Asian markets cautious ahead of US jobs report

MUMBAI, India -- Asian stock markets were lackluster Thursday as traders turned cautious ahead of a U.S. jobs report and the monthly policy meeting of the European Central Bank.

Thursday's wait-and-see trading followed a rally the previous day after China and the U.S., the world's two biggest economies, reported growth in manufacturing.

The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo was down 0.2 percent to 15,340.75 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged 0.1 percent lower to 25,521.36. South Korea's Kospi shed 0.3 percent to 2,019.84.

The Taiex in Taiwan gained 0.5 percent to 9,530.05 and China's Shanghai Composite was trading up 0.1 percent to 2,158.59, continuing momentum from a positive China manufacturing report.

In India, the Bombay Stock Exchange halted all trading early Thursday due to a network outage. It said trading would resume once the glitch was resolved.

The U.S. government's nonfarm payrolls figures for June will be released later Thursday. Economists have forecast that employers added 215,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at 6.3 percent, according to financial data provider FactSet.

Anticipation of a positive U.S. jobs report pushed Wall Street indexes to fresh highs on Wednesday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.1 percent to 1,974.62. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.1 percent to 16,976.24. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow are at all-time highs. The Nasdaq composite fell less than 0.1 percent, to 4,457.73.

The European Central Bank is also scheduled to meet later Thursday. The bank is not expected to announce any major moves after further easing monetary policy last month, but investors will be looking to ECB President Mario Draghi's speech for clues about how the bank may act in future.

"European markets should find modest support on open, although it promises to be an action -packed day" particularly in the U.S., Chris Weston, strategist for IG, said in market commentary.

In Europe on Wednesday, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.2 percent to close at 6,816.37 while the CAC-40 in France fell 0.4 percent to 4,444.72. Germany's DAX rose 0.1 percent to 9,911.27.

In energy markets, the price of crude oil dropped 39 cents to $104.09 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 86 cents to $104.48 on Wednesday.

The euro dropped to $1.3650 from $1.3657 late Wednesday. The dollar rose to 101.89 yen from 101.79 yen.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest – July 3, 2014

The following are a selection of stories from Lebanese newspapers that may be of interest to Daily Star readers. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.

As-Saifr

Power rationing ‘terrorism’ hits Lebanese

Livelihood challenges are no less important and serious than security threats facing Lebanon.

A dry and dark summer is in the cards for Lebanese, which requires an urgent government response to face the drought and the darkness.

The average rationing in Beirut’s southern suburbs is between 10-12 hours, and in most cities of south and east Lebanon it is between 12-14 hours, while in some areas of the north and northern Bekaa power cuts reach 20 hours a day.

The water situation is no better off than the drought and has begun affecting a lot of areas and villages, with the scarcity of rivers and wells due to poor rainfall this year. Water tankers are already causing traffic jams along many streets.

An-Nahar

Government divided over Damascus talks

An-Nahar has learned that the issue of Syrian refugees will be put on the table during a Cabinet meeting Thursday as Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi is expected to comment on remarks made by Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul-Karim Ali following talks with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

Ali had rejected a Lebanese proposal to set up refugee camps along the border between the two countries.

The Syrian refugee crisis has triggered a split in government with those who support political contacts with Damascus and those who oppose talks with the Syrian regime.

More to follow ...

Advertisement

TxDOT to revamp TxTag customer service, website

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas Department of Transportation is shutting down its toll tag customer service and website Friday for a thorough upgrade to debut next week.

A TxDOT (tex-dot) statement says the new and improved TxTag (tex-tag) customer services are to launch Wednesday, with a website that offers live chat support and a new mobile website that allows account management on the go. Billing statements are being redesigned, and text-message alerts will be offered.

A new automated phone system will allow payments, account updates and other services by phone. More automatic pay options will be offered, and reactivation fees will be eliminated.

---

Online:

http://www.txtag.org

Oregonian names new journalism leader, editor

PORTLAND, Ore. -- An editor at a California-based investigative reporting organization has been named to lead online and newspaper journalism at The Oregonian, the state's largest newspaper.

The news organization reports (http://bit.ly/1ooymbV) 51-year-old Mark Katches (KAHCH'-uhs) has been appointed vice president of content for the Oregonian Media Group and editor of The Oregonian.

Katches has been editorial director of The Center for Investigative Reporting since 2009. It's headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Katches worked for 10 years at The Orange County Register as an enterprise and investigative reporter and team leader. After that, he was lead editor for investigative reporting at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where his team won Pulitzer Prizes in 2008 and 2010 for local reporting.

He succeeds Peter Bhatia, who left to teach at Arizona State University.

Guard booth fire at Lebanese Parliament doused

Guard booth fire at Lebanese Parliament doused

Firefighters doused a blaze Thursday the ripped through a guard shack at Parliament in Downtown Beirut.

US hiring likely strong for a 5th straight month

WASHINGTON -- Hiring was likely robust for a fifth straight month in June, a sign that the economic recovery, now entering its sixth year, is finally gaining meaningful traction.

Economists have forecast that employers added 215,000 jobs last month, according to FactSet. That would be roughly in line with the 217,000 workers added in April. Average monthly job gains have averaged 213,600 this year.

The government will release the June employment report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time Thursday.

If more than 200,000 workers were added last month, it would mark the fifth consecutive month of job gains at least that high. Not since the height of the tech boom in 1999 and 2000 has hiring been that consistently strong.

Analysts predict that the unemployment rate will remain 6.3 percent for a third straight month. If the rate stays flat despite solid hiring, it will likely be because more people out of work began seeking jobs last month. The government counts people as unemployed only if they're actively seeking jobs. So when more people start looking for work, more are typically counted as jobless, and the unemployment rate can stay flat or even rise.

Private payrolls provider ADP said Wednesday that businesses added 281,000 jobs in June. The figure suggests that the government's jobs report could bring a pleasant surprise. But the ADP numbers cover only private businesses, and they often diverge from the government's more comprehensive report

In May, the economy surpassed its jobs total in December 2007, when the Great Recession started. But economists at the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimate that 7 million more jobs would have been needed to keep up with population growth.

Many people who lost jobs during the recession and were never rehired have stopped looking for work. Just 62.8 percent of adult Americans are working or are looking for a job, compared with 66 percent before the recession.

Average wages, meanwhile, have grown just 2 percent a year during the recovery, below the long-run average annual growth of about 3.5 percent.

Many economists predicted late last year that the steady but tepid recovery would accelerate in 2014. The momentum built over the past four years will finally unleash more hiring and higher wages, they said.

But the economy actually shrank in the first three months of this year at an annual rate of 2.9 percent. That's the sharpest quarterly contraction since the recession. Ferocious winter storms and freezing temperatures caused factories to close and prevented consumers from visiting shopping malls and auto dealers.

Yet the winter failed to freeze hiring. This should help to speed economic growth because more jobs lead to more paychecks to spend.

Most economists say annualized growth is tracking 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the current second quarter. Growth over the course of the entire year should be closer to 2 percent for the entire year, roughly similar to the 1.9 percent increase in gross domestic product achieved last year.

Other than the weak growth at the start of the year, the economy's health appears to be improving.

Auto sales rose at the fastest pace in eight years in June. Dealers unloaded vehicles at an annual pace of 16.98 million last month. Factory orders picked up last month as well, according to a report this week by the Institute for Supply Management.

Home sales also strengthened in May, after having sputtered in the middle of last year when higher mortgage rates and rising prices hurt affordability.

Groups want to see Montana judge's racist emails

BILLINGS, Mont. -- A group of American Indians wants a court to preserve and eventually release an investigative file containing inappropriate emails sent by a federal judge, including a racist message involving President Barack Obama.

Two Indian advocacy groups from Montana and South Dakota and a member of the Crow tribe filed a petition in U.S. District Court in California asking for the file to be preserved as evidence.

The groups want to know if Chief District Judge Richard Cebull made biased decisions from the bench. Their next step will be to file a lawsuit seeking public release of the documents, plaintiffs' attorney Lawrence Organ said Wednesday.

Cebull was investigated after forwarding a racist message involving Obama. A judicial review panel found he sent hundreds of emails from his federal account that showed disdain for blacks, Indians, Hispanics, women, certain religions and others. He was publicly reprimanded and retired last year.

The investigation found no evidence of bias in his rulings. Organ said the only way to know that for sure is through the release of the emails.

