Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker, who has pushed for policies aimed at keeping inflation in check, said he’s not worried now about prices rising too fast. “Given the economic challenges we’ve faced, I think this economy has turned in an excellent performance,” he said on Fox News’ ’’Sunday Morning Futures’’ program Sunday. “The unemployment rate has come down from 10 percent to 5.9 percent and inflation is low and not a problem.” Lacker will be a voting member of the pol

Economists forecast slowdown will cause global pain but leave U.S. relatively unhurt

Members of OPEC, the group that supplies 40 percent of the world’s oil, are engaged in an internal price war as they seek to preserve their share of an oversupplied market, Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said. “There is a price war within OPEC,” Abdul Mahdi told an evening session of the parliament in Baghdad, which was broadcast on state-run television. “The market’s fundamentals have changed, with an extra 3 million barrels a day of crude entering the market at a time when growth in China

Howard Schultz, chief executive officer of Starbucks Corp. (Bloomberg)The afternoon coffee run may become a thing of the past if Starbucks Corp. gets its way. The world’s largest coffee-shop chain said Friday it would offer delivery in select markets in the second half of next year. Chief executive officer Howard Schultz described the plan as “e-commerce on steroids,” letting customers create standing orders that arrive at their desks daily. The move is part of Starbucks’ strategy to keep U.S. s

One pilot dead as Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes during test flight

Nikolai Borisov, the proprietor of three Italian restaurants in Moscow, has been forced to take Gorgonzola cheese and Parma ham off his menus after President Vladimir Putin banned some food imports in August. “You can make pizza using Russian cheese, but it won’t taste anything like Italian food,” said Borisov, 34. “When you thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. The government passes one law worse than the other.” Responding to European Union and U.S. sanctions by prohibiting purchases of certa

BRUSSELS (AFP) ― Eurozone inflation edged up to 0.4 percent from multi-year lows while unemployment was little changed, official data showed Friday, providing only limited reassurance that a modest economic recovery remains on track.Analysts said the figures were far from encouraging, with the European Central Bank likely to come under additional pressure from anxious governments to do more to get the economy moving again.Inflation in the 18-nation eurozone rose to 0.4 percent in October from 0.

WASHINGTON ― When the Federal Reserve announced the end of its landmark bond buying program Wednesday, it also signaled the start of something else: The Janet Yellen era.Officially, Yellen has been Fed chair since February. But the phase-out of the bond-buying stimulus program Yellen inherited from her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, truly marks her inauguration. She can now begin to fully stamp her influence on the central bank.With the job market showing steady gains, Yellen must now grapple with t

MILAN (AP) ― Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced Wednesday it will spin off sports car maker Ferrari into a separate company, a move to unlock the luxury brand’s value and distinguish it from its mass-market parent.The spinoff aims to raise money to support the newly merged carmaker’s plans to invest 48 billion euros ($61 billion) over five years to compete with global giants Toyota and Volkswagen. Shares in Fiat Chrysler soared on the news.“I think we are doing the right thing by giving Ferrari

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Apple is in preliminary talks to sell the iPhone in Iran, if sanctions are eased on the Middle East nation, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said Apple had begun talks with distributors to open official sales channels in Iran if authorized.Apple currently does not have any sales outlets or partners in Iran, but its products are available through unofficial sellers, the Journal noted.Queried by AFP, Apple declined to comment on the

BERLIN (AFP) ― More than 80 countries signed up to a deal that could help end banking secrecy Wednesday in what the sponsors hope will be a major step in the global battle against tax evasion and fraud.A total 51 countries signed up to the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement under which their national tax authorities will exchange information automatically from September 2017.And more than 30 other countries said they would sign up a year later in 2018. Among the first round of signatorie