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GILLETTE, Wyo. • While mine workers converge on St. Louis for a pivotal bankruptcy court hearing involving Patriot Coal, the St. Louis company that helped give birth to Patriot is holding its annual shareholders meeting more than 1,000 miles away.

Peabody Energy is holding its annual shareholders meeting in Wyoming to highlight the importance of the coal-rich Powder River Basin.

One of the world’s largest coal producers, Peabody owns three mines in the basin, including the North Antelope Rochelle mine Internet Payday loans.

One group critical of the company, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, claims the company is trying to avoid hearing concerns in its hometown.

Company spokeswoman Beth Sutton says the company periodically holds board meetings, like the one it is holding Monday, in places where it has operations.

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JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed legislation that sought to re-impose local sales taxes on vehicles bought from out-of-state dealers or through person-to-person sales.

Nixon’s veto Friday marks the second time in two years he has rejected the Legislature’s attempt to reverse the effect of a 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

The court ruled that local sales taxes can only be charged on vehicles bought from Missouri retailers. If cities and counties want to tax vehicles bought elsewhere, the court said they need to adopt local “use taxes cheap business cards.”

The legislation vetoed by Nixon sought to get around that ruling by tying local sales taxes to the titling of vehicles. Local voters would have had a chance to repeal the taxes by 2016.

Nixon said the repeal section was not drafted well.

(Vehicle tax bill is SB182)

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Service industries in the U.S. expanded in March at the slowest pace in seven months as new orders and employment cooled.

The Institute for Supply Management

Hostess Brands — the maker of such iconic baked goods as Twinkies, Drake’s Devil Dogs and Wonder Bread — announced Friday that it is asking a federal bankruptcy court for permission to close its operations, blaming a strike by bakers protesting a new contract imposed on them.

Hostess’ nearly 18,500 workers will lose their jobs as the company shuts 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers nationwide, as well as 570 outlet stores. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union represents about 5,000 Hostess employees.

“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” said CEO Gregory Rayburn in a statement.

Hostess will move to sell its assets to the highest bidder. That could mean new life for some of its most popular products, which could be scooped up at auction and attached to products from other companies.

A letter that Hostess sent to its network of stores that carry its product said it expects “there will be great interest in our brands.” But it said it could not give a time frame for when the sales would take place and when its products would be available again.

But even if those brands are bought and restarted, the Hostess workers will not get their jobs back.

“It’s been a very sad day,” Rayburn told CNN. “I think that this was just a monumental failure on the part of everyone involved, and it was just the wrong outcome.”

Hostess filed for bankruptcy in January, its second trip to bankruptcy court since 2004. It previously emerged from restructuring in 2009 after a four-and-a-half year process. The company is now controlled by a group of investment firms, including hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital.

Frank Hurt, president of the bakers’ union, called the liquidation “a deep disappointment” but said his members weren’t the ones responsible, blaming the various management teams in place at Hostess over the past eight years for failing to turn the firm around.

“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years,” Hurt said in a statement late Friday. “They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars.”

While approval of the bankruptcy court is needed before Hostess can start selling its assets in liquidation, the company said production at all of its bakeries stopped effective Friday, and that stores will no longer receive products from Hostess Brands after the final round of deliveries of products that were made Thursday night quick pay day loan.

But products that are already in stores can be sold, and the outlet stores will remain open for about a week to sell the products they already have.

Hostess had annual sales of about $2.5 billion. The company said it had been making 500 million Twinkies and 127 million loaves of Wonder Bread annually before Friday’s shutdown.

Its bread brands, including Wonder Bread, Nature’s Pride and Butternut, make the company the No. 2 bread baker in the country, according to Symphony/IRI Group. Bimbo Bakeries, maker of the Arnold and Stroehmann brands, is the No. 1 bread baker.

The company had given a 5 p.m. ET Thursday deadline for the bakers to return to work or face a shutdown of the company.

In September, membership of one of its major unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, voted narrowly to accept a new contract with reduced wages and benefits. The Bakers’ union rejected the deal, however, prompting Hostess management to secure permission from a bankruptcy court to force a new concession contract on workers.