"The fundamental principles of our entire legal system fall apart if a judge doesn't come in with a neutral position," Organ said. "If there are other decision makers involved, we're not asking for their private email accounts. All we want to see are the emails accounts they used as government officials."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has said its file on Cebull is confidential.

Plaintiffs in the case are South Dakota-based advocacy group Four Directions, Montana-based Indian People's Action, and Sara Plains Feather, a member of southeastern Montana's Crow Tribe.

Four Directions was involved in a voting rights lawsuit that sought to force several Montana counties to establish satellite voting districts on reservations. Cebull ruled against the Indian plaintiffs in that case, which was later settled after the 9th Circuit overturned his ruling.

Cebull himself and 10 others requested the misconduct investigation after The Great Falls Tribune reported the judge forwarded an email in February 2012 that included a joke about bestiality and Obama's mother. Cebull apologized to Obama after the contents of that email were published.

The investigation looked at four years of Cebull's personal correspondence sent from his official email account.

Cebull told the 9th Circuit panel that his "public shaming has been a life-altering experience." Nominated by former President George W. Bush, he received his commission in 2001 and served as chief judge of the District of Montana from 2008 until 2013.

Named as defendants in the case were the office of 9th Circuit Executive Cathy Catterson and the Committee on Judicial Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Ninth Circuit spokesman David Madden said he could not comment on the pending petition.

The plaintiffs attempted in May to directly petition the 9th Circuit. That was rejected by the court's clerk, who said the petition needed to be filed first at the district court level.

Business Highlights

---

32 states trail US as a whole in job recovery

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five years after the Great Recession officially ended, most states still haven't regained all the jobs they lost, even though the nation as a whole has.

In May, the overall economy finally recovered all 9 million jobs that vanished in the worst downturn since the 1930s. Another month of solid hiring is expected in the U.S. jobs report for June that will be released Thursday.

Yet 32 states still have fewer jobs than when the recession began in December 2007 — evidence of the unevenness and persistently slow pace of the recovery.

---

Ruling impact on birth-control coverage mixed

NEW YORK (AP) — Business owners who don't want to pay for their employees' birth control are ending that coverage after the Supreme Court said they could choose on grounds of religious belief not to comply with part of the health care law.

Some owners are already in touch with their brokers in the wake of Monday's ruling.

The Supreme Court ruled that some businesses can, because of their religious beliefs, choose not to comply with the health care law's requirement that contraception coverage be provided to workers at no extra charge. The 5-4 ruling has the Obama administration looking for another way to provide birth control for women who work for those companies.

---

Review: Evolutionary advances in new smartwatches

NEW YORK (AP) — New Android wristwatches from Samsung and LG make a few evolutionary advances, though I won't be rushing out to buy either.

Samsung's Gear Live and LG's G Watch are good products and will appeal to those who like to be among the first to own new gadgets.

The watches serve as pedometers and let you catch up on email, texts and Facebook notifications while your phone is in your pocket or charging in the bedroom. Even with the phone in your hand, you can check messages on the watch and keep playing video on the phone.

Both smartwatches try to keep things simple through voice commands rather than touch. They use Google's Android Wear system, which I reviewed earlier.

---

UK investigating Facebook over psych experiment

LONDON (AP) — British data protection authorities are investigating revelations that Facebook conducted a psychological experiment on its users.

The Information Commissioner's Office said Wednesday that it wants to learn more about the circumstances of the experiment carried out by two U.S. universities and the social network.

The commissioner's office is working with authorities in Ireland, where Facebook has headquarters for its European operations. French authorities are also reviewing the matter.

The researchers manipulated the news feeds of about 700,000 randomly selected users to study the impact of "emotional contagion," or how emotional states are transferred to others. The researchers said the evidence showed that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people and "in the complete absence of nonverbal cues."

---

Stocks close at all-time highs as hiring surges

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks closed at their latest all-time highs Wednesday following news that business hiring surged in June, adding to evidence that the U.S. economy is picking up momentum.

ADP, a payroll processer, said businesses added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month. The figure suggests the government's monthly jobs report, due out Thursday, could also show a significant gain from May.

The stock market climbed back to record levels a day earlier after separate reports showed that manufacturing expanded in China and the U.S., the world's two largest economies.

---

Yellen sees little threat to financial stability

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday that she doesn't see a need for the Fed to start raising interest rates to defuse the risk that extremely low rates could destabilize the financial system.

Yellen said she does see "pockets" of increased risk-taking. But she said those threats could be addressed through greater use of regulatory tools. Many of those tools, such as higher capital standards for banks, were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, which triggered the Great Recession.

In her remarks at a conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, Yellen disputed criticism that the Fed had contributed to the 2008 crisis by keeping rates too low earlier in the decade.

---

Survey: US companies added 281,000 jobs in June

WASHINGTON (AP) — A private survey shows U.S. business hiring surged in June, a sign of stronger economic growth.

Payroll processer ADP said Wednesday that private employers added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month.

The figure suggests the government's jobs report, to be released Thursday, could also show a significant gain from May's tally of 217,000 jobs. But the ADP numbers cover only private businesses and often diverge from the government's more comprehensive report.

Recent economic data suggests that the economy has shifted into a higher gear. Autos sold at an annual rate of 16.9 million in June, the highest rate since January 2006. New orders for manufacturers are at a six-month peak, according to the Institute for Supply Management.

---

US factory orders slide 0.5 percent in May

WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories fell in May, ending three months of gains.

The Commerce Department reported that orders fell 0.5 percent, pulled down by falling demand for military and transportation equipment. That followed increases of 0.8 percent in April, 1.5 percent in March and 1.7 percent in February.

Excluding military hardware, factory orders rose 0.2 percent in May from April. Orders for transportation equipment fell 2.9 percent. Orders for computers and electronic equipment fell 2 percent, biggest monthly drop since December.

Orders for durable goods, meant to last three years or more, fell 0.9 percent in May. Orders for nondurable goods slipped 0.2 percent.

Factory orders were up 2.5 percent from May 2013.

---

Missouri city opts not to pay for flood protection

CLARKSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — For years, tiny Clarksville has paid for temporary sandbag walls to protect its quaint business district and historic waterfront homes from Mississippi River flooding. But unwilling to raid its coffers again despite rising water levels, the city has left it to individual merchants and residents to safeguard their property.

After an unusually calm spring, the river is raging. Recent heavy rains in the upper Midwest have caused a sudden surge in the water level and by the middle of next week, the National Weather Service is projecting it to reach 9 feet above flood stage in Clarksville.

---

Small business owners learn recession lessons

NEW YORK (AP) — For some small business owners, the Great Recession turned out to be a lesson in how to run their companies better.

Many owners whose businesses failed during the recession have taken the plunge again, restarting or opening new businesses. But they're not repeating past mistakes. Their companies are leaner, smarter and less risky.

There are no definitive numbers on how many small businesses failed during the recession. But there were 337,303 fewer companies with under 499 employees in 2011 than there were before the recession began, according to the Census Bureau. The government hasn't released more recent statistics, so it's not known how many new companies there are, or how many owners went on to start new businesses.

---

By The Associated Press=

The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 20 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 16,976. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose a point to 1,974. The Nasdaq composite edged down a point to 4,457.

Benchmark U.S. crude for August delivery fell 86 cents to $104.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its fifth day of declines. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, fell $1.05 to $111.24 a barrel in London. Wholesale gasoline fell a penny to $3.02 a gallon. Natural gas fell 9 cents to $4.36 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil fell three cents to $2.95 a gallon.

Markets steady as US jobs report looms

LONDON -- Markets were leaden-footed Wednesday after a strong U.S. private payrolls report, a day ahead of the early publication of official government data.

ADP, a payroll processer, said U.S. businesses added 281,000 jobs last month. That was up on the 179,000 recorded in the previous month and the 200,000 median forecast in the markets.

The ADP survey suggests that Thursday's official government figures could also show a significant gain from May's tally of 217,000 jobs. The government's nonfarm payrolls figures are being released a day earlier than usual because of U.S. Independence Day.

However, analysts were cautious as the ADP figures don't always tally with the government data.

"This means upside risk to tomorrow's payroll report but please remember how the ADP is known for throwing the market off ahead of the official jobs report," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares rose 0.2 percent to close at 6,816.37 while the CAC-40 in France fell 0.4 percent to 4,444.72. Germany's DAX rose 0.1 percent to 9,911.27.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.1 percent at 16,967.53 while the broader S&P 500 index rose the same rate to 1,974.68.

