SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday reported that its quarterly revenue rose for the first time in three years, nudged by improved computer sales everywhere except Russia and China.Net revenue for the quarter that ended July 31 was $27.6 billion, a 1 percent improvement from the same period last year when the California computer maker took in $27.2 billion.Meanwhile, HP profit in the recently ended quarter ebbed to $985 million compared to $1.39 billion in the same period a year e

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has a stubborn warning light blinking on her labor market dashboard: A group of Americans larger than Washington state’s population can find only part-time work. As Yellen heads to this week’s Fed symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the focus will be on the labor market, those 7.5 million part-time workers who want full-time jobs are inflating the broad measure of underemployment she watches to gauge job market health. Involuntary part-time workers have g

BRUSSELS (AFP) ― The European Commission on Monday announced a series of exceptional measures to help growers hit by a Russian ban on fruit and vegetable imports.The products in question are in full harvesting season, with little hope of finding alternative markets to replace demand from Russia in time, the Commission said.A European official said the primary recipients of the compensation will be Russian neighbors Poland and Lithuania as well as Belgium and the Netherlands.The 125 million euros

SAO PAULO (AFP) ― Russia’s embargo on U.S. and EU food products has opened a window of opportunity for Latin America, which could capitalize on the Ukraine crisis to become a major food supplier to Moscow.Furious over the sanctions Western countries have imposed on Russia over its support for Ukraine’s separatist rebels, the Kremlin announced on Aug. 7 it was placing a “full embargo” on most food imports from the United States and European Union.That could enable major Latin American food produc

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― U.S. computing giant Intel announced Wednesday it was joining an effort to battle Parkinson’s disease with new big data and wearable technologies to improve research and treatment.Intel said it would work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research ― created by the “Back to the Future” Canadian-American actor ― on the effort to fight the neurodegenerative brain disease second only to Alzheimer’s in worldwide prevalence. The research will use “a new big data

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Apple is banning the use of two potentially hazardous chemicals during the final assembly of iPhones and iPads as part of the company’s latest commitment to protect the factory workers who build its trendy devices.The decision announced Wednesday comes five months after the activist groups China Labor Watch and Green America launched a petition drive calling on Apple Inc. to abandon the use of benzene and n-hexane in the production of iPhones.A four-month investigation at 22

BEIJING (AFP) ― Four Chinese dealers for German auto maker BMW have been fined about 1.6 million yuan ($260,000), authorities have said, as the government steps up a high-profile anti-monopoly campaign involving a number of foreign brands.The dealers in Wuhan in the central province of Hubei have been ordered to pay the penalties for “forming a price alliance,” provincial authorities said in a statement Wednesday.They agreed to consistently charge a fee for the pre-delivery inspection of cars, w