Category: Business

AUSTIN, Minn. – Tuesday, May 15 – Local leaders today thanked their local legislators Sen. Dan Sparks and Rep. Jeanne Poppe , among other state legislators, for their successful efforts in the…

By Salvador Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Facebook has launched a new iPhone app dedicated for the use of Facebook Pages. Pages Manager is an app built to allow people…

By Shan Li and Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Despite multiple corruption probes into its Mexican subsidiary, retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported first-quarter profits that exceeded Wall Street…

By Jeremy C. Owens,San Jose Mercury News – SAN JOSE, Calif. — As it prepares for its highly anticipated IPO, Facebook continued with the business of being the world’s largest social network…

Dave DeWitte, CR Gazette – CEDAR RAPIDS — National restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday abruptly closed its restaurant at 2215 Edgewood Rd. SW on Tuesday, laying off about 30-35 employees. Justin Powrie, a…

McClatchy-Tribune News Service (Chicago Tribune) – JPMorgan Chase and its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, deserve the heat they’re getting for underestimating the magnitude of their derivatives trades gone wrong, but one important…

By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News – SAN JOSE, Calif. — A day after a boardroom coup at Yahoo, the struggling Internet company is in the hands of a major shareholder and…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who serves on the Senate Banking Committee, has called for a hearing on the $2-billion trading loss by JPMorgan…

By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — The Coca-Cola Co. is trying out mid-calorie versions of its Sprite and Fanta sodas months after competitor PepsiCo Inc. launched its own limited-calorie…

By Michelle Maltais, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — An upgrade appears to be on the horizon for Apple’s iCloud, potentially shifting the service from just syncing your shots to sharing them…

By Jeremy C. Owens, San Jose Mercury News – SAN JOSE, Calif. — Yahoo received an immediate stock bump Monday from the departure of embattled CEO Scott Thompson and a deal that gives…

Kevin Coss, Austin Daily Herald, Minn. – The Hormel Institute just got the monetary “green light” for its proposed $27 million expansion. Gov. Mark Dayton signed the nearly $500-million bonding bill Friday afternoon,…

Adam Harringa, Austin Daily Herald, Minn. – Spam’s 75th birthday bash isn’t until July, but the canned meat hit another milestone today. On May 11, 1937 — exactly 75 years ago — Hormel…

By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — Yahoo chief executive Scott Thompson resigned from the digital media company Sunday after a dissident shareholder called attention to his apparent misrepresentation of…

By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau – WASHINGTON — JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon acknowledged Sunday that his company’s $2 billion trading loss could empower government regulators seeking to place tighter…

By Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — LegalZoom.com Inc., an online provider of legal services for consumers and small businesses, has filed to raise as much as $120 million…

By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — Most economists don’t expect Europe’s debt problems to sink the sluggish U.S. economic recovery, but clearly Europe has sent new headwinds our way, dragging…

By Alan Bavley, McClatchy Newspapers – KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A U.S. Senate committee is examining a Kansas City, Mo.-based bioethics think tank’s financial ties to the pain pill industry. The inquiry…

By Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News – SAN JOSE, Calif. — To get the true measure of what’s often called “The Facebook Effect,” look beyond the company. Generally ignored in the…

By John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News – SHENZHEN, China — The global controversy surrounding the treatment of assembly-line workers who manufacture iPhones and iPads — and just about every other consumer…

By Gregory Karp, Chicago Tribune  – CHICAGO — United Airlines, in response to customer feedback that included an online petition, has changed its pet-restriction policy. It no longer bans nine breeds of…

McClatchy-Tribune News Service 800-CEO-READ, a leading direct supplier of book-based resources, compiles a monthly list of best-selling business books based on purchases by its corporate customers nationwide. Here are the best sellers…

By Gary M. Singer, Sun Sentinel – QUESTION: I am trying to sell my age-restricted condominium for $25,000. Every real estate agent I speak with wants to charge a flat fee that…

By Andrew Dunn, McClatchy Newspapers – CHARLOTTE, N.C. — More than 200,000 letters from Bank of America will begin landing in homeowners’ mailboxes this week, the bank said Tuesday, offering principal reduction…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON — In a potential turning point for one of the biggest financial crisis bailouts, Fannie Mae reported a first-quarter profit and — for the…

By Dawn C. Chmielewski – LOS ANGELES — Fallout from the British phone-hacking scandal continues to rattle News Corp., even as strong performances from the media giant’s cable television and film groups…

By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — A nation still struggling to clear up one housing debacle has run smack into another — soaring rents. The foreclosure mess has…

By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times – LOS ANGELES — A newly streamlined government plan to reward homeowners who diligently pay their underwater mortgages is proving a bonanza for banks, which…

By Sean Cockerham, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — As the summer growing season approaches, farmers across the county are experiencing widespread frustration over the federal H-2A visa program for seasonal agriculture workers….

By Douglas Hanks, McClatchy Newspapers – MIAMI — Walk through the modern new document depository in Medley, Fla., and one thing becomes clear: Paper can be a hard habit to break. Opened…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON— The U.S. government could end up pocketing $15.1 billion in profit from the bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc., according to a new…

By Juan O. Tamayo, McClatchy Newspapers  – MIAMI — The six Cuban-Americans in the Congress on Tuesday demanded “an urgent meeting” with the head of Ikea in North America to discuss whether…

By Jeff Gelles, The Philadelphia Inquirer – PHILADELPHIA — Nearly two years after the Federal Reserve began requiring banks to get customers’ permission before subjecting them to controversial overdraft practices, many account-holders are…

By Andrew Dunn, McClatchy Newspapers – CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Shareholders making their way to Bank of America Corp.’s annual meeting Wednesday in uptown Charlotte may find themselves weaving through scores of protesters angry…

Tom Webb, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn. – Most of Minnesota’s corporate giants have slid a few notches in the latest Fortune 500 ranking, released Monday, May 7. Of the 19 Minnesota-based corporations…

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times – SAN FRANCISCO — Dressed in his trademark hoodie and jeans, Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg kicked off a cross-country road show to pitch his company’s initial…