BP has announced that the company has reached a settlement with businesses and individuals impacted by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  The blast on its drilling rig killed 11 men and released thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf.  BP expects to pay out $7.8 billion to settle a wide range of claims that includes property damage, lost wages, and loss to businesses. The settlement also provides... 

For the past six years, Royal Dutch Shell has been seeking permission to drill in the Artic waters off of the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea.  Over those years, the company has spent nearly $4 billion without drilling a single well.  The company recently scored a small victory when an appeals board of the Environmental Protection Agency rejected four challenges filed by Alaska Native entities... 

Wells Fargo has announced that the company will pay $148.2 million to settle charges of rigging bidding competitions to win city and county contracts.  Federal and state regulators were investigating the actions of Wachovia Bank employees, a company that Wells Fargo acquired in 2008. The regulators claimed that Wachovia generated illicit gains of millions of dollars in fraudulently rigged municipal... 

Altria Group Inc. said it would lower its full-year earnings expectations after subsidiary Philip Morris USA was ordered to pay 60% of a $79.5 million award to Oregon.  Oregon law states that 60% of punitive damage awards must go into to a state fund for crime victim compensation.  The Supreme Court’s ruling reversed a lower court decision on the matter. The tobacco company has been involved... 

JPMorgan Chase has made the decision to cancel three new bank fees that the company was trying out on a trial basis in different parts of the country.  All of the fees were ended on November 19 and November is the last month that customers should see these charges on their accounts.  The number of customers that ended up paying these trial fees was not disclosed by the company and the amount earned... 

Dozens of local DJs from small stations from Syracuse, California to Spokane, Washington were dismissed by Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio station operator in the United States.  Clear Channel Radio operates about 850 stations in the United States and employs 12,000 people.  The company declined to say how many employees were dismissed, but some of the former employees said they believed... 

Despite signs that Amazon has no intention of complying with the state’s new Internet tax law, Connecticut officials are not giving up.  It remains to be seen whether prolonged litigation, which would be costly for both sides, will be necessary. At issue is the requirement that Internet sellers collect state sales taxes on goods and services sold through their websites.  The legislation would... 

A new four-year contract has been approved by factory workers at General Motors.  The new contract promises thousands of new jobs and includes profit-sharing benefits instead of raises for most workers.  The United Auto Workers union said that 65 percent of production workers and 63 percent of skilled-trades workers, such as electricians, voted for the deal. The new contract was the first one approved... 

According to reports, BP failed to disclose to government investigators for nearly a year that a BP scientist had found a deposit of flammable gas that was previously unreported and that may have been a factor in the devastating oil spill that affected the Gulf of Mexico.  Although it is unknown whether the two foot wide area of gas-bearing sands was a significant factor in the disaster, the findings... 

President Obama’s advisor on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, said that federal officials are working “around the clock” to investigate and stop the threat of a possible terrorist attack against New York and Washington, D.C. Brennan was interviewed on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program on Sunday morning. He said that counter-terrorism officials have some amount of information about the possible...