

Republicans, locked in battle for the right to face Obama in the general election, expect gas prices to be a top issue by the time Americans set out on their summer vacations. The four vying for the GOP nomination already are warning of higher prices and are pushing for more drilling and relaxed regulations on domestic oil production. Some are talking dollars and cents: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is dangling the prospect of $2.50-a-gallon gas if he’s elected; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is warning of $5-a-gallon gas if he’s not.

Generally, the public’s approval of Obama has risen with the economy’s climb from recession.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in January, the lowest level in nearly three years. The housing market is flashing signs of health ahead of the spring buying season, with mortgage rates still low, sales of previously occupied homes at their highest level since May 2010, and more first-time buyers making purchases.

The nation is far from a full recovery. Millions of Americans remain out of work. And Wall Street investors still worry over the details of Greece’s economic bailout plan.

According to the poll, Obama’s overall approval rating ticked upward slightly, from 44 percent in December to 49 percent now.

The 9-point approval increase for his handling of the economy comes from Democrats and independents, constituencies crucial to Obama’s re-election hopes. Among Democrats, his approval on the economy has shot from 67 percent to 83 percent. Among independents, 49 percent now approve, up from 38 percent in December.

Obama also gained support among women during a period in which his administration seemed to stumble over whether religious employers should be forced to pay for contraception. In overall approval, Obama rebounded from 43 percent among women in December to 53 percent now, according to the survey.

And half of all adults now say Obama deserves to be re-elected, a 7-point rise from December that reverses a downward trend that had been in place since May.

More than eight in 10 Democrats say he should be elected to a second term, and half of all independents feel the same way, the survey found.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted Feb. 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 4.1 percent.

—

AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

—

Online:

http://www.ap-GfKpoll.com

NEW YORK – Stocks are ending lower for the first time in four trading days and a day after briefly hitting their highest point in nearly four years.

The Dow Jones industrial average is ending down 27 points at 12,938. The day before, it briefly passed 13,000 for the first time since May 2008.

Some investors worried about the details of a bailout deal reached for Greece this week. But analysts say investors were mostly in a holding pattern after seeing the market hit an important psychological mark.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 is closing down five points at 1,357. Financial stocks lost the most. The Nasdaq composite index is down 15 to 2,933. Volume was lighter than average. Declining stocks led advancers by about 3-to-2.

NEW YORK – A day after Dow 13,000, investors took a break.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged down 20 points to 12,945 as of 3:20 p.m. Eastern. The day before, it briefly touched 13,000 for the first time since May 2008.

Investors were worried about the details of a new debt deal reached for Greece this week. Mostly, analysts said, investors were in a holding pattern after seeing the market hit an important psychological mark.

“The market is pausing for the next slew of good news,” said Doug Cote, chief market strategist at ING Investment Management. “The real U.S. economy continues to march along while the attention is on Europe.”

The Dow has been trading at or near four-year highs for three weeks and is up 6 percent so far this year. Strong corporate earnings have been a key factor driving the gains this year, Cote said. Per-share earnings at S&P 500 companies rose 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter on a 7.1 percent increase in revenue.

The Dow traded in a tiny range of just 63 points. Over the past year, it has had smaller trading ranges on only nine other days. The average daily range over that time has been 181 points.

Investors worried that Greece’s new $170 billion deal announced Tuesday may not be enough to keep the debt-laden from eventually defaulting and possibly exiting the euro. The Greek economy is entering its fifth year of recession. Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece further into junk status Wednesday morning following the bailout deal.

In other trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 3 points to 1,358. Energy and health care were the only sectors gaining ground. Financial stocks lost the most. The Nasdaq composite index lost 12 points to 2,936.

So far this year, the S&P 500 is up 8 percent, while the Nasdaq has climbed nearly 13 percent.

“The market has done well in the face of some pretty low expectations,” said Todd Salamone of Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “Right now we’re just seeing a few speed bumps.”

Salamone said he believes investors will continue to focus more on negative news overseas despite a slew of better news on the U.S. economy. Last week Congress extended the payroll tax cut and the government reported that claims for unemployment benefits dropped to their lowest level since the financial crisis. The next report on unemployment claims is due out Thursday.

European markets closed lower. In Asia, stocks mostly rose even after a fairly weak Chinese manufacturing survey. The dollar rose to a seven-month high against the Japanese yen.