The Teamsters union, which represents 6,700 Hostess workers, issued a statement blaming mismanagement by Hostess executives for the company’s problems. But it also was critical of the decision of Bakers’ union, although it did not identify the union by name.

“Unfortunately, the company’s operating and financial problems were so severe that it required steep concessions from a variety of stakeholders but not all stakeholders were willing to be constructive,” said Ken Hall, the Teamsters’ Secretary-Treasurer. “Teamster Hostess members, based on the facts and advice from respected restructuring advisors, understood what was at stake and voted to protect all jobs at Hostess.”

The new contract cut salaries across the company by 8% in the first year of the five-year agreement. Salaries were then scheduled to bump up 3% in the next three years and 1% in the final year.

Hostess also reduced its pension obligations and its contribution to the employees’ health care plan. In exchange, the company offered concessions, including a 25% equity stake for workers and the inclusion of two union representatives on an eight-member board of directors.

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The cost of employer-sponsored family health insurance premiums jumped again this year, but the rate at which they rose slowed to historic lows, according to a new survey Tuesday.

For insured workers, the cost of buying health insurance for a family of four increased 4% to $15,745 in 2012, according to a survey conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

Last year, premiums leaped 9% from the year before.

“These are strikingly low numbers to those of us who have been studying health costs for a long time,” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “A 4% increase in health premiums is good news.”

Altman said there are several factors that could have led to the slowdown, including the economy’s slow recovery. When people have less money to spend and wages are flat — as they have been in recent years — they avoid getting medical care. Compounding the issue is the rise of high-deductible plans and other forms of cost sharing, like co-pays, that cause families to pick up a larger percentage of the bill.

“Health care use and the economy have always been closely tied, and my sense is that the recession and slow recovery are responsible for much of the recent health spending and premium trends,” Altman said.

While premiums appear to be improving, health care costs still weighed heavily on families. The report showed that premiums for family coverage outpaced both workers’ wages and general inflation. In less than a decade, premiums have increased 97%, roughly three times as fast as wages and inflation.

“It still takes a growing bite out of middle-class workers’ wages, which have been flat or falling in real terms,” Altman said.

This burden was even harder to shoulder for lower-income families. At companies where at least 35% of workers earn $24,000 or less, employees paid an average of $1,000 more each year than workers at companies where at least 35% of employees earn $55,000 or more, the report found.

And it’s not just premiums. Lower-wage employees were also more likely to pay high deductibles. The survey found that 44% of workers at companies with many low-wage employees face an annual deductible of $1,000 or more, compared with 29% of those at companies with many high-wage workers.

“This year’s survey suggests that working families at the low end of the wage scale face significant out of pocket costs for coverage,” said study lead author Gary Claxton in a statement. “Firms with many lower-wage workers ask employees to pay more out of pocket … even though the coverage itself tends to be less comprehensive.”

Altman said he doesn’t expect a return to double-digit increases in premiums anytime soon, especially as provisions from the Affordable Care Act kick in.

Even though much of the health reform law won’t go into effect until 2014, the report estimated that the number of young adults covered by employer plans increased to 2.9 million this year from 2.3 million in 2011, as a result of the provision that lets young adults stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26.

The 14th annual Kaiser survey was conducted between January and May 2012, and polled 3,326 small and large employers with three or more workers.

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The labor market lost momentum last month as job growth fell to a disappointingly slow pace. The unemployment rate also fell, as more people stopped looking for jobs.

The economy added 96,000 jobs in August, down from 141,000 jobs in July, the Department of Labor said Friday.

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Obama battles job crisis

The U.S. lost 4.3 million jobs in President Obama’s first 13 months in office. Track his progress since then.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1%, from 8.3% in July.

Economists polled by CNNMoney were expecting 120,000 jobs to be added in the month, and the unemployment rate to remain unchanged.

The unemployment rate fell largely because 368,000 people stopped looking for work, many of them young people. Just 63.5% of the working-age population was either employed or actively looking for work — a 30-year low.

“These numbers are not very strong,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. “The job market is improving, but only gradually.”

At least 150,000 jobs need to be created each month to simply keep pace with the growing population.