Earlier, in Asia, investors were encouraged by surveys showing China's manufacturing activity improved in June for the first time in six months. That came on top of the government's decision to expand credit by allowing banks to lend more relative to the size of their deposits.

Asia's heavyweight, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo, gained 0.3 percent to 15,369.97 while China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index added 0.4 percent to 2,059.42.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.5 percent at 23,549.62 while Seoul's Kospi added 0.8 percent to 2,015.28 and Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.5 percent to 5,455.40.

Elsewhere, the euro was down 0.2 percent at $1.3655 a day ahead of the monthly policy meeting of the European Central Bank. Though no change in policy is expected, traders, particularly in the currency markets will be interested to hear what ECB President Mario Draghi says in his ensuing press conference about the state of the 18-country eurozone economy.

Belgrade airport chief detained over Wizz Air deal

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Police have detained the head of Belgrade Airport on suspicion that he made a sweetheart deal with Wizz Air.

Police said Wednesday that Vladimir Radosavljevic is suspected of abusing his position in 2010 when he allowed the low-cost Hungarian-based airline to use Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport at lower rates than were in effect at the time.

Police say Radosavljevic's arrangement with Wizz Air cost the airport 1.7 million euros ($2.3 million). It was not immediately clear if Radosavljevic himself is suspected of taking any money and it was not possible to contact him while in detention.

Wizz Air has denied allegations it was granted a preferable position.

TVA proposes to retire Memphis' Allen coal plant

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Valley Authority began seeking public comments Wednesday on a proposal to retire the coal-fired Allen Fossil Plant in Memphis and replace it with a natural gas facility.

The TVA said it has completed a draft environmental assessment looking at replacing the Allen plant. TVA spokesman Chris Stanley said the proposal is a step in the process of replacing the coal plant with a natural gas plant.

"It's the best way we can provide reliable, low-cost power in a diversified portfolio," Stanley said.

In May, TVA president and CEO Bill Johnson said the utility would make a decision on the future of the Allen plant sometime this year. The final decision rests with the TVA's board, which could vote on the proposal at an Aug. 21 meeting, Stanley said.

TVA committed to install emission controls or retire Allen's coal units by December 2018 under a 2011 agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions across its coal-fired generating fleet.

The Allen plant generates about 4.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough for 340,000 homes. The TVA says the plant consumes about 7,200 tons of coal daily.

Environmental groups say the Allen plant causes an air pollution hazard and it should be shut down and replaced with a facility that generates cleaner energy.

One of those groups, the Sierra Club, said it supports the TVA's proposal to retire the coal facility, while encouraging the utility to replace it with wind or solar power rather than natural gas.

"Investments in clean energy will protect the health of our families, lower energy bills, and create high paying jobs in Memphis," said Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator with the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club. "TVA doesn't have to trade coal for natural gas, another expensive fossil fuel which pollutes our air."

The public comment period runs through Aug. 5. An open house will be held next Tuesday in Memphis.

TVA is the nation's largest public utility, supplying power to about 9 million people in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

How the Dow Jones industrial average did Wednesday

Stocks closed at their latest all-time highs Wednesday following news that business hiring surged in June, adding to evidence that the U.S. economy is picking up momentum.

On Wednesday:

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 20.17 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 16,976.24.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.30 points, or 0.07 percent, to 1,974.62.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.92 points, or 0.02 percent, to 4,457.73.

For the week:

The Dow rose 124.40 points, or 0.7 percent.

The S&P 500 rose 13.66 points, or 0.7 percent.

The Nasdaq rose 59.80 points, or 1.4 percent.

For the year:

The Dow is up 399.58 points, or 2.4 percent.

The S&P 500 index is up 126.26 points, or 6.8 percent.

The Nasdaq is up 218.14 points, or 6.7 percent

Lawsuit aims to block US-approved Nevada drilling

RENO, Nev. -- A rural Nevada group is asking a federal judge to block the sale of oil and gas leases it says will be used for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other development that poses a much greater threat to sage grouse, fish and other wildlife than the U.S. government claims.

The Bureau of Land Management concluded in an environmental analysis in February that energy exploration resulting from the sale of the leases would have little or no impact across about 270 square miles of central Nevada's Lander, Nye and Esmeralda counties.

But leaders of Reese River Basin Citizens Against Fracking say those assumptions are based on unrealistic expectations that the little interest shown in Nevada's oil and gas historically will continue. They say the government also is ignoring a recently discovered shale deposit running from southeast Nevada into Utah that some believe could become one of the nation's most valuable.

"BLM fails to mention or consider the impact of the newly evaluated Chainman formation or the scramble to exploit this resource," said the lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Reno. "The discovery of this rich shale deposit is a complete game-changer and renders any reliance on past and gas exploration unreasonable, if not disingenuous."

BLM spokeswoman Erica Haspiel-Szlosek said Wednesday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The Lander County Commission and the Center for Biological Diversity earlier filed protests over the BLM's plans to sell leases in 102 parcels around Big Smokey Valley between Austin and Tonopah on July 17.

Lawyers who filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of ranchers, alfalfa farmers and others said that besides wildlife threats, the fracking could suck millions of gallons of water from Nevada's high desert and undermine the region's seismic stability.

Fracking involves blasting water, sand and chemicals deep into underground rock formations to free oil and gas.

The suit said the BLM failed to analyze the potential for increased earthquake activity, even though it acknowledged that the area "is susceptible to earthquakes" given its geological nature "and the fact that many of the faults present are still active."

The federal agency said the only impact of the leases is increased revenue to the state, which would receive half the proceeds. But the BLM predicted there's little chance the sites would be developed, the suit said.

That conflicts with what experts say about the Chainman formation, critics said. The author of a regional study predicted new exploration opportunities in Nevada could create as many as 21,000 new jobs and add up to $1.8 billion to the value of the land.

"The Chainman Shale is believed to have some of the richest shale rock characteristics of oil in the country and possibly the world," Timothy Considine, an energy economics professor at the University of Wyoming, wrote in September.

Some of the Chainman's major oil pockets could be far below the ground — from 10,000 to 25,000 feet deep — which dramatically increases drilling costs, Considine said. But major advances in fracking and other technology could change that, he said.

John Dobra, an associate professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Reno, said in a piece for the Elko Daily Free Press in March that Houston-based Noble Energy is only one of a growing number of companies that are "seeking to use fracking to unlock oil and gas from the Chainman formation."

Parnell: Pipeline agreement signed

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Gov. Sean Parnell says an agreement has been signed that allows for the next stage in pursuing a major liquefied natural gas project.

Parnell says environmental field work and pipeline engineering have begun as part of a phase in which the parties are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.

There's still no guarantee the mega-project will be built, but Parnell called the agreement and work underway a mark of significant progress.

The parties involved are BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corp., TransCanada Corp., and the Alaska Gasline Development Corp.

ConocoPhillips was previously a holdout to signing because of issues the company said were confidential. A spokeswoman said those issues have been resolved.

Parnell said the project, in the coming weeks, will work to begin the process of securing an export license.

Target asks customers to leave firearms at home

NEW YORK -- Target is "respectfully" asking its customers to not bring firearms into its stores, even where it is allowed by law.

In a statement posted Wednesday on the retailer's corporate blog, interim CEO John Mulligan said that Target wants a "safe and inviting" atmosphere for its shoppers and employees.

"This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create," he said.

In many states, carrying unconcealed guns in public is legal.

Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said that Target's move is a "request and not a prohibition."

"We don't have any plans for proactive communication to guests beyond what Target leadership shared today," she added.

Target does not sell guns in its stores or on its website.

Target Corp. made the announcement as it faced pressure about its policy on the "open carry" of firearms in its stores. A group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America gathered nearly 400,000 signatures for a petition asking Target to prohibit shoppers from carrying guns into its stores.

The group has said it is responsible for getting several chains, including Chipotle, Starbucks and Jack in the Box, to to make similar moves. It introduced the campaign after gun rights groups carrying loaded rifles frequently gathered in Target stores including Texas, Alabama and North Carolina to demonstrate in support of "open carry" laws.

"Such positive safety changes made by some of our country's leading retailers are proof of the influence of women and mothers," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. "As we look toward election season, we hope our legislators are taking notice that when women and mothers collectively raise our voices — and soon cast our votes, we are determined to leave an impact."