Among U.S. stocks making big moves:

- Computer maker Dell Inc. fell 6 percent after reporting an 18 percent drop in first-quarter profit late Tuesday, hurt by slow sales to government agencies, tough competition from Apple Inc. and flooding in Thailand that disrupted its supply chain.

- Toll Brothers Inc. fell 3 percent after the luxury homebuilder posted a first-quarter loss, but reported an increased number of signed contracts and backlog, important measures for coming months.

- GPS maker Garmin Ltd. jumped 8 percent after its fourth-quarter net income rose 25 percent on higher prices and sales. The company’s results and 2012 revenue forecast beat Wall Street’s expectations.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a lower corporate tax rate and an end to dozens of loopholes he said helps companies move jobs and profits overseas. “It’s not right and it needs to change,” he said.

The president wants to lower the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent, the highest in the world after Japan. Under his plan, manufacturers would receive incentives so that their effective tax rate could be even lower.

Obama’s election-year plan would set a new 28 percent corporate tax rate, still higher than the 25 percent rate sought by congressional Republicans.

“It’s a framework that lowers the corporate tax rate and broadens the tax base in order to increase competitiveness for companies across the nation,” Obama said in a statement.

Corporations would have to give up dozens of cherished loopholes and subsidies that they now enjoy. Corporations with overseas operations would also face an unspecified minimum tax on their foreign earnings.

The proposal outlined by Geithner would also eliminate tax loopholes and subsidies that Geithner called “fundamentally unfair.”

Obama also would set a minimum tax on the foreign earning of U.S. companies.

Chances of accomplishing such change in the tax system are slim in a year dominated mostly with presidential and congressional elections. But for Obama, the proposal is part of a larger tax plan that is central to his re-election strategy.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who rolled out the plan Wednesday morning, acknowledged that the debate “will be politically contentious.”

“Some will say these proposals are too tough on business, and others will say that they’re not tough enough,” he said.

Obama’s plan would be part of a larger effort to overhaul the U.S. tax system, and it dovetails with Obama’s call for raising taxes on millionaires and maintaining current rates on individuals making $200,000 or less. But White House spokesman Jay Carney said Congress could act separately on the corporate tax component of Obama’s overall tax strategy.

Republican reaction was mixed. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said he appreciated the administration’s plan, though it set a corporate tax rate that is higher than the 25 percent he has proposed. He faulted Obama, however, for not offering a wholesale overhaul of the entire tax system for businesses and individuals.

“While this is a good step by the administration, I will borrow from the president’s own words to Congress from just yesterday: `Don’t stop here. Keep going,’” Camp said in a statement. But Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed the president’s plan as a “set of bullet points designed more for the campaign trail than an actual blueprint for fixing our tax code.”

While the 35 percent nominal corporate tax rate ranks among the highest, deductions, credits and exemptions allow many corporations to pay taxes at a much lower rate.

Under the framework proposed by the administration, the rate cuts, closed loopholes and the minimum tax on overseas earning would result in no increase to the deficit.

That means that many businesses that slip through loopholes or enjoy subsidies and pay an effective tax rate that is substantially less than the 35 percent corporate tax could end up paying more under Obama’s plan. Others, however, would pay less while some would simply benefit from a more simplified system.

Reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent would reduce tax revenues by about $700 billion over the next decade, according to an estimate prepared in October by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress.

That means lawmakers would have to find about $70 billion a year in tax increases to keep the package from adding to the budget deficit, hardly an easy task. In 2010, the corporate income tax raised a total of $278 billion, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Corporate income taxes have been shrinking as a share of overall federal taxes for decades. In 2010, corporate income taxes made up just 12 percent of all federal tax receipts, down from 24 percent in 1960, according to the IRS.

Geithner said the Obama plan aims to help U.S. businesses, especially manufacturers who face strong international competition. Obama’s plan would lower the effective rate for manufacturers to 25 percent by offering other tax incentives that emphasize development of clean energy systems.

Many members of both parties have said they favor overhauling the nation’s individual and corporate tax systems, which they complain have rates that are too high and are riddled with too many deductions.

The corporate tax debate has made its way into the presidential contest. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has called for a 25 percent rate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., would cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent, and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would exempt domestic manufacturers from the corporate tax and halve the top rate for other businesses.

While Obama has been promoting various aspects of his economic agenda in personal appearances and speeches, the decision to leave the corporate tax plan to the Treasury Department to unveil signaled its lower priority.

What’s more, the administration’s framework leaves much for Congress to decide – a deliberate move by the administration to encourage negotiations but which also doesn’t subject the plan to detailed scrutiny.

