Business News

NEW YORK (AP) — Meal-kit delivery company Blue Apron priced the shares it’s selling in its initial public offering at the low end of its expected range, a sign that it might be having trouble attracting investors.

The New York company said that the 30 million shares in its IPO would be priced at $10 per share. Blue Apron initially forecast pricing shares in the offering between $15 and $17 a piece, but then dropped the predicted range to $10 to $11.

The pricing of Blue Apron’s IPO comes as competition to deliver groceries heats up. Among Blue Apron’s rivals are HelloFresh and Plated, which ship boxes to customer’s doorsteps with all the raw ingredients needed to make home-cooked meals. E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. is expected to shake up the industry after announcing plans to buy organic […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican donors paid $35,000 apiece to hear familiar a message from President Donald Trump: The media, particularly CNN, keep trying to take him down, and yet Republicans just keep on winning elections. He noted with pride that his party had won four special elections this year.

The president was whisked a few blocks from the White House to the Trump International Hotel, his name-branded Washington venue, for an evening of hobnobbing behind closed doors Wednesday with major party financiers, including Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn.

One attendee stood out: Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, part of a small group of Republicans whose objections just a day earlier had doomed — at least for now — the Senate’s effort to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law. Trump did not single out Heller, but Wynn, the lead fundraiser for the […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans’ struggle to pass a health care bill is jeopardizing another one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities: overhauling America’s tax system.

A day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., delayed a vote on a bill to scrap much of Democrat Barack Obama’s health law, questions lingered about whether congressional Republicans could pass big, complicated pieces of legislation.

“The whole idea is to do health care first because you gain an advantage there to go on and do tax reform,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. “We’ve sort of bollixed that up, but I’m encouraged.” Senators were still struggling Wednesday to reach an agreement on key parts of the health bill before they leave […]

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union says economic sentiment across the 19-country eurozone has risen to near-decade highs as the recovery gathers steam across sectors and nations.

In a monthly survey published Thursday, the EU’s executive arm says its economic sentiment indicator for the eurozone rose 1.9 points to 111.1 in June, its highest level since August 2007.

The rise was broad-based across sectors, including industry, and among consumers. Sentiment was particularly strong in Germany and France, the eurozone’s powerhouse economies.

Over recent weeks, there have been increasing signs that growth in the eurozone is picking up. As a result, speculation is intensifying that the European Central Bank may soon signal its intention to rein back stimulus measures. Much will depend on whether inflation heads back up to levels policymakers are happy with. Copyright © The […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans are stymied over health care. But after seven years of promising to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s law, they risk political disaster if they don’t deliver.

Republicans anticipate a major backlash from GOP voters if they don’t make good on the promises that swept them to control of the House and Senate and helped propel Donald Trump to the White House in last year’s elections.

Trump himself could turn on his congressional allies if they fail, some Republicans fear, and take his supporters with him just as the 2018 midterm elections loom. And, passage of health care legislation would set the stage for the next major item on Trump’s to-do list: rewriting the loophole-ridden U.S. tax code. Republicans are counting […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The superheated argument over the Republican drive to overhaul health care has not been the finest moment for accuracy.

Here’s a sampling of claims from both sides as Senate Republicans struggle to revive their stalled legislation:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “Democrats purposely misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill – actually goes up.” — tweet Wednesday

KELLYANNE CONWAY, White House senior adviser: “These are not cuts to Medicaid, George. This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility with Medicaid dollars because they’re closest to the people in need.” — Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”

THE FACTS: The stalled Senate bill would cut Medicaid — by phasing out ex-President Barack Obama’s expansion of the program and reducing over time the number of people who can be on it. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the program would cover 15 million fewer people by 2026, a 16 percent reduction. Although Trump […]

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Swedish low-cost fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz AB says second quarter sales increased by 10 percent to 59.5 billion kronor ($7 billion) mainly because of its continued expansion and tight control on costs.

Its net profit for the three-month period rose by 10 percent to 7.7 billion kronor.

CEO Karl-Johan Persson says online sales developed “very well” while the group’s other brands — COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday and H&M Home — “remained very strong, both in stores and online.”

However, sales were “more challenging” in several major markets, including the U.S. and China, among others. The Stockholm-based group said Thursday that it added six new markets — Turkey, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia — to its online offering during the period, taking the total to 41. Copyright © The Associated Press. All […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The widows of four activists executed 22 years ago in Nigeria are launching a civil action in the Netherlands, alleging complicity by oil giant Shell in their husbands’ deaths, human rights organization Amnesty International said Thursday.

Amnesty said that Esther Kiobel is bringing the civil case at a court in The Hague along with Victoria Bera, Blessing Eawo and Charity Levula. The women are seeking a public apology and compensation.

