LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk caused a stir by tweeting that he was buying the English soccer team Manchester United — whose current owners are opposed by many fans — then saying several hours later that it was a joke. It comes as the billionaire Tesla CEO faces a legal battle in the U.S. after…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The pace of sales at U.S. retailers was unchanged last month as persistently high inflation and rising interest rates forced many Americans to spend more cautiously. Retail purchases were flat after having risen 0.8% in June, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Economists had expected a slight increase. Still, Wednesday’s report contained some…
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Wartime rivals Serbia and Kosovo are holding high-level crisis talks on Thursday which the European Union mediators hope will de-escalate growing tensions in the Balkans where Russia has been trying to further increase its influence amid the war in Ukraine. Hopes that the rare face-to-face meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic…
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Social media companies are offering few specifics as they share their plans for safeguarding the U.S. midterm elections. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are generally staying the course from the 2020 voting season, which was marred by conspiracies and culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Video app…
NEW YORK (AP) — Target reported solid sales for the fiscal second quarter but its profit plunged nearly 90% after it was forced to slash prices to clear unwanted inventories of clothing, home goods and electronics. In early June, Target warned that it was canceling orders from suppliers and aggressively cutting prices because of a…
Stocks on Wall Street closed broadly lower Wednesday as drops by big technology companies wiped out the S&P 500′s gains for the week. The benchmark index fell 0.7%, snapping a three-day winning streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 1.3%. Small-company stocks fell more sharply than the rest of…
By Dawn Chmielewski and Svea Herbst-Bayliss (Reuters) – The first time billionaire investor Daniel Loeb began pushing for change at the Walt Disney Co, he got his wish. His hedge fund Third Point LLC in 2020 called on the company to suspend its dividend and go all-in on streaming. Days later, the company announced it…
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A spate of explosions and fires has turned Russian-occupied Crimea from a secure rear base into a new battleground in the war, demonstrating both the Russians’ vulnerability and the Ukrainians’ capacity to strike deep behind enemy lines. Nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air base in Crimea last week,…
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s inflation rate rose to a new 40-year high of 10.1% in July, a faster pace than in the U.S. and Europe as climbing food prices in the United Kingdom tightened a cost-of-living squeeze fueled by the soaring cost of energy. The double-digit surge in consumer prices over a year earlier was…
By Josh Ye HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s Tencent Holdings reported on Wednesday its first ever quarterly sales fall, hurt by a lack of game approvals and regulations that limit playing time, as well as COVID-19 lockdowns and a weak economy that squeezed ad sales. Tencent, the world’s largest video game company and the operator…