Obama’s plan is not as ambitious as a House Republican proposal that would lower the corporate rate to 25 percent.

Still, Obama has said corporate tax rates are too high and has proposed eliminating tax breaks for American companies that move jobs and profits overseas. He also has proposed giving tax breaks to U.S. manufacturers, to firms that return jobs to this country and to companies that relocate to some communities that have lost big employers.

Geithner told a House committee last week that the administration wants to create more incentives for corporations to invest in the United States.

“We want to bring down the rate, and we think we can, to a level that’s closer to the average of that of our major competitors,” Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee.

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling has advocated a minimum tax on global profits. Currently many corporations do not invest overseas profits in the United States to avoid the 35 percent tax rate.

—

Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – The housing market is flashing signs of health ahead of the spring-buying season.

Sales of previously occupied homes are at their highest level since May 2010. More first-time buyers are making purchases. And the supply of homes fell last month to its lowest point in nearly seven years, which could push home prices higher.

Sales have now risen nearly 13 percent over the past six months. While they are still well below the 6 million that economists equate with a healthy market, the gains have coincided with other changes in the market that suggest more sales are coming.

“The trend is clearly upward,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that re-sales increased 4.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million.

Single-family home sales rose 3.8 percent. And the number of first-time buyers, who are critical to a housing recovery, increased slightly to make up 33 percent of all sales. That’s still below 40 percent, which tends to signal a healthy market.

One concern is the market is still saturated with homes at risk of foreclosure, which lower broader home prices. Those increased to make up 35 percent of sales.

But the supply of homes on the market has plunged to 2.3 million, the lowest level since March 2005. At last month’s sales pace, it would take more than six months to clear those homes, consistent with a healthy housing market. Fewer homes on the market could help boost prices over time.

Most economists said the January report was encouraging, especially when viewed with other recent positive housing data.

Mortgage rates have never been lower. Homebuilders are slightly more hopeful because more people are saying they might be open to buying this year – and they responded in January to that interest by requesting more permits to construct single-family homes.

“The rise in existing home sales in recent months adds to the indication from housing starts, building permits, and homebuilder sentiment that the sector has improved modestly since the middle of 2011,” said John Ryding, an economist at RDQ economics.

Much of the optimism has come because hiring has picked up. More jobs are critical to a housing rebound. In January, employers added 243,000 net jobs – the most in nine months – and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years.

Analysts caution that the damage from the housing bust is deep and the industry is years away from fully recovering. Since the bubble burst, sales have slumped under the weight of foreclosures, tighter credit and falling prices.

Many deals are also collapsing before they close. One-third of Realtors say they’ve had at least one contract scuttled over the past four months. That’s up from 18 percent in September.

Realtors say deals are collapsing for several reasons: Banks have declined mortgage applications. Home inspectors have found problems. Appraisals have come in lower than the bid. Or a buyer suffered a financial setback before the closing.

Sales rose across the country in January. They rose on a seasonal basis by nearly 9 percent in the West, 3.5 percent in the South, 3.4 percent in the Northeast and 1 percent in the Midwest.

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the current business tax system is bad for business and for job creation and says a plan by President Barack Obama to reduce corporate tax rates would make the tax system more globally competitive.

The Obama administration is proposing to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent. Manufacturers would receive incentives so that their effective tax rate would be 25 percent.

The proposal outlined by Geithner Wednesday would also eliminate tax loopholes and subsidies that Geithner called “fundamentally unfair.”

Obama also would set a minimum tax on the foreign earning of U.S. companies.

Geithner said the plan would be part of a larger effort to overhaul the U.S. tax system. He said a long-term growth strategy for the United States requires tax reform.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

President Barack Obama is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and wants an even lower effective rate for manufacturers, a senior administration official says, as the White House lays down an election-year marker in the debate over tax policy.

In turn, corporations would have to give up dozens of loopholes and subsidies that they now enjoy. Corporations with overseas operations would also face a minimum tax on their foreign earnings.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday was to detail aspects of Obama’s proposed overhaul of the corporate tax system, a plan the president outlined in general terms in his State of the Union speech last month.

Chances of accomplishing such change in the tax system are slim in a year dominated mostly with presidential and congressional elections. But for Obama, the proposal is part of a larger tax plan that is central to his re-election strategy.

The corporate tax plan dovetails with Obama’s call for raising taxes on millionaires and maintaining current rates on individuals making $200,000 or less.