The Minneapolis company's stock added 36 cents to $58. 73 in Wednesday mid-day trading.

---

AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman in New York contributed to this report.

Senate subcommittee to hold 2nd GM hearing July 17

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Senate subcommittee that's investigating the General Motors ignition switch recalls says it will hold a second hearing on July 17.

The Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection and Product Safety Subcommittee likely will summon GM CEO Mary Barra for a return appearance. Former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, who investigated the problem for GM, also is a likely to appear.

A subcommittee spokesman says the witness list hasn't been finalized.

GM spokesman Greg Martin says Barra looks forward to updating the committee on changes that make the company more safety-centered.

GM has recalled 2.6 million older small cars to fix faulty ignition switches. The problem is responsible for more than 13 deaths.

Amazon vows to fight FTC on kids in-app purchases

LOS ANGELES -- Amazon said Wednesday that it is prepared to go to court against the Federal Trade Commission to defend itself against charges that it has not done enough to prevent children from making unauthorized in-app purchases.

The FTC alleged in a draft lawsuit released by Amazon that unauthorized charges by children on Amazon tablets have amounted to millions of dollars.

Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. said in a letter Tuesday to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez that it had already refunded money to parents who complained. It also said its parental controls go beyond what the FTC required from Apple when it imposed a $32.5 million fine on the company in January over a similar matter.

Amazon's Kindle Free Time app can limit how much time children spend on Kindle tablets as well as require a personal identification number for in-app purchases, said Amazon spokesman Craig Berman.

"Parents can say — at any time, for every purchase that's made — that a PIN is required," he said.

By not agreeing to a settlement with the FTC, the company faces a potential lawsuit by the FTC in federal district court.

Apple complained when the FTC announced its settlement with the company in January.

CEO Tim Cook explained to employees in a memo that the settlement did not require the company to do anything it wasn't doing already but he added that it "smacked of double jeopardy" because Apple had already settled a similar class-action lawsuit in which it agreed to refunds.

The FTC wouldn't comment on whether it is investigating Amazon's in-app purchase policies, but said in a statement: "The Commission is focused on ensuring that companies comply with the fundamental principle that consumers should not be made to pay for something they did not authorize."

In the FTC's draft complaint, the commission said that after Amazon began billing for in-app purchase in November 2011, an Amazon Appstore manager described the level of complaints about unauthorized purchases by children as at "near house on fire" levels.

It said Amazon began requiring password entry for in-app charges above $20 in March 2012, and then for all purchases in early 2013. However, for smaller purchases, entering a password once left open a billing window of 15 minutes to an hour in which new charges wouldn't require a password, the FTC said in the complaint.

Prompts from kid-targeted games like "Pet Shop Story" would sometimes not give a price for purchases, the FTC said. Sometimes the purchase prompts from games like "Tap Zoo" were easily mistaken for those using "coins," "stars," and other virtual currency, it said.

Hawaii utility using lasers to protect seabirds

LIHUE, Hawaii -- An electric utility in Hawaii is experimenting with using lasers to protect migrating seabirds.

The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative said Tuesday it's attaching 30 lasers to transmission poles. The lasers will shine beams across six spans next to coffee fields.

Threatened species, including the Newell's Shearwater and the Hawaiian Petrel, are being injured and killed when they fly into lines and poles while migrating to sea at night.

Researchers hope the birds will avoid these collisions when they see the lights.

The lasers are similar to laser pointers but they won't threaten aircraft because the beams are parallel to the ground. They're also not being used in designated air space.

The utility may install the lasers elsewhere on Kauai if the experiment is successful.

President dines with economists, again

By Kevin G. Hall and Lesley Clark McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama dined with prominent economists Wednesday, the second such lunch in less than a month as the administration seeks ways to accelerate the economic recovery.

Meeting with Obama at the White House Wednesday were former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who stepped down in December, and Martin Feldstein, a widely respected conservative economist at Harvard University.

Others at the lunch included Ed Glaeser of Harvard, Robert Hall of Stanford University, Kevin Hassett from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Melissa Kearney from the University of Maryland and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

The White House said Obama had invited the economists in order to “discuss ways to accelerate economic growth, expand opportunity, and improve the competitiveness of the American economy.”

Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama was expecting a “pretty open-ended conversation about what trends they're seeing in the broader economy and ideas they have for policies that could capitalize on those trends to benefit middle class families here in this country.”

Earnest noted the lunch gave Obama a chance to hear from experts “who aren't constrained by politics in terms of their thinking” but said lunching with the more conservative economists isn’t a sign that he’s looking in particular for ideas to appeal to them.

“What the president is interested in is making sure that he is consulting a wide variety of perspectives,” he said. “There are going to be people on both sides of the aisle that have good ideas.”

Earnest insisted Obama wasn’t hosting the economists to gain their support for any initiatives, though reporters noted several of the economists back free trade policies and the White House is backing a major trade measure.

“This isn't really a meeting to build political or legislative support for one proposal or another,” Earnest said. “This is more about hearing from experts on the economy about what we can do to expand opportunity for the middle class.”

On June 18, the president met with a first batch of prominent economists, many of whom supported the 2009 economic stimulus efforts but complained they were insufficiently small to arrest a deep recession and financial crisis.

Those economists included Princeton University’s Paul Krugman, a popular liberal columnist and past winner of a Nobel Prize in economics, and Alan Blinder, also of Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Fed.

Also attending the first lunch last month were Stanford’s Anat Admati, Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Roland Fryer and Claudia Goldin of Harvard.

Lawsuit: Afghanistan subcontractor cheated workers

By CHARLES D. WILSON The Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS -- Federal investigators are examining whether a military subcontractor underpaid scores of medical workers in Afghanistan, pocketing federal funds that the government intended the company use to pay its employees.

A lawsuit brought in Indiana last week by Laura Hawkins of Bloomington claims Onsite Occupational Health and Safety Inc. underpaid her for the 84-hour weeks she routinely worked. Twenty other former employees have since joined the lawsuit, which has been moved to federal court. The complaint seeks class action status.

OHS, which is based in Princeton, Indiana, denies the allegations, which could involve more than $7 million in dispute. It says Hawkins was paid appropriately and the claims have no basis.

Alex Bronstein-Moffly, a spokesman for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, told The Associated Press an investigation is being conducted but declined to elaborate.

The complaint claims that OHS cheated its employees and the government by keeping money that should have been paid out for overtime.

OHS, a subcontractor for another company that is a primary contractor for the Army, provides medical services to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Hawkins, a radiologic technician, worked for OHS at a site in Afghanistan.

The lawsuit claims Hawkins and other OHS employees were routinely required to work 84 hours a week or more without being paid at an overtime rate for work over 40 hours. The complaint maintains that OHS was obligated under terms of its contracts with the government and its primary contractor to pay overtime. The lawsuit says OHS refused to release those documents, but that the company is required to abide by federal and Indiana wage laws.

"By retaining monies which the U.S. government intended for payment of wages to OHS employees, OHS is unjustly and wrongfully enriching itself," the lawsuit says.

Hawkins' complaint does not specify an amount of damages. But in an affidavit filed with the U.S. District Court for southern Indiana, OHS Director of Human Capital Jeff Devine calculated the total overtime allegedly due to the company's 237 employees who would be covered if the complaint is found valid at more than $7 million.

"Onsite believes she was paid properly and that it has not violated the law with regard to Ms. Hawkins or anyone else," Devine said in an email to The Associated Press. In another email, Devine also called the claims "unfounded."

It isn't the first time such claims have surfaced in Afghanistan, though officials say OHS hasn't been investigated before. The Special Inspector General's office alerted Secretary of State John Kerry and other officials to claims of financial mistreatment of subcontractors and employees in June 2013.

The Special Inspector General's office is currently reviewing 23 active complaints involving nonpayment to subcontractors and employees, spokesman Philip J. LaVelle told the AP on Wednesday. LaVelle said the office receives about eight to ten such complaints each month.

Since December 2013, about $472,000 in contested payments has been made to subcontractors and employees following inquiries by the office, LaVelle said.

Dubai builder Arabtec has Abu Dhabi firm's backing

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The chairman of Arabtec, the embattled Dubai construction firm that helped build the world's tallest tower, moved to calm nervous investors Wednesday by promising to improve transparency at the firm and saying it retains the support of a major shareholder backed by the Abu Dhabi government.