In addition to the large number of people leaving the workforce, LaVorgna said two other disappointing sings were that the number of hours people worked remained flat and wages were stagnant paydayloans.

The Labor Department also revised down the job numbers for the two previous months, resulting in 41,000 fewer jobs created than originally reported.

“Clearly, it’s disappointing, but it’s not horrible,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at the investment management firm Raymond James. “We’re not losing jobs.”

Employment in restaurants and bars increased by 28,000, a sign that people may have more disposable income. Professional and technical service jobs rose by 27,000, and the health care industry added 17,000 jobs.

In August, manufacturing was particularly hard hit, shedding 15,000 jobs. The government continued to shed jobs, losing another 7,000 positions.

Just two months before the election, the jobs numbers have become a talking point for both campaigns. But the report was not good news for President Obama, who is still hoping to climb out of the jobs deficit created during his presidency before voters head to the polls. Only two more monthly jobs reports remain before then.

“Today we learned that after losing around 800,000 jobs a month when I took office, businesses once again added jobs for the 30th month in a row,” Obama said during a speech in New Hampshire after the report was released. “But that is not good enough. We know that is not good enough. We need to create more jobs faster. ”

The weak numbers could also increase the chances that the Federal Reserve will take more action to boost the struggling economy.

The overall job market still has a long way to go recover from the financial crisis. Three years after the recession ended, roughly 12.5 million Americans remain unemployed, and 40% of them have been so for six months or more.

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Is it possible to love both President Obama and Rep. Paul Ryan?

Marc Benioff says yes. And the outspoken tech CEO is backing his words with campaign cash.

Benioff has helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election effort, and even hosted a $35,800-a-plate fundraiser featuring Stevie Wonder and hip-hop artist Will.i.am.

The founder and CEO of ) is also an Obama national campaign co-chair, a distinction awarded to select Democratic heavyweights like Rahm Emanuel, Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold.

“I’m squarely a supporter of the president, and he is absolutely the right man for the job,” Benioff said Monday.

But the tech executive is also a fan of Ryan — Mitt Romney’s running mate and a rising Republican star. In June, Benioff donated $10,000 to Ryan’s political action committee after meeting with the candidate, who at the time had not been named to the GOP ticket and was running for re-election in the House.

How is that possible?

“My approach to politics is that I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m an American and I always support candidates I think are great for the country,” Benioff said.

What’s so attractive about Ryan, Benioff said, is his focus on deficit and budget issues. The nation’s fiscal difficulties must be addressed, the CEO said, and Ryan’s ideas offer “a lot of the right long-term thinking for the country.”

But Benioff cautioned that Ryan’s budget plan — which contains drastic spending cuts — shouldn’t be pursued anytime soon.

“I don’t think his budget is a good idea in today’s world. It would put us back into recession,” Benioff said. “But he is putting the right issues on the table and has a long-term vision that is admirable.”

During an interview on Monday, Benioff touched on other ideas that help explain his simultaneous support for the two candidates.

First, Benioff said the nation’s fiscal problems are too severe to go unaddressed. No matter who wins in November, the next administration will be forced to make progress.

“I don’t think it will matter who is elected,” Benioff said. “Those issues are so overwhelming and so important that they will be addressed. I’m confident that it will happen.”

And beyond that, Benioff favors politicians he thinks are capable of compromise and big ideas. ‘There are a lot of politicians who are just obstructionists,” Benioff said. “Ryan is not one of them.”

Federal Election Commission records show that Benioff has a habit of giving generously to candidates of both parties. In 2007, he gave to Romney’s campaign — and Obama’s. George W. Bush received donations in 1999 and 2003, while Al Gore got $1,000 in 1999.

The Obama campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke outlined options to ease policy further in case the flagging economic recovery fails to lower unemployment.

Easing tools include further purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, and altering the Fed

Companies in the U.S. added more workers than forecast in June, which may ease concern the labor market is deteriorating, a private payrolls report showed.

The 176,000 increase followed a revised 136,000 gain the prior month that was higher than initially estimated, according to figures released today by Roseland, New Jersey-based ADP Employer Services. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 100,000 advance.

A pickup in hiring that