The 35 percent nominal corporate tax rate is the highest in the world after Japan. But deductions, credits and exemptions allow many corporations to pay taxes at a much lower rate.

Under the framework proposed by the administration, the rate cuts, closed loopholes and the minimum tax on overseas earning would result in no increase to the deficit.

That means that many businesses that slip through loopholes or enjoy subsidies and pay an effective tax rate that is substantially less than the 35 percent corporate tax could end up paying more under Obama’s plan. Others, however, would pay less while some would simply benefit from a more simplified system.

The official said the Obama plan aims to help U.S. businesses, especially manufacturers who face strong international competition. Obama’s plan would lower the effective rate for manufacturers to 25 percent while emphasizing development of clean energy systems. The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe what the administration will do.

The New York Times first reported details of the plan in its online edition early Wednesday.

Many members of both parties have said they favor overhauling the nation’s individual and corporate tax systems, which they complain have rates that are too high and are riddled with too many deductions.

The corporate tax debate has made its way into the presidential contest. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has called for a 25 percent rate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., would cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent, and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would exempt domestic manufacturers from the corporate tax and halve the top rate for other businesses.

While Obama has been promoting various aspects of his economic agenda in personal appearances and speeches, the decision to leave the corporate tax plan to the Treasury Department to unveil signaled its lower priority.

What’s more, the administration’s framework leaves much for Congress to decide – a deliberate move by the administration to encourage negotiations but which also doesn’t subject the plan to detailed scrutiny.

Obama’s plan is not as ambitious as a House Republican proposal that would lower the corporate rate to 25 percent.

Still, Obama has said corporate tax rates are too high and has proposed eliminating tax breaks for American companies that move jobs and profits overseas. He also has proposed giving tax breaks to U.S. manufacturers, to firms that return jobs to this country and to companies that relocate to some communities that have lost big employers.

Geithner told a House committee last week that the administration wants to create more incentives for corporations to invest in the United States.

“We want to bring down the rate, and we think we can, to a level that’s closer to the average of that of our major competitors,” Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee.

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling has advocated a minimum tax on global profits. Currently many corporations do not invest overseas profits in the United States to avoid the 35 percent tax rate.

—

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The superintendent of the West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men was charged Wednesday with conspiracy to defraud the federal government, becoming the highest-ranking Massey Energy employee to face criminal prosecution so far over the deadly blast.

Former Upper Big Branch mine boss Gary May, 43, of Bloomingrose, W.Va., is named in a federal information, a document that signals a defendant is cooperating with prosecutors. He is the second Massey employee to face prosecution in the case.

Reached at his home Wednesday morning, May declined comment.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said his investigation of the worst U.S. mine disaster in four decades is “absolutely not” finished but did not immediately comment further.

Although other mine disasters have led to criminal charges, they’ve typically targeted low-ranking employees and have largely been misdemeanor offenses. A conviction on the federal fraud charge could result in fines and up to five years in prison. It’s a rare, if not unprecedented legal strategy that appears to be moving up the corporate ladder.

“I hope they can go up, and I think they will,” said Gary Quarles, whose son Gary Wayne died in the explosion. Quarles said he’s surprised the charge reached so high into the ranks.

“Usually, they get the mine foreman because that’s the person that signs the books,” he said. Superintendents typically don’t and are therefore shielded.

But Quarles said the charges suggest prosecutors are looking at May’s bosses, too.

“It’s about time,” he said. “It’s a good start.”

Last week, Goodwin urged a federal judge in Beckley to make an example of the only other person charged so far, former security chief Hughie Elbert Stover. Goodwin is demanding the maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison for actions he says contributed to the April 2010 disaster near Montcoal.

Stover is to be sentenced Feb. 29 for lying to federal investigators and attempting to destroy documents.

May began working at Upper Big Branch in February 2008 as a mine foreman and was promoted in October 2009 to superintendent. He held that post, overseeing three room-and-pillar mining sections and a longwall operation, until the day the mine exploded on April 5, 2010.

The information filed in U.S. District Court in Beckley accuses May of conspiring with others to conceal many dangers in the mine through an elaborate scheme that included code words to alert miners underground when inspectors were on the property, the deliberate alteration of approved ventilation plans and the deliberate disabling of a methane gas monitor on the continuous mining machine.

May allegedly ordered the wiring to be altered in February 2010 so the automatic shut-off mechanism was disabled, allowing the machine to function for several hours without a methane monitor.

