WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. budget deficit through the first four months of this budget year is up 19% from the same period a year ago, putting the country on track to record its first $1 trillion deficit since 2012. The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly budget report that the deficit from October […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, its second attempt to sell consumers on phones with bendable screens and clamshell designs. The new phone can unfold from a small square upward into a traditional smartphone form, and will go on sale Feb. 14 starting at $1,380. […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is telling a skewed story when he boasts about workers who’ve seen their personal retirement savings nearly double under his administration. Gains in the overall stock market are only half of what he implied. Trump made the assertion at his New Hampshire rally Monday, where he also tried to […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators are ramping up their investigation of the market dominance of giant tech companies, demanding detailed information on five companies’ acquisitions of smaller firms back to 2010. The Federal Trade Commission announced the move Tuesday, issuing orders to Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. Hundreds of takeovers of […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the U.S. economy appears durable with steady growth and unemployment near a half-century low but faces risks from the deadly virus in China. Giving the Fed’s semiannual monetary report to Congress, Powell said Tuesday that the Fed is content with where interest rates are, suggesting that […]

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has approved T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion takeover of Sprint, rejecting objections from a group of states and removing a major obstacle to a shakeup in the wireless industry. After the deal closes, the number of major U.S. wireless companies would shrink from four to three. T-Mobile says the deal […]

NEW YORK (AP) – Renting clothes could be the future of fashion — or it could just be a fad. But traditional retailers can no longer afford to wait on the sidelines to find out. That’s why a growing number are now offering customers the option to rent clothes for a monthly fee instead of […]

NEW YORK (AP) – The Simon Property Group will buy mall operator Taubman Realty in a deal valued at around $3.6 billion as those properties continue to struggle along with their retail tenants. Simon Property Group Inc. said Monday that its operating partnership, Simon Property Group, LP, will buy all of Taubman stock for $52.50 […]

CHICAGO (AP) — Adam Pezen, Carlo Licata and Nimesh Patel are among millions of people who have been tagged in Facebook photos at some point in the past decade, sometimes at the suggestion of an automated tagging feature powered by facial recognition technology. It was their Illinois addresses, though, that put the trio’s names atop […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Victims of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff’s mammoth Ponzi scheme can express views on whether he should be released early from prison, prosecutors said Friday. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan announced that those who suffered financial losses in the scheme have until the end of February to submit emails to Judge […]