AP National Business

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s National Assembly has approved legislation that bans app store operators such as Google and Apple from forcing developers to use their in-app payment systems. South Korea is reportedly the first country in the world to pass such a bill, which becomes law when it is signed by the

By The Associated Press Johnson & Johnson says its potential HIV vaccine did not provide protection against the virus in a study of young women in sub-Saharan Africa. J&J plans to end that study. But researchers will continue a separate, late-stage trial involving a different composition of the vaccine in men and transgender people. The

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices jumped by a record amount in June as homebuyers competed for a limited supply of available houses, the latest evidence that the housing market remains red-hot. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index jumped 19.1% in June compared with a year earlier,

By DAVID KOENIG and PAUL WISEMAN AP Business Writers Oil companies began gradually to restart some of their refineries in Louisiana, and key fuel pipelines fully reopened, providing hopeful signs that the region’s crucial energy industry can soon recover from the blow of Hurricane Ida. Exxon Mobil said its Hoover platform in the Gulf of

LONDON (AP) — British government veterinarians have killed an alpaca whose sentence of death made international headlines and pitted animal activists against the state. Veterinary staff in blue overalls, masks and goggles, backed by police officers, arrived at the western England farm where Geronimo lived and took the animal from his pen on Tuesday. The

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s president is visiting the United States in hopes of bolstering security ties with Washington and persuading the administration to ramp up sanctions against a new Russian gas pipeline bypassing his country. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called the U.S. failure to block the construction of the

By JARI TANNER Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia’s parliament has elected the chief of a major national museum as the Baltic country’s new president in a second round of voting. Estonian National Museum director Alar Karis secured support from 72 members of the 101-seat Riigikogu legislature, while eight lawmakers voted blank and the

By JOE McDONALD and ZEN SOO AP Business Writers BEIJING (AP) — Hugely popular online games and celebrity culture are the latest targets in the ruling Communist Party’s campaign to encourage China’s public to align with its political and economic vision. Rules that take effect Wednesday cut the amount of game time children are allowed

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Defense Ministry is asking for a 2.6% increase over this year’s record budget. It’s seeking to further strengthen the country’s military in the face of China’s growing assertiveness in the region. In its budget request released Tuesday, the ministry sought 5.48 trillion yen ($49.86 billion) for

By COURTNEY JESPERSEN of NerdWallet One of the biggest sale weekends of the year is fast approaching. Labor Day weekend is traditionally filled with retail discounts ahead of the federal holiday on the first Monday of September. But this year, Labor Day sales will be happening in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, inflation and

BERLIN (AP) — Official statistics show that the number of unemployed people in Germany declined slightly in August, unusually for the summer month, while the country’s jobless rate remained steady at 5.6%. In its last jobs report before a national election on Sept. 26, the Federal Labor Agency said that 2.578 million were registered as

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets have gained as investors weighed the economic impact of the spread of the coronavirus’s delta variant. Wall Street ended August with a gain for the seventh straight month. Shanghai and Hong Kong retreated while Tokyo and South Korea advanced. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P

By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press CALIPATRIA, Calif. (AP) — Demand for electric vehicles has shifted investments into high gear to extract lithium from geothermal wastewater around California’s dying Salton Sea. The ultralight metal is critical to rechargeable batteries. Despite widespread availability in the United States, Nevada has the country’s only lithium plant, and U.S. production

By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press CALIPATRIA, Calif. (AP) — Demand for electric vehicles has shifted investments into high gear to extract lithium from geothermal wastewater around California’s dying Salton Sea. The ultralight metal is critical to rechargeable batteries. Despite widespread availability in the United States, Nevada has the country’s only lithium plant, and U.S. production

By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska residents don’t know how much money they might get from the state’s oil wealth this year, or even when they might get the unique payout just for living in the oil-dependent state. It’s left many upset. Frustrated residents have told lawmakers that they’re tired of

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is in Tokyo meeting Japan’s foreign minister to discuss efforts to involve China and developing nations to fight climate change. The push comes ahead of a United Nations conference in November. The Japanese foreign minister said Tuesday he told Kerry that getting