Other employees of the mine have told investigators there was never enough fresh air to sweep out the highly explosive methane and coal dust that regularly accumulated – the fuel that three separate investigations have concluded powered the chain-reaction blast.

The information also says that when May knew the Mine Safety and Health Administration was about to sample the level of respirable coal dust in a section of the mine, he surreptitiously redirected additional air to that area to obscure the typical conditions.

May is also accused of both falsifying safety inspection books and ordering someone not named in the information to leave out reports of deep water that would have made a section of the mine unsafe.

Clay Mullins worked at Upper Big Branch and lost his brother Rex in the blast, but didn’t cross paths with May.

“It’s what we wanted. All the families, it’s what they want,” he said of the charges. “But I want to see some other names. … There was a lot of people involved in this, and I just want to see them be punished for the crimes.

“If they’re innocent, then I want them to be found innocent,” Mullins said. “But if they’re guilty, I want them to face the maximum penalty of law.”

The information says Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co. and its managers routinely violated a host of federal mine safety laws for fear that violations would cut into production time.

Had MSHA detected the concealed conditions, it would have resulted in temporary shutdowns and fines. That also could have moved Massey closer to being designated a pattern violator, which would have subjected it to even more scrutiny.

Reports about the explosion have already been released by MSHA, the United Mine Workers of America and an independent panel appointed by the former governor. The fourth and final report, by the state Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training, is being released Thursday.

The first three concluded that Virginia-based Massey Energy – which has since been bought by Alpha Natural Resources – allowed methane and coal dust to accumulate, and failed to properly maintain and repair the cutting equipment that eventually created the spark that fuel needed to explode.

Clogged and broken water sprayers then allowed what could have been a minor flare-up to become an epic blast that traveled seven miles of underground corridors, doubling back on itself and killing men instantly.

All three reports said the explosion could have been prevented or contained if the mine had been sufficiently dusted with pulverized limestone to render the coal dust inert. In the year before the Upper Big Branch blast, 70 ignitions occurred at U.S. coal mines, and none resulted in fatalities.

The UMWA report accused Massey of “industrial homicide” for the way it ran Upper Big Branch and listed 18 employees, including former Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship, who invoked their right to avoid self-incrimination and refused to cooperate with investigators.

May is one of the 18 that the UMWA says should be compelled to publicly plead their Fifth Amendment rights or be held in contempt of court.

NEW YORK – U.S. stocks were lower in early trading Wednesday as investors worry over the details of a new bailout plan for Greece.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 8 points at 12,957, a day after hitting 13,000 – albeit briefly – for the first time since May 2008. The Dow has already been trading at or near four year highs for weeks. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is down 2 points at 1,361. The Nasdaq composite index lost 4 points to 2,944.

European markets were broadly lower. Earlier in Asia, stocks mostly rose even after a fairly weak Chinese manufacturing survey.

Investors are worrying that Greece’s new $172 billion deal may not be enough to keep the debt-laden from eventually defaulting and possibly exiting the euro.

The Greek debt deal also requires private sector bondholders to forgive $141 billion in Greek debt by taking a loss on the face value of their bonds and accepting longer repayment periods and lower interest rates. Among the concerns are that the bailout package does not include measures to boost economic growth. The Greek economy is entering its fifth year of recession.

Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece further into junk status Wednesday morning following the bailout deal.

Among U.S. stocks making big moves:

- Computer maker Dell Inc. fell 6 percent after reporting an 18 percent drop in first-quarter profit late Tuesday, hurt by slow sales to government agencies, tough competition from Apple Inc. and flooding in Thailand that disrupted its supply chain.

- Toll Brothers Inc. fell 3 percent after the luxury homebuilder posted a first-quarter loss, but reported an increased number of signed contracts and backlog, important measures for coming months.

- GPS maker Garmin Ltd. jumped 9 percent after its fourth-quarter net income rose 25 percent on higher prices and sales. The company’s results and 2012 revenue forecast beat Wall Street’s expectations.

NEW YORK – U.S. stocks are opening mixed as investors worry over the details of a new bailout plan for Greece.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 2 points at 12,968, a day after hitting 13,000 – albeit briefly – for the first time since May 2008. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is down nearly a point at 1,361. The Nasdaq composite index lost 4 points to 2,944.

European markets were broadly lower.

Investors are worrying that Greece’s new $172 billion deal may not be enough to keep the debt-laden from eventually defaulting and possibly exiting the euro. Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece further into junk status Wednesday morning following the bailout deal.