Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Former Commissioner David Stern praised the NBA's handling of the Donald Sterling controversy and predicts it will "end well" for the league.

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday that its second-quarter profit dropped 20 percent as smartphone and tablet sales fell.

The organizing committee for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang says South Korea's Hanjin Group chairman Cho Yang-ho has been elected as president.

His paintings made news worldwide, but it turns out that former President George W. Bush has been working on another, highly personal project since leaving the White House: He has quietly completed a biography of his father, former President George H. W. Bush.

President Barack Obama is preparing to sign an executive order cracking down on labor violations by companies that contract with the federal government, the White House said Wednesday.

The U. S. government is proposing new rules for banks and other financial firms aimed at preventing the use of anonymous companies to launder illicit profits.

The House That Wooden Built is waterlogged.

Cargill plans to close a Milwaukee beef-processing plant which employs about 600 people on Friday due to a shortage of cattle.

Argentines shrug off risk of default

A comparison of the Federal Reserve's statements from its two-day meeting that ended Wednesday and its meeting June 17-18:

Federal investigators looking for fraud in the nation's capital are scrutinizing a program meant to give local contractors a share of major construction projects, people familiar with the probe have told The Associated Press.

The Federal Reserve is further slowing the pace of its bond purchases because it thinks an improving U. S. economy needs less help. In a statement after a policy meeting, the Fed says it's paring its monthly purchases by another $10 billion to $25 billion.

Below is the statement the Fed released Wednesday after its policy meeting:

Police say a suspect arrested in a deadly Las Vegas home invasion told them she fought off a woman with a screwdriver to help her partner in crime as he struggled with and fatally shot the woman's husband.

U. S. stocks are turning mostly lower in midday trading, erasing an early gain. Genworth Financial sank 12 percent and Goodyear Tire & Rubber fell 7 percent after turning in results that disappointed investors. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell five points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,964 as of noon Eastern time Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 84 points, or 0.5 percent, to 16,827.

A former IRS official at the heart of the agency's tea party controversial called Republicans "crazies" and more in newly released emails.

Argentina's economy minister has resumed efforts to solve the South American nation's financial crisis without a default.