Arabtec is Dubai's largest construction company and played a key role in raising the skyscrapers, fancy villas and other buildings that have transformed the city into the Middle East's commercial hub. Its operations extend beyond the Gulf, including an ambitious $40 billion housing initiative launched earlier this year in Egypt.

Investors' confidence in the company has plunged in recent weeks following a series of setbacks, with shares tumbling by as much as 70 percent from their peak in May.

The rout has dragged down the broader Dubai stock market, rekindling concerns about financial stability in the emirate following its 2009 financial crisis.

Multibillion-dollar aid packages from oil-rich Abu Dhabi helped the neighboring emirate of Dubai get through that earlier crisis, and Dubai's trade and transportation-dependent economy has since come roaring back as the global economy improved. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the seven-state United Arab Emirates federation.

At the company's first press conference since the tumult began, Arabtec Chairman Khadem al-Qubaisi said Arabtec will remain a publicly traded company and is committed to greater openness.

"I can assure you that transparency will improve a lot in Arabtec over the next few months," he said.

Arabtec shareholder Aabar Investments, a state-run fund backed by Abu Dhabi, last month cut its stake in the construction company from more than 21 percent to just under 19 percent, though a stock market error blamed on a technical glitch left traders puzzled when it initially suggested Aabar was reducing its holdings by a larger amount.

Weeks later, Arabtec CEO Hasan Ismaik abruptly resigned. He had built a nearly 29 percent stake in the company — larger than Aabar's own shareholding. Arabtec soon since announced a restructuring involving job cuts.

Al-Qubaisi, who is also chairman of Aabar, spoke not at Arabtec's offices but at the Abu Dhabi headquarters of the government-run International Petroleum Investment Company, which owns nearly all of Aabar.

He said it is possible that Aabar might increase its stake in Arabtec in the near future.

Allen Sandeep, director of research at Cairo-based investment house Naeem Holding, said Aabar's continuing support sends an important message.

"Aabar looks at Arabtec very seriously as an investment," he said. "The worry is they were cutting their stake."

Arabtec intends to move ahead with existing projects and in the future will focus on its core construction business rather than on other sectors such as oil and gas, he said.

Left unclear were the circumstances for Ismaik's departure and what would happen to his stake, as well as how many jobs were being cut within the company. Arabtec last week denied suggestions the positions being cut numbered in the hundreds.

"We terminated a few people but there is no effect at all. Management is still capable of running the business, actually the productivity increased, efficiency increased," al-Qubaisi said, though he suggested more cuts could yet come. "If there is any fat, I will remove it in the next few weeks."

In a report issued to clients last week, HSBC analysts raised questions about Arabtec's ability to carry out work it has agreed to on schedule and noted that a decision by Ismaik to sell his stake "would put significant pressure on the stock."

Dubai's main stock market lost more than a quarter of its value from its May peak through the end of June. Investors and analysts blame Arabtec for at least part of the slide, but al-Qubaisi pushed back at those suggestions Wednesday.

"This is not only Arabtec. ...There (are) a lot of political things happening in the Middle East. I disagree with you that Arabtec is behind all this crash," he said.

Arabtec shares surged sharply Wednesday in anticipation of the meeting, which took place after the stock market closed. They closed up 14.9 percent at 3.31 dirhams (90 cents).

---

Schreck reported from Dubai.

Survey: US companies added 281,000 jobs in June

WASHINGTON -- A private survey shows U.S. business hiring surged in June, a sign of stronger economic growth.

Payroll processer ADP said Wednesday that private employers added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month.

The figure suggests the government's jobs report, to be released Thursday, could also show a significant gain from May's tally of 217,000 jobs. But the ADP numbers cover only private businesses and often diverge from the government's more comprehensive report.

Recent economic data suggests that the economy has shifted into a higher gear. Autos sold at an annual rate of 16.9 million in June, the highest rate since January 2006. New orders for manufacturers are at a six-month peak, according to the Institute for Supply Management.

"The job market is strong and it feels like it is getting stronger," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, which calculated the job gains for ADP.

The improvement in the ADP figures occurred mostly in professional and business services, a category that includes many higher-paying jobs such as accountants and engineers, but also lower-paid temporary workers. That category gained 77,000 jobs.

Goods producers hired 51,000 workers in May, up from 31,000 the previous month.

Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees added 117,000 workers in June. That partially reflects growth in the construction industry where smaller firms tend to represent a larger share of that sector, Zandi said.

Economists forecast that the government's employment report will show that 215,000 jobs were added in June, according to a survey by FactSet. If that happens, it would be the fifth consecutive month of job additions of more than 200,000. The last time the economy experience that kind of job growth was in the 1990s during the tech boom, Zandi said.

Wage growth still remains a problem, despite the steady gains. Median household incomes remain lower than what they were in 2007, before the start of the Great Recession.

Steady job growth should cause wages to rise, but such growth could be modest. That is because many unemployed Americans left or were forced out of the jobs market during the downturn. As those workers begin to return, it increases the supply of available employees and reduced pressure on employers to increase wages.

"Slowly, but surely wage growth will accelerate going forward," said Zandi, before cautioning that "it probably won't take off."

Yellen: Fed couldn’t have prevented financial crisis

By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve was slow to understand how the collapse of the housing market would lead to a profound financial crisis, Chair Janet Yellen acknowledged Wednesday, arguing that even if it had acted more aggressively the crisis could not have been prevented.

In a speech at the International Monetary Fund’s Washington’s headquarters, Yellen said that the Fed’s mission of monetary policy via higher or lower interest rates could offer only limited help in holding back the crisis.

“A review of the empirical evidence suggests that the level of interest rates does influence housing prices, leverage ... but it is also clear that a tighter monetary policy would have been a very blunt tool,” Yellen said in a speech on monetary policy and financial stability.

Fed critics blame the central bank’s policy of low interest rates for allowing households and investment banks alike to take on too much risk and debt _ effectively giving them the rope with which they hanged themselves. Had the Yellen and her colleagues more aggressively raised the Fed’s benchmark lending rates, they argue, it would have raised mortgage rates and slowed the scorching home-price appreciation that proved unsustainable.

Yellen pushed back on that argument Wednesday.

“Substantially mitigating the emerging financial vulnerabilities through higher interest rates would have had sizable adverse effects in terms of higher unemployment,” she said.

Unlike most central banks, the Fed has a dual mission. It seeks to both prevent inflation from eroding the purchasing power of ordinary Americans while promoting full employment in the economy. Higher interest rates might have slowed the bubble, she suggested, but at the cost of high joblessness.

Higher interest rates would have done little to slow the risk-taking in the financial sector ahead of the 2008 crisis and Great Recession, she said, noting that the reliance by banks on debt and short-term financing continued growing through the middle of 2007, even as the Fed was raising interest rates.

The tougher post-crisis approach by regulators, including stronger rules on underwriting and requirements for banks to hold more capital in reserve to buffer against shocks, have helped build a more resilient, safer financial sector, Yellen insisted.

New York construction firms accused of safety scam

NEW YORK -- Two construction safety companies dispatched cooks, hairdressers, bellhops and musicians to sign off as licensed safety experts — one of them dead — on inspections at dozens of high-rise sites, authorities said Wednesday.

Flouting a city law that requires a private-sector site safety manager to spend at least two hours a day checking everything from ladders to firefighting pipes, the companies hired unqualified relatives and others, gave them the names of 10 safety managers and had them sign more than 400 daily safety logs at about 40 building sites, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and city Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said.

No one was physically hurt because of the scheme, but proper inspections later found blocked exits, torn safety netting and other potentially perilous lapses at some sites, the authorities said.

Having "unqualified individuals fabricating that they inspected sites" was a disaster waiting to happen, Vance said. The case is prompting tighter oversight of safety managers' documentation.

Avanti Building Consultants Inc., NYCB Engineering Group, Avanti leaders Richard Marini and Richard Sfraga and NYCB Vice President Kishowar Pervez pleaded not guilty Wednesday to grand larceny and other charges, as did four men accused of signing the logs.

Pervez denies the charges and will fight them in court, said his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo. Lawyers for Avanti and the other executives declined to comment.

Site safety managers are supposed to keep tabs on safety in between visits from city Department of Buildings inspectors, who spot-check their logs. Construction firms and building owners have to hire a safety manager at any exterior work on a building taller than 14 stories. The managers generally must have several years of experience, take courses and pass a city-administered exam, authorities said.

