The United States claims that European governments failed to end illegal subsidies for aircraft manufacturer Airbus and announce that they will be seeking sanctions on potentially billions of dollars of European goods. The earlier WTO ruling found that European governments had provided more than $18 billion in subsidized financing for Airbus.  Europe could face punitive duties on billions of dollar of exports to the United States if the panel agrees the EU has not removed the subsidy programs. The... 

Visa and MasterCard announced an investigation into whether a data security breach at one of the main companies that processes transactions for them exposed private customer information.  The breach occurred at Global Payments, a company based in Atlanta that helps Visa and MasterCard process transactions for merchants.  The data breach could potentially affect one million to three million credit card holders. Global Payments has provided little information on where the breaches took place, how... 

A petition to have BPA banned was denied by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The regulatory agency said it will not ban BPA now and it may never ban it. Those that want BPA banned say it is a toxic chemical that should not be in the food supply. They said the FDA has failed to protect the health and safety of Americans, even though scientific studies raise a number of disturbing questions about BPA’s long lasting effects. Jane Halloran a director of Consumer Union, an arm of Consumer Reports,... 

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stacked a number of photovoltaic solar cells on top of one another to produce as much as twenty times the output of conventional installations of solar panels. MIT built 3D stacks of the cells to combat the problem of needing so many to power just light bulbs. Their footprint is the same as just one flat solar panel but the surface area in much, much larger. A variety of the 3D stacks was made by the researchers including cubes.... 

A huge data breach at a firm that processes payments has compromised debit and credit card information for all the major card brands. The processing company, Global Payments confirmed on Friday that card information might have been accessed. The company said the intrusion was discovered in the beginning of March and it promptly notified all parties involved. The company would not release the total number of accounts that were affected or the type of information that might have been compromised. A... 

Security forces dressed in riot gear had to be deployed in large number along the borders of the Israeli and Palestinian territories. This came in anticipation of a possible repeat of violence that took place last year where 38 people were killed near the borders with Syria and Lebanon. On Friday, a Palestinian man was shot by Israeli troops. Thousands are participating in the annual protest against land policies in the Jewish states. Protesters include people from Israel, Palestine and neighboring... 

Nokia will begin selling its new line of Lumia phones in China next month.  The company is hoping that the product introductions will build momentum for Lumia Windows phones in China and other countries.  The Lumia phones will be sold through one of the country’s largest mobile operators.  Nokia is also planning to begin selling Lumia phones in the United States and Latin America later this year. Nokia previously announced plans to phase out smartphones using its own Symbian operating system... 

Big Oil is seeing a Big Shift these days. A Chinese upstart has taken over the rank of No. 1 leaving an American company in its wake. Exxon Mobil was displaced as the world’s largest oil producer, that is publicly traded. Now, for the first time ever, that distinction has been handed over to PetroChina a 13-year old company that is 86% owned by the Chinese government. On Thursday, PetroChina announced it had reached the 2.4 million barrels per day threshold last year. That surpassed oil giant Exxon... 

Synthetic marijuana was sold freely in shops throughout New York City until Thursday. The city has banned sales of the product after it was linked to serious health risks. The product known as Smiley Dog, Spice, Mr. Nice Guy and Galaxy Gold gives its smokers a chemical high, which up to now was available over the counter in tobacco shops and convenience stores. Nirav Shah the state’s Health Commissioner banned the product immediately. Synthetic marijuana is plant based and covered in chemicals... 

As of Thursday, a shift at the top of Sony became official. Michael Lynton was named Sony Corp. of America CEO, effective on June 27. Starting the same date, the video game and electronics units of Sony will report to its Japanese headquarters. Both used to form part of Sony America. Lynton will remain as Sony Pictures Entertainment’s chairman in Culver City. He will also take command of Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Sony Music Entertainment. In Lynton’s new role, Martin Bandier the Chairman... 

A criminal complaint filed in federal court on Thursday alleges that Clayton Obson, a JetBlue captain, told his co-pilot, “We must make a leap of faith.” The pilot had a meltdown in midair Tuesday and the criminal complaint suggests Obson was acting strangely as early as take off on the flight to Las Vegas. The complaint said the captain was late in arriving to JFK Airport and missed the briefing of the crew. When the flight took off, Obson started to speak about focusing, church and being evaluated. He... 

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS), the firm that famously survived the subprime mortgage crisis by essentially shorting the housing market has now reversed course. The firm is now raising money for a new fund that will buy home-loan bonds, which would benefit from an improving real estate market. Although on a national scale home prices and sales have only recently begun rebounding, the long run potential remains, and the firm is seeking to capitalize on that expected appreciation. Housing debt can... 

Mortgage-backed securities quickly fell out of favor over the past 4 years, though with sufficient yield, a market for them may still exist. This is the hypothesis JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) must be making, reviving the sales of commercial mortgage backed securities, supported mostly by delinquent loans. The market for these instruments has been non-existent since the late 1990’s, but new incentives for buyers of distressed debt may be bringing them back in to favor. Today, the bank told investors... 

