Business news in brief

The downward trend at Pennsylvania's 12 casinos continued in January, when they won $171.8 million from slots players, down 8.7 percent from $188.2 million a year ago. At the four casinos in the Philadelphia area, January slots revenues fell to $61.5 million from $68.9 million in 2013, for an even steeper percentage decline of 10.8 percent. The report followed three days of hearings last week on which of five applicants may be awarded Philadelphia's second casino license. - Harold Brubaker

Philadelphia chemical company FMC Corp. said after markets closed that its fourth-quarter net income fell to $27.1 million, or 20 cents per share, from $102.2 million, or 74 cents per share, for the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter rose 24 percent, to $1.1 billion. Adjusted earnings were $1.05 per share, an increase of 36 percent compared with the prior-year quarter. - Reid Kanaley

Safeguard Scientifics Inc., the Wayne holding company that invests in health-care and technology firms, said its partner company Crescendo Bioscience Inc. agreed to be acquired by Myriad Genetics Inc., of Salt Lake City, for $270 million. The deal will net Safeguard about $40 million, Safeguard said. Crescendo, of South San Francisco, Calif., is developing a multi-biomarker blood test for rheumatoid arthritis. Safeguard holds a 13 percent interest in the company and has invested $11 million in it since December 2012. - Reid Kanaley

Coca-Cola is looking to tap into a new market, with plans to let customers make its sodas and other drinks at home. The world's biggest beverage maker said it was buying a 10 percent stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. for $1.25 billion as part of an agreement to bring its brands into the fast-growing at-home market. Green Mountain is known for its single-serve coffee makers, but is developing a machine for cold drinks as well. The deal comes as SodaStream makes an aggressive push to make its at-home carbonation machines a fixture in U.S. kitchens. - AP

The European Union's antitrust watchdog accepted "far-reaching" concessions offered by Google Inc. to settle allegations it is abusing its dominant position in Internet searches, bringing the three-year-old case close to an end. Google would significantly change the ways it displays some search results in Europe in favor of its competitors. But reaching a settlement will spare the company a longer antitrust procedure that could have resulted in fines of up to 10 percent of the company's annual revenue, or about $5 billion. EU Antitrust Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said he was "strongly convinced" the U.S. company's proposals were sufficient. - AP

Twitter Inc. reported a loss of $511 million, or $1.41 per share, in the October-December quarter. That compares with a loss of $8.7 million, or seven cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were two cents per share. Twitter's revenue more than doubled to $243 million from $112 million. Analysts on average had expected an adjusted loss of 2 cents per share and revenue of $218.1 million, according to FactSet. Twitter ended the quarter with 241 million monthly users, up 30 percent from a year earlier. That's slightly fewer than some analysts expected. Shares dipped in after-hours trading. - AP

A Seattle company is being given the green light to develop plans to build the West Coast's first offshore wind energy farm - five floating turbines off Oregon's Coos Bay, federal and state officials said. Proponents say offshore wind technology could bring clean, efficient electricity, create jobs and stimulate the economy. The pilot project will be developed by Seattle-based Principle Power using floating wind-turbine technology that has not been deployed in U.S. waters but is in use or under development in Europe and Asia. - AP

Disappointing retail sales figures are likely to reinforce concerns at the European Central Bank that the eurozone economic recovery is failing to gain momentum at a time when inflation is stubbornly low. Official figures released Wednesday - a day ahead of a highly anticipated ECB policy meeting - showed retail sales across the 18-country eurozone suffered their biggest drop in over 21/2 years in the crucial shopping month of December. Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, said retail sales fell 1.6 percent in December, more than offsetting the previous month's 0.9 percent rise. That was way worse than the 0.5 percent fall anticipated in the markets and represented the biggest monthly decline since May 2011. - AP