"Site safety managers are an important, crucial part of making sure that large construction sites in the city of New York remain safe," Peters said.

While site safety managers can make as much as $100 an hour, NYCB and Avanti, also known as Risk Management Agency Inc., sometimes paid their interns and runners $25 an hour to pose on paper as safety managers who were elsewhere, retired or dead, authorities said.

"Please be extra careful looking for DoB," Marini wrote in a text message to one runner last August, using the acronym for the buildings department, according to a report by Peters' agency.

The companies' clients didn't know they were paying for bogus inspections. One shelled out more than $412,000, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence said.

Authorities said the real safety managers were largely unaware of the scam; none has been charged.

In response to the probe, the Department of Buildings is increasing audits of site safety managers' work and qualifications, developing an electronic system that will notify site safety managers whenever their names are being used at construction sites and making some documents more fraud-resistant.

Felman Production to restart idled W.Va. plant

NEW HAVEN, W.Va. -- Felman Production is restarting its idled plant in Mason County following an agreement with Appalachian Power on a special electricity rate for the facility.

Operations will resume immediately and two of the silicomanganese plant's three furnaces will resume full production by the end of July, Felman said in a news release.

Felman had idled the plant that makes the material used in steel production and laid off more than 140 workers in 2013 because of poor market conditions. The company did not say how many workers will be recalled.

"I am very pleased that we have been able to successfully restart operations. Our special rate provides us with the necessary flexibility to continue operating during periods of weak commodity prices, while ensuring that we pay more than 100 percent of variable costs over the life of the contract," Felman Chief Executive Officer Mordechai "Motti" Korf said in Tuesday's news release.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission had authorized a special rate plan for the plant in April.

The plan will enable Felman to buy electricity from Appalachian at as much as $9 million per year off its full rate. The discounted rate will be calculated each month based on the costs of raw material used in production and commodity prices.

Felman and Appalachian Power filed a revised electricity contract with the PSC on Tuesday that implements the plan.

Felman had said earlier that the plant had not been profitable since at least 2010 and would not reopen unless it received the special rate.

Members of United Steelworkers Local 5171 approved modifications to their contract with Felman in April. Details of the changes were not released.

Felman, a subsidiary of Miami-based Georgian American Alloys Inc., bought the facility from Highlanders Alloys for $20 million in 2006.

Hiring gain sends stocks higher in midday trading

NEW YORK -- Stocks are edging higher in midday trading following news that business hiring surged in June.

The report comes a day after good news on manufacturing drove the market to another all-time high.

Constellation Brands, the owner of Corona and Negra Modelo beer, rose 3 percent after the company said its income soared in the latest quarter.

The Dow rose 12 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,969 as of noon Eastern time Wednesday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose a point to 1,974 and the Nasdaq rose four points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,462.

Payroll processer ADP said U.S. businesses added 281,000 jobs last month, up from 179,000 in the previous month.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.61 percent.

President Obama Just Called Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard. Listen to Their Call:

The President just called U.S. Men's National Team captain Clint Dempsey and goalkeeper Tim Howard to commend them on their team's performance during the 2014 World Cup.

Take a look and listen in:

"You guys did us proud."

--President Barack Obama, 7/2/2014

Find Out How Expanding Medicaid Will Help People in Your State:

Twenty-four states still haven't acted to make more struggling families eligible for Medicaid -- including many of the states that would benefit most.

Here's why that's a problem: If these states don't opt to expand Medicaid, 5.7 million people won't have access to health insurance coverage in 2016.

Want to know exactly how Medicaid expansion will help millions of Americans? Check out our new resource center, featuring an interactive map that shows what expanding Medicaid would mean for people in each state -- from access to affordable health insurance and preventive care, to new jobs created.

See how Medicaid expansion will help people across the country -- and spread the word on Twitter and Facebook.

read more

Dispatch from Dr. Biden: Lusaka, Zambia

Watch on YouTube

On Tuesday, Dr. Jill Biden arrived in Lusaka, Zambia, her first stop on a three-country visit to Africa. Dr. Biden is joined by Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Catherine Russell, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues.

Dr. Biden’s trip to Africa will highlight the importance of girls’ education and women’s participation in government, the economy, and civil society in accelerating economic development; improving health and educational outcomes; strengthening democratic governance; and fostering peace and security.

Upon arrival, Dr. Biden met with Zambia’s Second Lady, Dr. Charlotte Harland Scott, to discuss the major issues affecting women in the country, with particular attention to education, gender-based violence, health, and economic empowerment. They were joined by government officials to discuss activities that the local ministries are carrying out to empower women and girls.

read more

For Interior Secretary, Getting Outdoors Is In The Job Description

i i

hide captionUnited States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, right, is led on a tour by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Manager KImberly Hayes, left, of the wood stork nesting area at the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Townsend, Ga., on June 26.

Stephen B. Morton/AP

United States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, right, is led on a tour by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Manager KImberly Hayes, left, of the wood stork nesting area at the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Townsend, Ga., on June 26.

Stephen B. Morton/AP

It's rare to find Sally Jewell in her Washington, D.C., office.

A little more than a year into her job as Interior Department secretary, Jewell spends much of her time out in the field.

It's unavoidable for someone who heads the federal agency that oversees some 400 National Parks and nearly 300 million acres of federal lands. "It's in the job description," she says, adding "it's also a fun part of the job."

Of late, Jewell has been in the forefront of the administration's efforts to raise awareness of the threat of climate change.

On a recent visit to Jamestown, Va., the site of the first successful English colony, and part of the Colonial National Historical Park, Jewell saw firsthand the damage that high water in recent storms has done to historic sites and artifacts.

Jamestown is already low lying and has had several feet of shoreline disappear in recent years.

"We think about the economic impact of storms and sea level rise and those things that we feel in climate change," Jewell says. "I don't think we always think about the impact on our history and our culture and what defines us as a people and here in Jamestown all of that really comes together."

Jewell is a trim 58, just as you might expect someone to be who hikes, climbs, kayaks, and once ran outdoors gear retailer REI. Her extensive business experience, including stints in banking and energy, makes her unusual in the Obama administration.

Sitting at a picnic table outside the Jamestown visitors center she says running a cabinet department is a bit different than running a business.

"There are some fundamental differences between the government sector and the private sector that I understand much more today than I did a year ago."

One of those fundamental differences, Jewell says, is risk taking. In business, you're often rewarded for taking a risk, even if it fails. In government, she says, not so much.

"In the government trying new things, if you make a mistake you're drug in front of a congressional hearing of some sort... people are saying, 'why did you take that risk?' So to convince your team that they need to think differently, that they need to take risks, is something that generally they've not ever been rewarded for."

Jewell says one risk she's encouraged her department to take is an initiative with the private sector, aimed at engaging young people in the outdoors.

"The reward is extraordinary," Jewell says. "It's putting on the map for these young people potential future careers they've never heard about, places they've never known before, places that they will always be connected to because of the trees that they planted or the work they did.

Another bit of frustration for Jewell revolves around a frequently heard complaint in Washington — the glacial pace of the Senate confirmation process. One year into what she says will be a four-year term, Jewell says she has had the majority of her assistant aecretary positions "in flux," and was without a deputy from last July to the end of February. Then she says the nomination was confirmed unanimously. "So it this is not controversial, it is dysfunction."

The Interior Department's wide ranging responsibilities, include managing those 300 million acres of federal lands.

The agency's Bureau of Land Management was involved in the highly politicized incident this spring when it tried to remove Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's cattle from federal lands when he refused to pay his grazing fees.

It resulted in an armed standoff between Bundy supporters and federal law enforcement. Jewell defends the BLM's activities.

"For someone to openly and intentionally not pay the grazing fees undermines the law abiding nature of other ranchers", she says. "We can't stand for it, we won't stand for it."

It's not clear what the government's next move will be in the Bundy case. But Jewell says her job is to execute the Interior Department's mission. She says her prior business experience helps her do that, and that she's found "a very willing ear" in the White House for that point of view.

Grace period running, Argentina faces more drama over debt

WASHINGTON -- On Monday, Argentina missed a crucial $539 million bond payment to U.S. creditors, putting the country in technical default and starting the clock on a 30-day grace period during which the government in Buenos Aires must make multiple debt payments, renegotiate some of its credit or face its second default since 2001.

Such a default could trigger a large devaluation for the Argentine peso, which has lost 24 percent of its value against the dollar since January.

