NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is reversing a two-day decline. Stocks opened modestly higher after Alcoa kicked off the second-quarter earnings season late yesterday with better-than-expected news, and the gains are mounting in afternoon trading.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting show officials differed over the best way to signal when they might raise a key short-term interest rate, but they agreed their monthly bond buying program will end in October. The split was between those who wanted to communicate that the Fed remains concerned that inflation is rising too slowly and those who worried the economy might rebound faster than expected. In the end, they stuck to guidance that rates will likely remain low for a “considerable time” after the bond purchases end.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford says it remains on track to make a profit in Europe next year despite the fragile economy. The automaker hasn’t earned a pretax profit in Europe since 2010, and it lost $1.6 billion in the region last year. But Ford Europe president Stephen Odell says three plant closures and more than a dozen new products are helping reverse that. He says Ford’s sales are up 6.6 percent in Europe this year, and Europe’s first 500 Mustang sports cars sold out in 30 seconds.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More flights on U.S. airlines are running late or getting canceled, and complaints are rising. The Transportation Department says 76.9 percent of flights arrived on time in May, down from 79.6 percent in April and 79.4 percent in May 2013. Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines were ranked best, while ExpressJet and Envoy, which fly smaller planes for big airlines, were last. Fliers filed 1,010 complaints with the government against U.S. airlines, up from 720 a year earlier.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture says farmers and ranchers who suffered heavy livestock and grazing losses due to extreme weather in the past three years have been quick to take advantage of newly available disaster relief funds. USDA says it has distributed more than $1 billion in relief funds in just over three months. It says it has processed and delivered more than 106,000 payments to farmers in 40 states as of July 2.
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