Their husbands were among nine activists from the Ogoni tribe, led by writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, who were hanged in 1995 for the murder of four political rivals. Supporters say they were really targeted because of their involvement in protests against environmental damage by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary. “Esther Kiobel has been weighed down by injustice for […]

BERLIN (AP) — Europe is “more determined than ever” to make the Paris climate accord a success, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, and insisted that the deal is not negotiable while predicting difficult talks on the issue at next week’s Group of 20 summit.

Merkel also said she hopes for a “clear signal” in favor of free markets and the multilateral trading system from the July 7-8 meeting in Hamburg, arguing anew that protectionism can’t solve the world’s problems.

Merkel addressed Germany’s parliament ahead of a meeting later Thursday with European participants in the G-20 summit. The Trump administration’s “America first” approach to trade and other issues has caused widespread concern elsewhere, as has its decision to withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change. The European Union will implement swiftly its commitments under […]

LAGONISSI, Greece (AP) — Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said Thursday that his country will return to markets with or without the support of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program.

Tsakalotos said qualifying for the ECB’s quantitative easing program, which has helped keep a lid on the market rates of the other 18 euro countries, would have a largely “symbolic” effect. Greece has been excluded from the program partly because the ECB wants more information about potential debt relief measures for the country.

“I wouldn’t elevate it too high … It would be very useful. It is important, but mostly in symbolic terms,” Tsakalotos said at a financial conference near Athens. “What we need to do is ensure is that the investment community knows there will be a program of access to the markets,” he said. Tsakalotos said […]

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s culture secretary will rule Thursday on whether Twenty-First Century Fox can take full control of the Sky pay television and broadband network in an 11.7 billion pound ($15.2 billion) deal critics say would give Rupert Murdoch too much power in U.K. media.

Murdoch’s media group is trying to buy the 61 percent of Sky it doesn’t already own, giving Twenty-First Century Fox easy access to Sky’s 22 million customers in the U.K., Ireland, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley is scheduled to release her decision later Thursday, announcing whether she has cleared the deal or referred it to competition regulators for further review. Ofcom, the communications regulator, last week submitted a report to Bradley on the deal’s implications for media competition and Sky’s compliance with broadcasting standards. A separate report […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is exploring options for salvaging the battered Republican health care bill, even as he confronts an expanding chorus of GOP detractors.

That is deepening the uncertainty over whether the party can resuscitate its promise to repeal President Barack Obama’s overhaul.

A day after McConnell, short of votes, unexpectedly abandoned plans to whisk the measure through his chamber this week, fresh GOP critics popped forward. Some senators emerged from a party lunch saying potential amendments were beyond cosmetic, with changes to Medicaid and Obama’s consumer-friendly insurance coverage requirements among the items in play.

“There’s a whole raft of things that people are talking about, and some of it’s trimming around the edges and some of it’s more fundamental,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. “Right now, they’re still kind of, ‘Can we do it?’ and I can’t answer that.” Yet while this week’s retreat on a measure McConnell wrote […]

BERLIN (AP) — The Latest on the lead-up to the G-20 summit in Hamburg (all times local):

9:40 a.m.

Germany’s foreign minister says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked permission to hold a rally to address Turks in Germany on the sidelines of the upcoming G-20 meeting in Hamburg, a request that could further inflame tensions between Berlin and Ankara.

The dpa news agency reported Thursday that Sigmar Gabriel said, while on a trip to Russia, that Turkey had officially requested permission for Erdogan to make the appearance while in Germany for the July 7-8 summit. It wasn’t clear whether permission would be granted.

German local authorities’ banning of campaign rallies by Turkish ministers earlier this year contributed to tensions between the two countries, which were also inflamed by other issues like Turkey’s jailing of two German journalists. ___ 9:35 a.m. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she hopes for a “clear signal” from next week’s Group of 20 summit […]

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, one of the global companies hardest hit by a malicious software that froze computers around the globe, said Thursday that most of its terminals are now operational, though some remain crippled.

The Copenhagen-based company said that some terminals are “operating slower than usual or with limited functionality.” Problems have been reported across the shippers’ global business, from Mobile, Alabama, to Mumbai in India.

The shipping company is one of a number of major corporations and government agencies — from logistics firm FedEx to Ukraine’s banking system — to have been hit by the software epidemic. Maersk, as the shipper is known, says it’s able to accept bookings again via the INNTRA booking platform but that its logistics division, […]

TOKYO (AP) — Western Digital Corp. lashed back against its joint venture partner Toshiba on Thursday in a deepening feud over the Japanese company’s plan to sell its computer memory business.

In response to Toshiba’s announcement a day earlier that it was suing Western Digital, seeking 120 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in damages, Western Digital said Toshiba’s complaints over its objections to the sale of the memory unit and accusations of misuse of trade secrets were “frivolous and without merit” and would hurt customers and stakeholders.

“We remain committed to upholding all of our commitments and obligations as a partner in the JVs, including the vigorous protection of trade secrets,” Western Digital said in a statement. Any claims by Toshiba to the contrary are frivolous and without merit. Western Digital said Toshiba was blocking access by some workers to shared databases […]