Argentina’s problem is with a small group of creditors who refuse to accept lower bond-payment terms and have sued the country for the full $1.5 billion they say they’re owed. Argentina, which has renegotiated with 92 percent of its creditors to take less than they were owed, has said it simply can’t afford to pay the full amount and that agreeing to pay the small group in full would scotch its deals with the others.

“If Argentina defaults on everybody, this will be a very dramatic event for the Argentine economy,” said Anna Gelpern, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington who’s a a fellow at the Peterson Institute, a nonprofit international economics research center. “They’re all out of legal leverage.”

The creditors and the Argentine government said repeatedly in June that they were willing to negotiate. But Jay Newman, senior portfolio manager at Elliott Management, which runs the subsidiary hedge fund that’s suing Argentina, said the country’s willingness was unclear.

“There have been no negotiations,” Newman said during an appearance on CNBC. “We hope Argentina will come to the table, but so far there’s been no sign of it.”

Argentina’s Ministry of Economy released a brief statement earlier this week that said the economic minister, Axel Kicillof, had appointed a delegation to meet Monday with Daniel Pollack, the court-appointed litigator who’s overseeing negotiations between the hedge fund, NML Capital, and Argentina. A spokesperson for Argentina’s lawyers in New York declined to comment for this article.

A decade-long legal battle between Argentina and U.S. creditors came to a head June 16, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied Argentina’s appeal and upheld a New York federal court order that required the country to pay the bondholders of original and restructured debt at the same time.

Last week, Argentina attempted to circumvent the district court’s ruling and pay $539 million just to the holders of restructured debt, but Thomas Griesa, the district court judge, blocked the payments, saying they were illegal. Griesa also rejected Argentina’s June 23request for a stay to permit more time to negotiate.

“The holdouts have the advantage,” said Eugenio Aleman, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C. If Argentina doesn’t pay, it’s “going to be in trouble.”

Aleman estimates that if Argentina defaults, the peso’s value might be cut in half. The current official exchange rate is eight pesos to the dollar, though the rate at which most Argentines exchange pesos for dollars is really about 12 to 1, according to La Nacion, one of the country’s largest newspapers.

“Argentina needs to negotiate,” said Joaquin Almeyra, a fixed-income trader at Bulltick Capital in Miami.

Argentina must pay both the holdout creditors and restructured debts by July 30 to avoid default, according to Griesa’s court order.

Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, said in June that paying both groups of bondholders at once was impossible and would deplete more than half of the country’s international monetary reserves.

Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2001, collapsing its economy and requiring the world’s then-largest bailout of $95 billion. Ninety-two percent of the bondholders that purchased Argentine debt accepted a lower-paying bond agreement during negotiations in 2005 and 2010.

A smaller group of U.S. creditors, led by NML Capital Ltd., refused to accept lower payments, however, and sued Argentina to pay them $1.5 billion they’re still owed on the government debt they purchased in 2001.

Kirchner and her administration call the holdout creditors “vulture funds,” and they accused Griesa in a full-page ad Sunday in The New York Times of being unfair to Argentina.

“His true intentions are crystal clear: to push Argentina into default,” the ad said.

Argentina recently reached debt settlements with the Spanish petroleum company Repsol and a group of European bondholders dubbed the Club of Paris in an attempt to regain access to foreign credit markets, which shut out the country after its 2001 default. The foreign capital is needed to develop a large shale-oil deposit called “Vaca Muerta” _ “dead cow” _ that could be an economic boon for Argentina, said Aleman, the economist.

“They think Vaca Muerta is their way out,” said Aleman.

Newman, the NML Capital representative, told CNBC that Argentina’s deals with the Club of Paris and Repsol could be a template for resolving the country’s standoff with the hedge fund.

But the road to an agreement appears long, experts said.

“My money is on Argentina wanting to negotiate,” said Gelpern, the Georgetown professor. But “I can’t see how they get it all done before July 30.”

Tyson moving forward with Hillshire deal

SPRINGDALE, Ark. -- Tyson Foods Inc. has signed a definitive deal to purchase Hillshire Brands Co. for $7.75 billion, two days after the maker of Jimmy Dean sausages and Ball Park hot dogs was let out of its agreement to buy Pinnacle Foods.

Chicago-based Hillshire agreed to buy Pinnacle Foods Inc. for $4.23 billion in May. But then Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride Corp. got into a bidding war for Hillshire, with Hillshire accepting Tyson's $63 per share offer last month. The deal with Tyson — which is valued by the companies at about $8.55 billion, including debt — was contingent on Hillshire walking away from its deal with Pinnacle.

On Monday, Parsippany, New Jersey- based Pinnacle terminated its sale to Hillshire. Pinnacle makes products such as Birds Eye frozen vegetables, Duncan Hines cake mixes and Hungry-Man frozen dinners.

Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson said Wednesday that it will pay the $163 million termination fee to Pinnacle on behalf of Hillshire.

Tyson's acquisition of Hillshire is expected to close by Sept. 27, the last day of Tyson's fiscal year.

Delta shares fall after June traffic report

DALLAS -- Shares of major U.S. airlines slumped Wednesday after Delta Air Lines Inc. said that too many flights on some international routes cut into revenue growth.

Airlines usually increase passenger-carrying capacity by adding flights. Investors worry that fares and profits can fall if the supply of seats on lucrative international routes outstrips travel demand, as has happened before in the airline industry.

Shares of Delta, the nation's third-largest airline company by traffic, dropped $2.13, or 5.3 percent, to $38.18 in late afternoon trading. Shares of United lost 6.2 percent and American Airlines fell 5 percent.

Delta said that last month's passenger revenue for each seat flown one mile rose 4.5 percent over June 2013. That figure rises when airlines fill more seats or sell them at higher average fares, and June's increase could have been seen as an indication that travel demand and airline pricing power remained strong at the start of the peak summer travel season.

But it was a letdown after Delta's 7 percent increase in the measure in May. J.P. Morgan analyst Jamie Baker said investors expected 6 percent growth in June. Delta said that corporate and U.S. travel remained strong in June but revenue per mile was hurt by a dip in business travel to Latin America during the World Cup soccer tournament and because airlines added capacity on international routes.

Delta's comments came three weeks after Deutsche Lufthansa AG cut its forecast for 2014-2015 earnings. The German carrier said that excess capacity from Persian Gulf airlines was causing prices to fall on trans-Atlantic routes.

Analysts largely stood by Delta. Cowen and Co. analyst Helane Becker, for example, said the June revenue figure was "a little lower than expected." But she predicted that business travel to Brazil will recover after the World Cup — being played in several Brazilian cities — ends on July 13.

Stifel analyst Joseph DeNardi said that Delta's lower forecast of profit-sharing expense, disclosed in a regulatory filing, suggested that the airline was taking "a more cautious view" about profits in the second half of the year. Still, he slightly raised his estimate of 2014 earnings based on better margins.

Moody's Investors Service also upgraded Delta's corporate credit rating one notch, to Ba3 from B1, citing expectations of higher earnings. That rating is still considered speculative.

Moody's analyst Jonathan Root predicted that Delta will boost earnings and spend less on new planes than United and American in the coming years.

The Atlanta-based airline said that June traffic rose 3 percent as passengers flew 19.03 billion miles last month, with domestic traffic up 3.9 percent and international up 1.9 percent. Delta boosted passenger-carrying capacity by 3.1 percent, with most of the increase on international routes. The average flight was 87.5 percent full, unchanged from June 2013.

All the numbers included flights on Delta and its Delta Connection affiliate.

Signs of economic growth drive copper prices up

Copper closed at its highest price in more than four months on Wednesday as more signs of economic growth pushed prices for the industrial metal up.

Copper for September delivery gained 6 cents, or 1.9 percent, to settle at $3.27 a pound Wednesday. That's the highest price for the metal since February, according to the data provider FactSet.

A report on hiring from ADP, a payroll processor, said private employers added 281,000 workers last month, another sign the US economy is shaking off a winter slump.

Copper prices have climbed 2.9 percent this week following reports of stronger manufacturing activity in China, the world's biggest buyer of copper. The U.S. is the world's second-biggest buyer.

In other trading, gold for August rose $4.30 to $1,330.90 an ounce, and silver for September rose 19 cents to $21.30 an ounce.

Other industrial metals were little changed. Platinum for October slipped $3.50 to $1,511.50 an ounce. Palladium for September rose $2.80 to $857.40 an ounce.

