EDUCATION

MIT scraps plan to convert warehouse into dorms

Apparently turning a block-long, century-old brick fortress of a storage facility into student housing is too hard to pull off, even for some of the most brilliant engineers and architects in the world. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has decided to scrap its plan to convert the recently closed Metropolitan Storage warehouse into dorms, saying the project was just too technically challenging. The school will build dorms elsewhere and find another use for the castle-like structure that looms over Massachusetts Avenue near the heart of the MIT campus.

INSURANCE

MassMutual acquires MetLife unit

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. will acquire MetLife Inc.’s US retail adviser group, adding about 4,000 financial advisers and helping the Springfield company expand its core life insurance business as well as retirement and financial product offerings. MassMutual will pay $300 million for MetLife Premier Client Group and related assets. The deal adds to MassMutual’s sales force of more than 5,600 financial professionals. At the end of 2015, the company held about $642 billion of assets under management. MassMutual, one of the nation’s biggest insurance firms, has expanded through acquisitions under chief executive Roger Crandall.

INSURANCE

Raises for Liberty Mutual, MassMutual CEOs

The leaders of the two largest mutual insurance companies in Massachusetts received hefty pay increases in 2015, the companies disclosed Monday. Roger Crandall of MassMutual received a 21 percent raise in 2015, upping his salary to nearly $12 million, from $9.8 million the previous year. David Long, chief executive of Liberty Mutual Insurance of Boston, earned a $15.7 million pay package in 2015, up nearly 13 percent from the $13.9 million the year before. Most of their pay came in the form of bonuses and other performance incentives.

TECHNOLOGY

Dell, EMC outline executive team for merged company

Dell Inc. and EMC Corp. are outlining the executives who will run the sprawling computing company after their merger is completed.The new corporate structure, laid out in memos from EMC chief executive Joe Tucci and Dell CEO Michael Dell, was disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Dell will be CEO after the acquisition of EMC is complete. Tucci will retire. David Goulden, chief executive of EMC’s core data-storage business, will be in charge of Dell’s new “enterprise systems group.’’ EMC president Howard Elias will team with Dell’s Rory Read to jointly lead the “integration’’ work of melding the two large companies.

AVIATION

JetBlue seeks to launch Boston-Havana service

JetBlue Airways Corp. has applied to begin service to Cuba from six US cities, including Boston. If approved by the US Department of Transportation, JetBlue would offer one flight a day from Logan International Airport to Havana, the company said. It would also offer flights to Cuba from New York, Newark, and Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando in Florida. The airline said it expects to begin service to Cuba in September. Jet Blue is one of at least eight carriers that submitted applications to the Department of Transportation for Cuba routes. The government will spend the next few months reviewing the requests.

GOVERNMENT

DeLeo proposes noncompete compromise

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo vowed Wednesday to put new limits on contracts that restrict employees from working for competitors, breathing new life into a long-running reform campaign that has divided the Massachusetts high-tech sector. In a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, DeLeo said noncompete agreements should be limited to one year and not apply to lower-wage workers. His support for compromise legislation on noncompete agreements was welcomed by major employers, including EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, but irked some in the startup sector, who said noncompetes make Massachusetts less competitive.

ECONOMY

Hiring strong in February

The Labor Department reported that employers added 242,000 workers in February, a hefty increase that highlighted the labor market’s steady gains. The unemployment rate held at 4.9 percent last month, the report said. The private sector has chalked up 72 months of uninterrupted job gains, the longest streak on record. The shadow on the otherwise positive Labor Department report was that wages fell 0.1 percent in February, a disappointment after January’s promising 0.5 percent increase. That put the yearly growth in wages at 2.2 percent, only slightly ahead of the inflation rate.

MEDIA

America’s Test Kitchen gets new hosts

The executives behind “America’s Test Kitchen’’ have turned to a couple of familiar faces to replace Chris Kimball, the popular host who presided over the TV show since its ­inception in 2001. Parent company Boston Common Press unveiled the new hosts of the public television show: longtime cast members Julia Collin Davison (left in photo) and Bridget Lancaster (right). The executive food editors are regulars as test cooks on the show but have only appeared together once before. Kimball and public television’s top-rated cooking show parted ways, ostensibly because of a contract dispute.

ALCOHOL

Beer distributor pays record fine

The largest distributor of craft beers in Massachusetts will pay a $2.6 million fine to avoid a 90-day suspension of its liquor license, a record-setting penalty imposed after the company was caught paying Boston bars to stock its brews, state regulators said Tuesday. An investigation by the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, or ABCC, found that the distributor, Craft Brewers Guild of Everett, ran a so-called “pay-to-play’’ scheme in violation of state alcohol rules. As punishment, the ABCC in February slapped Craft Brewers Guild with an unprecedented 90-day license suspension. The company had the option of paying a fine instead.

ENERGY

Shale drilling pioneer dies in crash after indictment

Aubrey McClendon, the swashbuckling energy industry innovator who pioneered the nation’s shale revolution, died in a car crash Wednesday, a day after he was ­indicted on federal bid-rigging charges.The Oklahoma City police said the car ­McClendon was driving hit the wall of a bridge at high speed in a remote part of Oklahoma City, the same day he was to appear in court. Police did not characterize the death as a suicide. The indictment served by the Justice Department late Tuesday alleged that McClendon orchestrated a conspiracy in which two unnamed companies colluded not to bid against each other for several oil and gas leases.