AP National Business

BEIJING (AP) — China has applied to join an 11-nation Asia-Pacific free trade group in an effort to increase its influence over international policies. Commerce Minister Wang Wentao submitted an application to the trade minister of New Zealand as a representative of the Comprehensive and Progress Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Commerce Ministry announced Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — British presenter Piers Morgan will join News Corp and Fox News Media and host a TV show that will air in the U.S., Britain and Australia, the company said Thursday. News Corp executive chair Rupert Murdoch said Morgan, 56, is “the broadcaster every channel wants but is too afraid to hire.” Murdoch

By DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press Facebook removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to anti-lockdown demonstrators in Germany, the company announced Thursday, under a new policy focused on groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but who don’t fit into the platform’s existing categories of bad actors. The accounts on Facebook and Instagram spread content

The Associated Press Stocks couldn’t hold on to a brief afternoon gain and wound up ending mostly lower Thursday. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each fell. The tech-heavy Nasdaq managed to eke out a small gain. More stocks fell than rose in the S&P 500, and most of the index’s sectors

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that traded heavily or had substantial price changes Thursday: Timken, Newmont fall, Gap, Lennar rise.

The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Massachusetts regulators are fining MassMutual $4 million and ordering it to overhaul its social-media policies after accusing the company of failing to supervise an employee whose online cheerleading of GameStop’s stock helped launch the frenzy that shook Wall Street earlier this year. The settlement announced Thursday by Secretary

By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press MILAN (AP) — Italian workers in both the public and private sectors must display a health pass to access their workplaces from Oct. 15 under a decree adopted Thursday by Premier Mario Draghi’s broad-based coalition government. The measures are the first by a major European economy requiring proof of vaccination,

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The director of Covered California said Thursday he will step down early next year, prompting a national search for a new leader of the nation’s largest state-based health insurance marketplace. Peter Lee has been Covered California’s only executive director in its nine-year history, launching the marketplace

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Muslim civil rights group is calling for a boycott of Hilton hotels over what it says are plans to build a hotel on the site of a bulldozed Uyghur mosque in China. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other organizations held a news conference Thursday outside the Capital Hilton in Washington

The Associated Press Closing prices for crude oil, gold and other commodities, and foreign exchange levels.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A budget airline will get a chance to add flights at the busy airport in Newark, New Jersey, just outside New York City. The Transportation Department said Thursday that it will give coveted afternoon and evening runway rights to a low-cost airline. The takeoff and landing rights were previously used by Southwest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term mortgage rates dipped lower this week as economic prospects continued muted amid a wave of new delta variant coronavirus cases. They remained under 3%. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year mortgage edged down to 2.86% from 2.88% last week. That’s very close to

HENRICO, Va. (AP) — A tentative contract agreement reached between snack company Mondelez and striking union workers could end a walkout that began last month. The company and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union issued statements Wednesday announcing a tentative deal, but The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports neither would discuss the terms.

By KEVIN FREKING and LISA MASCARO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has been enlisting one emissary after another to convince Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to help raise the federal debt limit. It’s not working. Despite the high-level conversations, including a call from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the GOP leader is digging

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t make many headlines. Charged with keeping America’s workplaces safe, it usually busies itself with tasks such as setting and enforcing standards for goggles, hardhats and ladders. But President Joe Biden this month threw the tiny Labor Department agency into

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats are calling top executives at ExxonMobil and other oil giants to testify at a House hearing as lawmakers investigate what they say is a long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming. The House Oversight Committee on

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is reviewing the ethics policies that govern the financial holdings and activities of its senior officials in the wake of recent disclosures that two regional Fed presidents engaged in extensive trading last year. Robert Kaplan, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, in

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Colleen Hoover’s years as a published — and self-published — novelist have been one long, pleasant surprise. The Texas-based writer broke through in 2012 when, through an Amazon.com program, she released “Slammed,” which became a showcase for how an author in the Internet age can

By DAVID McHUGH and ARITZ PARRA MADRID (AP) — Wholesale prices for gas and electricity are surging across Europe, raising the prospect of increases in already-high utility bills and further pain for people who have taken a financial hit from the coronavirus pandemic. Governments are scrambling to find ways to limit costs to consumers as