Postmaster general sets retirement

Postmaster General and U. S. Postal Service chief executive Patrick Donahoe said Friday he will retire Feb. 1 after a fouryear run overseeing dramatic restructuring and Boston Scientific must pay $26.7 million to a group of four women who blamed the company’s vaginal inserts for injuring them, a jury in Miami, Florida, concluded in the first federal trial of claims over the devices. The verdict is the first in a federal case against Boston Scientific over the Pinnacle inserts and the first to combine more than one plaintiff’s claims. The company said it would appeal.

Casino closing: The owners of Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City said in a court filing that they expect to close the boardwalk property on or before Dec. 12. The company had been warning for months that the struggling casino might close this fall if it didn’t get significant relief from its biggest union and millions in government aid. It the relief it sought from labor last month, when a bankruptcy judge allowed it to reject the union contract, but government help has not arrived.

Onion offers: The Onion Inc., the Chicago-based purveyor of fake news and entertainment websites, may really be for sale. Or not. Responding to a report by Bloomberg Thursday that the company was exploring a possible sale, Steve Hannah, CEO and minority owner of The Onion, sent employees a memo Friday outlining the “real story,” which he said was an investmentraising effort that has generated offers for the whole company. The Onion’s parent company has hired investment bank GCA Savvian, which it has worked with in the past, executives confirmed Friday.

New Avastin approval: Swiss drugmaker Roche said Friday that the Food and Drug Administration approved its drug Avastin as a treatment for ovarian cancer. Roche said the FDA approved Avastin in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for recurrent cases of cancer that are resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy.