Latest Business Wires

The bluish haze that has hung over the Third Street Diner's bar and booths for decades finally lifts next month as a new anti-smoking law takes hold in Virginia, a huge shift for a state whose tobacco habit dates to the Jamestown settlement some 400 years ago.

French electricity giant EDF will join Russia's Gazprom in supporting the South Stream gas pipeline under the Black Sea, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday.

An e-mail requesting an internship arrived at the Agriculture Department this summer with an impressive resume: Princeton University degree in operations research and financial engineering, 3.8 college GPA, 1520 SATs.

Personal computer maker Lenovo Group said Friday it is joining the race to develop products that link phones and PCs by buying back a mobile phone business that it sold last year.

German steel maker ThyssenKrupp AG on Friday confirmed that it had a steep net loss in its 2008-9 fiscal year and said it plans to reduce its work force by about 20,000 people — mostly through divestment.

The fallout from Dubai's debt crisis rippled across the globe Friday, raising concerns of a renewed wave of financial turmoil and showing how fragile the world economic recovery remains.

Gert Ignatiussen returns to this fjord-front Inuit town with the spoils of his hunting trip. Six seals, all killed with a single shot to the head.

Spain's consumer price index rose at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in November after eight months of decline, the government said Friday.

Honda Motor Co. set record production in Asia and China in October for the second straight month, leading a gradual and spotty recovery at Japanese automakers.

America's retailers are ushering in the traditional start of the holiday shopping season with expanded hours and deep discounts on everything from toys to TVs to lure crowds of shoppers.

Asian markets tumbled Friday, with Hong Kong and S. Korea down about 5 percent, as fears grew over the fallout from Dubai's debt and the dollar continued its slide against the  yen.

Japanese flocked to a large gymnasium in central Tokyo in recent weeks to see what for them was an unusual sight: senior bureaucrats being grilled over their budget requests for next year.

Germany's Volkswagen AG on Friday announced plans to invest euro2.3 billion ($3.5 billion) in Brazil and said it hopes to be building a million vehicles a year in the country by 2014.

New York's apple orchards are being carpeted with red as unpicked apples drop to the ground.

London Olympic organizers will avoid building a $66 million temporary arena after reaching an "agreement in principle" with two sports to move to an existing venue for the 2012 Games.

Beyond the noisy town hall meetings, Tea Party protests and sky-is-falling speeches characterizing much of the health care debate is a less visible, but no less intense push to broaden the face of the immigration reform movement.

Thousands of drivers on the nation's roads don't carry auto insurance, despite laws in all but two states requiring it. Critics of President Barack Obama's health overhaul plan ask: What are the chances scofflaws will treat a requirement to carry health insurance any differently?

Protesting peach farmers are blocking a major highway in northern Greece to press for higher subsidies.

While the U.S. Senate considers a climate bill aiming to dramatically slash air pollution linked to global warming, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Republican leaders in the state that leads the nation in greenhouse gas production are watching closely — and objecting loudly.

British bookstore chain Borders U.K. has filed for a form of bankruptcy protection and is now looking for buyers for its stores, the administrators appointed to run the company said Thursday.