Crop futures were mixed. Wheat rose 3 cents to $5.76 a bushel. Corn fell 5 cents to $4.18 a bushel, and soybeans slipped 6 cents to $11.42 a bushel.

In the market for oil and gas, benchmark U.S. crude dropped 86 cents to $104.48 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

— Wholesale gasoline fell a penny to $3.02 a gallon.

— Heating oil fell 3 cents to $2.95 a gallon.

— Natural gas fell 9 cents to $4.36 per 1,000 cubic feet.

For-profit college co. doesn't seal deal with feds

WASHINGTON -- The troubled for-profit education company Corinthian Colleges Inc. and the Education Department failed to meet a deadline to map out the future of the company's more than 100 campuses, but both sides on Wednesday expressed optimism that a consensus would be reached.

Corinthian, which owns Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech schools, serves about 72,000 students in 26 states and Ontario, Canada.

In June, the company and the Education Department said they reached a memorandum of understanding that would allow the company to obtain an immediate $16 million in federal student aid funds to keep operating. But under that agreement, the two sides had set a Tuesday deadline to hammer out a more detailed plan on whether campuses would be closed or sold.

The Education Department has said it put Corinthian on heightened financial monitoring with a 21-day waiting period for federal funds. That came after Corinthian failed to comply with the department's requests to address concerns about Corinthian's practices. Those concerns included allegations of falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims to prospective students, and allegations of altered grades and attendance.

Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement Wednesday that, "we are optimistic that further conversations with the company will produce an acceptable plan in the next few days that protects the interests of students and taxpayers."

Corinthian, based in Santa Ana, California, said it "continues to work cooperatively" with the Education Department.

Corinthian has said it will look for new owners for most of its schools and hopes to have sales agreements in place within about six months.

The company faces multiple state and federal investigations.

Safety agency says Chrysler recall too slow

DETROIT -- The U.S. government's road safety agency is accusing Chrysler of moving too slowly to fix some Jeep SUVs in a recall announced more than a year ago.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a letter released Wednesday, is asking the automaker why it's taking so long to fix as many as 2.5 million older Grand Cherokees and Libertys with gas tanks mounted behind the rear axles. The tanks could rupture in rear collisions, leak fuel and cause fires.

The letter is the latest skirmish in a long fight between the automaker and agency over the safety of the SUVs, all built before the 2008 model year. Initially NHTSA wanted the company to recall 2.7 million of them, but Chrysler refused, saying they were as safe as similar vehicles. They eventually worked a deal to recall 1.56 million, with 1.2 million others placed in a campaign to be inspected for hitches. Last year NHTSA said a three-year investigation showed 51 people had died in fiery crashes in Jeeps with gas tanks behind the rear axle.

In the letter, NHTSA said Chrysler will send notices to owners of 1.5 million Grand Cherokees from the 1993 to 1998 model years, and to another 1 million owners of 2002-2007 Libertys.

But the letter says production of the trailer hitches didn't start until May of this year, and the pace is so slow that it will take Chrysler 4.7 years to get enough hitches if all owners respond to the recall. If only half respond, it will take Chrysler two years to get the parts, the letter said.

"For many owners, a recall remedy deferred by parts availability easily becomes a defect remedy denied," NHTSA wrote. "The agency has no intention of allowing Chrysler, or any other manufacturer, to delay recall completion to the detriment of safety."

Chrysler has until July 16 to respond to the agency's request for information or face up to a $35 million fine, the agency said.

At least part of the delays may be attributed to NHTSA testing the trailer hitch remedy. The agency did crash tests to determine if the hitches would work, and on Jan. 13, it told Chrysler that it had no reservations about the fix.

The company says NHTSA has had full knowledge of its work on the recall and that the company complied with all federal regulations. Chrysler is confident that it will be able to produce enough hitches to satisfy demand, and there could be some sort of misunderstanding with NHTSA, spokesman Mike Palese said.

Affected customers have been told the recall and service campaigns are coming. The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based company, now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, said it will contact them again "when the time is appropriate to schedule service."

Automakers have 60 days from when they notify NHTSA of a recall to contact vehicle owners. But aside from that, there's no hard deadline on when repairs have to be finished. NHTSA monitors recalls for at least 1 ½ years to make sure they are progressing.

Marijuana shop sues IRS over cash penalty

DENVER -- A marijuana business in Colorado has filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for assessing a penalty for paying taxes in cash.

The IRS charges a 10 percent penalty on cash payments for federal employee withholding taxes. But many marijuana businesses are forced to pay taxes in cash because of difficulty accessing banking services

Because pot is illegal under federal drug law, many marijuana businesses have no bank accounts despite federal guidance earlier this year on how banks may accept pot money.

Medical marijuana dispensary Allgreens LLC of Denver is challenging the IRS practice of fining cash payments in U.S. Tax Court, The Denver Post reported Wednesday (http://dpo.st/1qRs0Tg ).

The dispensary says in its petition that it can't pay via the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System because it has no bank account

"It was not that the taxpayer 'did not want' to make use of the EFTP System," Allgreens' attorney Rachel Gillette wrote in the Tax Court petition. "Rather, the taxpayer is unable to secure a bank account due to the nature of its business. With no bank account and no access to banking services, the taxpayer is simply incapable of making" the payments electronically.

Since the account was closed, Allgreens has hand-delivered cash payments on the tax twice monthly to the IRS office in downtown Denver — the only one in the state that accepts cash.

As a result, the company has been assessed a 10 percent penalty every quarter of the tax cycle.

Allgreens asked the IRS for a waiver of the penalty, saying it had complied with the law and had not intentionally avoided making the electronic payments.

The IRS sent the company a letter with a copy of its internal policies, which say companies have two alternatives to pay electronically. Both methods required Allgreens to funnel the cash to a third party, who could then make the tax payment on its behalf.

"It's the very definition of money laundering," Gillette told The Denver Post. "It's absurd. An alternative should not force a taxpayer to engage in a potentially unlawful activity under a federal statute."

A third alternative the IRS suggested — paying the tax in a single lump-sum payment at the end of each quarter — would not only incur the 10 percent penalty, but an additional penalty for paying late.

The tax is due within days of a company's payroll and is accounted for quarterly.

Marijuana business owners not near Denver must make the frequent trip downtown to pay in cash.

"Literally it becomes an all-day affair, and you can only do it by appointment," Gillette said. "The IRS knows darn well the money is coming from marijuana sales, and they're happy to accept it."

No hearing date has been set for the petition.

FIFA official 'amazed' by Brazil WCup drunkenness

RIO DE JANEIRO -- FIFA's number two official has said he's "amazed" by the levels of drunkenness in Brazil's World Cup stadiums, reviving a debate over whether alcohol sales should have been allowed at matches in the first place.

In an interview with Brazil's sports television network SporTV, Jerome Valcke acknowledged Tuesday that "maybe there were too many people who were drunk" at the matches and pointed to the connection between inebriation and violence.

Brazil banned alcohol sales at soccer matches in 2003 in a bid to curb fan violence. But Budweiser is a major World Cup sponsor and the tournament's organizer, FIFA, insisted Brazil lift the ban in order to host the month-long event. Lawmakers opposed to lifting the ban delayed the passage of a World Cup law that gave FIFA financial and legal guarantees to organize the event, and the issue became a major source of friction between FIFA and Brazilian officials.

During the protracted debate over the legislation, Valcke stated in 2012 that in-stadium beer sales were a key part of World Cup tradition and that lifting Brazil's ban was non-negotiable.

In Monday's SporTV interview, Valcke appeared to soften his position, saying alcohol sales are "something we have to look at."

"If we think that it is necessary to control (alcohol sales) we will control them," said Valcke, who spoke in English through a Portuguese translator. "We would never put the organization of a match at risk."

Fan violence has broken out at several matches here, including Saturday's Colombia-Uruguay match in Rio de Janeiro, where stewards had to intervene to separate hostile spectators. Following the match, apparently inebriated Argentine fans celebrating their team's victory over Iran on June 21 caused a dust-up in the central Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.

Valcke stressed that in-stadium beer sales have never been a problem in previous World Cups.

"I was amazed by the number of people who were drunken and the level of alcohol" in Brazil, he said, adding "I was a bit surprised."

The 2022 World Cup is scheduled to be held in Qatar, a Gulf state where alcohol consumption in public is forbidden.