Less-confident consumers could stall recovery
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Consumers are having second thoughts about the recovery. Shoppers are losing confidence, becoming more concerned about low pay and a weak job market than about bargains. And their worries are threatening to drag down the economy.
BP, scientists try to make sense of well puzzle
NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ In a nail-biting day across the Gulf Coast, engineers struggled to make sense of puzzling pressure readings from the bottom of the sea Friday to determine whether BP’s capped oil well was holding tight. Halfway through a critical 48-hour window, the signs were promising but far from conclusive. Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said on an evening conference call that engineers had found no indication that the well has started leaking underground.
Banks eye higher fees to boost declining revenue
NEW YORK (AP) _ Big banks facing big drops in revenue are looking to Main Street to make up the difference. Checking accounts, bank statements, even popping into your local bank branch could carry a hefty cost as the nation’s mega-banks scramble to offset expected damage from the sweeping financial overhaul. The uncertain future has overshadowed otherwise strong second-quarter earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp.
Stocks drop on weak consumer sentiment, bank earns
NEW YORK (AP) _ Investors are finding disappointment everywhere and taking out their frustration on stocks. Stocks slumped Friday after banks’ second-quarter earnings fell short of expectations and a new survey found that consumers are becoming more pessimistic. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 261 points, and all the major market indexes dropped more than 2.5 percent. Interest rates fell in the Treasury market as investors once again sought the safety of government securities.
Apple CEO on antenna problem: ‘We aren’t perfect’
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) _ A perfect iPhone? There’s no app for that. Apple Inc. will give free protective cases to buyers of its latest iPhone to prevent reception problems that occur when people cover a certain spot on the phone with a bare hand. CEO Steve Jobs apologized Friday to people who are less than satisfied with the iPhone 4, even as he denied it has an antenna problem that needs fixing.
Congress acts, but bank bill has work ahead
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In the end, it’s only a beginning. The far-reaching new banking and consumer protection bill that President Barack Obama intends to sign on Wednesday now shifts from the politicians to the technocrats.
94 charged in Medicare scams totaling $251M
MIAMI (AP) _ Elderly Russian immigrants lined up to take kickbacks from the backroom of a Brooklyn clinic. Claims flooded in from Miami for HIV treatments that never occurred. One professional patient was named in nearly 4,000 false Medicare claims. Authorities said busts carried out this week in Miami, New York City, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La., were the largest Medicare fraud takedown in history _ part of a massive overhaul in the way federal officials are preventing and prosecuting the crimes.
AIG agrees to pay $725M to investors in settlement
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) _ American International Group Inc. and some of its directors and officers have agreed to a $725 million settlement to resolve allegations of wide-ranging fraud laid out in a class action suit led by three Ohio pension funds. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray said Friday the latest figure will combine with previous AIG settlements reached with secondary defendants to pay about $1 billion to shareholders, including pensions representing firefighters, police, teachers, librarians and others. He characterized it as the 10th largest securities litigation settlement in U.S. history.
Regulators shut banks in Fla, Mich, SC
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to succumb this year to the recession and mounting loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the banks: Woodlands Bank, based in Bluffton, S.C., with $376.2 million in assets; First National Bank of the South, based in Spartanburg, S.C., with $682 million in assets; and Mainstreet Savings Bank of Hastings, Mich., with $97.4 million in assets.
GE breaks string of profit drops but revenue falls
Cost cutting and an improved financial business helped General Electric Co. post its first increase in quarterly profit since 2007 on Friday, but sales remained sluggish for the industrial and financial giant. The better earnings ended a long string of declines at the Fairfield, Conn.-based company, which makes everything from refrigerators to jet engines. GE’s outlook was largely upbeat, helped by improving orders and lower losses and its GE Capital lending unit. It sees profits continuing to grow next year.
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