NEW YORK (AP) -- The iPhone is conquering Asia, the home of its strongest competitors. Sales there nearly quadrupled from a year ago and helped Apple Inc. trump analyst expectations for yet another quarter.Apple also said iPad sales worldwide nearly doubled from a quarter ago, a sign that it has left the worst of its supply problems behind.Apple's stock surged nearly 5 percent after the results ca

 

 

PARIS (AFP) - Ratings agencies are again under attack, with EU leaders objecting that Standard&Poor's, Moody's and Fitch Ratings are an "oligopoly" which issues self-fulfilling prophecies of doom, greatly aggravating the eurozone debt crisis.The EU's Internal Markets Commissioner suggested a partial gag to prevent them from grading debt issued by EU economies being rescued with official funds.Ther

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Standard & Poor’s warned mortgage lenders Fannie Me and Freddie Mac on Friday that they may lose their top credit ratings if lawmakers don’t raise the U.S. government’s borrowing limit in time to avoid a default.S&P said government-controlled Fannie and Freddie, along with certain Federal Home Loan Banks and Farm Credit System Banks, could also default on their debts, given each

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Regulators on Friday shut down four small banks in three states, boosting to 55 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.The overall pace of closures, however, has slowed this year as banks work their way through piles of bad debt. A slow, but improving U.S. economy also has helped stem the number of bank casualties this year. By this time last year, regulators had closed 96 ba

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ― Eight of 90 European banks flunked stress tests projecting how they would fare in another recession, and 16 more barely passed ― but analysts doubted Friday’s results would succeed in restoring confidence in the continent’s shaky financial sector.Some countries challenged the results as inaccurate and overly pessimistic, saying they would not force their weaker banks to r

On debt crisis, Obama makes direct appeal to U.S. public: ‘We are all in this together’WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Barack Obama appealed for public support Saturday to push Congress to avert an unprecedented default on America’s national debt as lawmakers worked on dual tracks to reach an elusive deal.Obama wants lawmakers to approve a giant package that would not only prevent a default by raising

 

Sony Corp., Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, plans to introduce a line of upgraded digital book readers in the U.S. by as early as next month to challenge Kindle-maker Amazon.com Inc. The Sony Reader, priced from $180 to $300, will probably be offered with hardware and software improvements in August, Phil Lubell, vice president of digital reading at Sony Electronics, said Wednesd