In brief: Amy’s Kitchen recalls frozen meals over listeria worry

Amy’s Kitchen is recalling nearly 73,900 cases of frozen meals due to possible listeria contamination, becoming the latest food maker to recall spinach products because of the bacteria.

Amy’s Kitchen said it was not aware of any illness complaints so far regarding its products, which were sold at stores across the United States and in Canada. Amy’s recalled certain lots of nearly 20 products, including vegetable lasagna, spinach pizza, and bowls of brown rice and vegetables.

Consumers who have the Amy’s products were urged to throw them out or return them to the store where they were purchased for an exchange or refund.

The recall stems from a recall notice Amy’s said it got from one of its organic spinach suppliers.

Listeriosis, the illness caused by listeria, can cause fatal infections in certain people, including the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Also, East Coast grocer Wegmans recalled about 12,540 packages of its organic frozen spinach Monday.

Finding job near home getting more difficult

WASHINGTON – Remember the Detroit man who walked 21 miles to work?

James Robertson’s arduous daily journey back and forth to a low-wage factory job, widely reported last month, is just an extreme version of an increasingly common problem: Finding a job near home is getting harder for millions of American workers. And long commutes are especially tough on the poor and on blacks and Hispanics.

A Brookings Institution report out Tuesday finds the number of jobs within typical commuting range dropped 7 percent between 2000 and 2012 in major U.S. metropolitan areas.

Metro jobs near poor people fell 17 percent, versus a 6 percent drop for those who weren’t poor.

Rising gasoline prices push up inflation

WASHINGTON – Consumer prices rose in February for the first time in four months as gasoline prices rebounded from a steep fall that had helped to drive down inflation since the middle of last year.

The consumer price index increased 0.2 percent after a 0.7 percent drop in January that was the largest decline in more than six years, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

Gasoline prices rose 2.4 percent in February after falling 18.7 percent the previous month.

More broadly, energy prices were up 1 percent in February following a 9.7 percent decline the previous month.

Morgan Stanley CFO takes Google post

Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley, is leaving to take the same job at Google Inc., a symbolically significant move by a high-profile Wall Street executive – and one of the finance industry’s most prominent women.

Google said in a statement Tuesday that Porat will start her new job May 26.

In an email to employees obtained by the Los Angeles Times, James P. Gorman, Morgan Stanley’s chairman and chief executive, praised Porat as a “terrific partner and friend” and said she played a key role in leading the firm though the financial crisis of 2008. He said Porat would be succeeded by Jonathan Pruzan, co-head of the global financial institutions group in the firm’s investment banking unit.

Google’s shares rose $12.17 to close Tuesday at $577.54.