AUTOS

GM, UAW Near Accord on Truck Plant: Under the agreement, the auto maker’s Flint, Mich., truck plant would remain open. GM and the union say they want to reach an agreement now because they need to turn their attention to negotiating a new nationwide contract, which ends in September. General Motors Corp. has said it would close the factory, which makes crew-cab pickups and full-size vans, within three years. The three-year contract would include concessions from the plant’s 2,700 United Auto Workers members. Under a proposal being discussed, the company would begin making sport-utility vehicles or another truck by the end of the decade. Sales of pickups, sport-utility vehicles and minivans have grown faster than car sales, a trend that’s a problem for GM, which unlike Chrysler Corp. and Ford Motor Co., builds more cars than trucks.