MELBOURNE (AP) ― Victoria Azarenka started celebrating, then suddenly did a double-take to ask her coach, “What happened?”The answer: She had just produced one of the most lopsided Australian Open final victories to capture a Grand Slam title and the No. 1 ranking for the first time.Azarenka routed three-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-0 in 1 hour, 22 minutes on Saturday night, winning 12 of the last 13 games after dropping her first service game and falling behind 2-0.“It’s a drea

Kim Eun-seok, the foreign ministry’s ambassador for energy and resources, was relieved of his post Friday over allegations that he played a key role in a stock manipulation scandal related to a diamond mining project in Cameroon, a ministry official said.The move came one day after the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) demanded Kim’s dismissal, saying the ambassador had contributed to driving up the stock prices of CNK International, a mineral development company involved in mining diamonds in

PARIS (AP) ― European plane and arms manufacturer EADS NV named Tom Enders its new CEO on Thursday, saying the German will take over later this year from Louis Gallois.EADS, a German-French conglomerate, is a hallmark of European manufacturing. As the parent company of plane maker Airbus, it competes fiercely with U.S.-based Boeing.The German and French states closely monitor its management, both to ensure the balance of power between the two countries and as a matter of promoting European manuf

NEW YORK (AP) ― AT&T Inc. is still the home of the iPhone. It activated 7.6 million of them in the latest quarter, accounting for one out of every five iPhones sold globally.And AT&T remains heavily dependent on the iPhone to gain and keep customers, despite a vow by CEO Randall Stephenson a year ago to “very aggressively” market competing smartphones in 2011. That vow came in the wake AT&T’s loss of an exclusive right to sell the iPhone in the U.S.The iPhone accounted for about 80 percent of th

CHICAGO (AFP) ― British oil giant BP must cover some of the eventual claims against rig owner Transocean arising from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a U.S. judge ruled Thursday, with any bill set to run into billions of dollars.The mixed ruling found BP must indemnify the Swiss drilling rig operator from “compensatory damages” related to the 2010 spill even if the pollution and its impacts are the result of Transocean’s “gross negligence.”But BP does not need to cover any punitive damages or civi

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Businesses are growing more confident in the U.S. economy, investing in more equipment and laying off fewer workers.Government figures on manufacturing and unemployment claims released Thursday raised hopes on the eve of a report on how much the economy grew in the October-December quarter.Still, 2011 ended up as the worst year on record for new-home sales, a reminder that the economy has a long way to go.“Business optimism seems to be picking up, which is critical to the growt