Amidst a continued tumultuous environment for Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), speculation of rating cuts and continued loan losses have plagued the firm, sagged the earnings and weighed down it’s stock price. Research analyst David George is the latest to add to this concern, publishing his research out of Robert W. Baird, where he has downgraded Bank of America. George stated that he is concerned the bank won’t maintain strong earnings after it finishes divesting assets to maintain capital... 

Oracle exceeded estimates for quarterly profit for the third quarter.  Oracle’s profit, excluding certain one-time costs, increased to $0.62 per share.  The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News was $0.56. Oracle also exceeded estimates for new license sales.  New software license sales increased 7%, to $2.37 billion, in the fiscal third quarter.  Analysts had predicted 3% growth.  Joel Levington, a managing director at Brookfield Investment Management in New York, said in... 

A family in Haines City, Florida has sued a local hospital and nurse for cutting off the finger of their eight-month-old daughter. The baby girl’s mother Veronica Olguin said, “She was so perfect and now this.” The baby was taken to Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center by her month because of bronchitis and a high fever. Three days later, the baby was discharged. Veronica, just 15, said she sat her daughter on her lap so the nurse could cut away the IV from the baby’s arm. However, the... 

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, Inc. is in China to discuss problems with government officials in the biggest growth market the company has. The problems range from the treatment of local workers to the contested trademark of their iPad tablet. This is Cook’s first trip to China since he has taken over the CEO position from the late co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs. On Monday, Cook met with the mayor of Beijing and visited one of the two stores Apple has in China’s capital. A China spokesperson for... 

Exports of Iranian oil appear to be slowing down this month. Buyers are preparing for new sanctions and shipments for the country are likely to be less if President Barack Obama decides, which is likely he will, that markets will adjust to less oil from Iran. At the end of this month, three months before the European Union oil embargo is scheduled to take effect, the amount of oil exported from Iran is expected to drop by over 300,000 barrels per day from February. At that point, Iranian oil exports... 

On Wednesday, a snowplow driver and his wife were charged in the death of a Vermont teacher. The two allegedly lured the prep school teacher out of her home by fabricating a story about their car breaking down. Authorities said the couple then beat and strangled the teacher. They are alleged to have then stripped her body and thrown it into the Connecticut River. Allen and Patricia Prue of Waterford both pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder in the death Melissa Jenkins. The victim’s... 

The head coach of the New York Jets, Rex Ryan, said the team does not have a quarterback controversy. Last week the Jets traded for Tim Tebow. The former Denver quarterback arrived just after the Jets extended the contract of current starting quarterback Mark Sanchez. Ryan said on Tuesday, while at the NFL owners meetings, that people who have criticized the team for trading for Tebow do not know the team’s reason for the trade. Ryan pointed out that he thinks a Wildcat package will fit Tebow’s... 

The tourism ministry in Brazil had indentified over 2,000 sites on the internet that promote sex tourism in Brazil, back in 2011. Many of those sites were hosted in the United States. The ministry said it found 2,169 sites that contained photos of women in provocative clothing and poses. The sites also included invitations for sexual liaisons with minors. Since the ministry found these sites in 2011, they said over half of them have eliminated all of their content that was sex-oriented. The ministry... 

The rise in gas prices will likely cut summer travel for many vacationers as well as business travelers. A recent survey by the U.S. Travel Association of 2,500 U.S. households found that over 44% said higher prices of gas would curb the number of vacations they take during the upcoming summer. Thirty-seven percent said their trips would be shorter, while some said they would shorten their trips and have fewer. Just 19% said their business trips would be fewer because of the gas prices. However,... 

The White House faced questioning from skeptical U.S. Supreme Court justices about the administration’s healthcare law. Tuesday’s questioning was dominated by conservative justices during a two-hour, tense meeting over the healthcare law that has divided America. The law’s requirement that most people must obtain heath insurance or otherwise face a penalty appears to have gained the interest of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy. Both conservatives repeatedly asked lawyers from the Obama... 

Qantas Airways announced the formation of a partnership with China Eastern Airlines to create a low-cost airline based in Hong Kong.  Many airline ventures have sprung up in Asia lately as carriers jockey for position in anticipation of a major increase in air travel.  Customers who expect a complete range of services generally choose full-service carriers like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, which dominate the market in large parts of Asia. The companies will be investing around $198 million... 

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc chairman and founder Robert Stiller, sold over $66 million of stock in the company before it plummeted more than at any other time in 48 months. That came after news broke that Starbucks had a rival brewer to compete with its famous K-Cup coffee brewer. Stiller made two stock sales in February. Together, they were the largest sales he had made in one month since 2003. At that time, the stock was only $2. If he would have kept his stock until after the March 9 Starbucks...