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Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces iPad 2. (Getty Images)
Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and CEO, unveiled the second generation iPad tablet computer Wednesday in San Francisco.
Saying that the legion of tablet competitors that has sprung up have not even matched Gen I, Jobs, whose latest medical leave has raised speculation about the future of the company, said the new tablet is a total redesign. Get the full story »
By Julie Deardorff | The Food and Drug Administration plans to remove some unapproved prescription cough, cold and allergy medicines now sitting on store shelves, the agency announced Wednesday.
Three movie theater companies will pay more than $275,000 in civil fines after being accused of violating federal labor laws by allowing dozens of teenagers in nine states, including Illinois, to perform dangerous jobs and work hours longer than allowed by law, the Department of Labor said Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division said about 160 minors at 27 theaters operated by Milwaukee-based Marcus Theatres Corp.; Regal Cinemas Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn.; and Wehrenberg Inc. of St. Louis violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. Get the full story »
American Airlines parent AMR Corp. said it would cut planned capacity growth this year as the industry wrestles with higher oil prices.
Most U.S. airline shares moved lower on Tuesday as oil prices continued their rise in wake of unrest in the Middle East. U.S. crude futures were up $1.46 at $98.43 a barrel. The Arca Airline index was down 1.4 percent.
Bank of America’s online banking system went on the fritz for some users Tuesday, the second such incident this year.
Customers attempting to access the bank’s online services were experiencing “intermittent service disruptions,” according to Tara Burke, a spokeswoman for the bank.
The bank is working to restore the system to normal as soon as possible, Burke said. The bank’s branches and ATM network are unaffected, she said. Get the full story »
A local information technology consulting firm is tapping group-buying site Groupon to offer its services at a steep discount — a $12,500 discount, to be precise.
Rolling Meadows-based Ajilitee, which specializes in analytics and cloud computing, on Tuesday launched a deal on Groupon that offers buyers $25,000 worth of consulting services for $12,500. The firm’s foray into group buying makes them among the first companies to experiment with the technology platform for the business-to-business sector, as Chicago-based Groupon and its rivals primarily offer consumer deals such as discounts on restaurants and salons. Get the full story »
The FutureGen Alliance announced Monday that it has selected Morgan County to sequester carbon dioxide emissions that would come from a coal-fired power plant 32 miles from the site.
The long-stalled $1.3 billion project, which includes CO2 storage, a visitor center, research and training facilities, is backed by $1 billion in federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $300 million in private investment. Approximately 30 communities competed in the site selection process in the second try to get the project off the ground. Get the full story »
The United States owes considerably more money to China than previously reported, the Treasury Department said on Monday as it revised Beijing’s holdings of U.S. Treasury debt sharply upward to $1.160 trillion.
The $268.4 billion increase over figures reported on February 15 was contained in a survey of foreign portfolio holdings of U.S. securities released on Monday. The report attributed Treasuries holdings to China that were previously counted in other countries where broker-dealers made purchases.
The United Kingdom has typically been a country where brokers have purchased Treasuries for central banks and investors elsewhere, including China. Get the full story »
Regulators have shut down a small bank in Illinois, raising to 23 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after the limping economy and mounting soured loans felled 157 banks in 2010.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday seized Valley Community Bank, based in St. Charles, Ill. The bank has five branches, $123.8 million in assets and $124.2 million in deposits. Get the full story »
Packages of Starbucks coffee lined up in a supermarket in January 2011. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
It’s official: Kraft Foods will lose its Starbucks business March 1.
The final legal obstacle was removed to Starbucks ending its coffee distribution agreement with Northfield-based Kraft Foods by a U.S. appeals court ruling Friday.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York affirmed a lower court ruling of Jan. 28, denying Kraft’s request to stop Starbucks from moving ahead with its plan to use a new partner to distribute packaged coffee to supermarkets in North America and Europe.
Kraft and Starbucks Coffee Co. are in the arbitration to decide what the Seattle-based coffee giant must pay to terminate the relationship. Kraft has been fighting in court to maintain control of the Starbucks business until the arbitration has been concluded. Get the full story »
Google Inc. announced a major change to its powerful search engine to reduce the appearance of what it calls “low-quality” Web sites in results.
The move comes after months of criticism from a few technology-industry insiders and an acknowledgement by Google last month that it “can and should do better” to beat back sites that game its system to rise up in search results but offer users little value. Get the full story »
A customer purchases gasoline at a Chicago Shell station on Feb. 7, 2011. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
U.S. gas prices jumped 6 cents overnight, as the recent spike in oil prices begins to hit filling stations across America. That marks the third day in a row that prices have risen, and brings the national average to the highest level since October 2008.
The national average price for a gallon of regular gas rose 5.9 cents to $3.287, motorist group AAA said Friday. Gasoline also jumped 6 cents overnight in Chicago, where prices averaged $3.497. Get the full story »
Shares of Boeing gained 4 percent in premarket trade on Friday after the company won a $30 billion contract for 179 new U.S. Air Force refueling planes a day earlier.
The win for Boeing came as a surprise to many industry watchers who expected rival EADS to win the contract. Get the full story »
The Boeing 767-based NewGen Tanker is pictured simultaneously refueling two F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft from the wing air refueling pods in this undated photo illustration, obtained on Feb. 24, 2011. (Reuters/Boeing/Handout)
The U.S. Air Force on Thursday awarded Boeing Co. a contract worth more than $30 billion to build airborne tankers, potentially ending a decade-long contracting saga that is one of the longest and strangest in Pentagon history.
The announcement was an upset win for Chicago-based Boeing, and quickly drew an allegation that Defense Department officials had been swayed by “Chicago politics” from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a leading Congressional supporter of rival bidder EADS. Get the full story »
Sears' same-store sales fell 1.2 percent at U.S. stores open at least one year. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Sears Holdings Corp.’s fourth-quarter profit fell 13 percent as the retailer continues to struggle with declining sales of appliances and apparel and its namesake Sears department stores.
In his annual letter to shareholders Thursday, Sears Chairman Edward Lampert called the financial results “unacceptable” and outlined a vision for the Hoffman Estates-based retailer operating smaller stores and expanding online. Get the full story »
