N.C. insurance rates 8th lowest

RALEIGH -- North Carolina drivers pay an average of $591.11 each year for auto insurance, Department of Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin announced Friday.

The amount is the eighth lowest in the country and the lowest in the South, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

North Dakota, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Maine, Indiana, in order, had the ten lowest car insurance.

Man blew whistle on Lehman Bros.

NEW YORK -- A Lehman Brothers whistleblower warned his bosses that accounting gimmicks the bank used before its collapse may have been illegal, his lawyer said Friday.

Matthew Lee, a former Lehman senior vice president, was fired days after questioning the accounting tricks in a letter to his superiors, attorney Erwin Shustak said. Shustak gave a copy of the letter to The Associated Press.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. imploded in September 2008, becoming the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. The collapse sent financial markets across the globe into a free-fall and prompted a massive bailout of the U.S. banking system.

An examiner appointed by the bankruptcy court said in a 2,200-page report last week that Lehman hid its debt and perilous financial condition by using an accounting gimmick called Repo 105. The report revealed Lee's warnings to the bank, though his letter makes public the first internal assessment of the legality of Lehman's bookkeeping.

Record soybean crop expected

CHICAGO -- Farmers will plant more soybeans than ever this year and the second-biggest area with corn since World War II, according to a survey of growers by Allendale Inc. Wheat acreage is expected to plummet.

Soybean plantings will rise 2.1 percent to 79.111 million acres from a record 77.451 million last year, Allendale said Friday in its 21st annual survey of farmers.

The combined area planted with winter and spring wheat will decline 9.6 percent to 53.467 million acres, from 59.133 million in 2009, the survey showed.

Icahn looks to take over studio

NEW YORK -- Activist shareholder Carl Icahn raised the stakes in his yearlong dispute with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. on Friday, launching an all-out bid to take over the movie studio following disagreements over its spending.

The hostile bid comes a week after Lions Gate rejected Icahn's offer to buy a larger minority stake and rewrote its bylaws to make such a takeover attempt more difficult in the future.

The new offer for all outstanding shares also raised the specter of Canadian government involvement because Icahn, an American, could own the Vancouver-based company and cause friction with the country's cultural policies.

-- From staff, wire reports