Associated Press

In an utterly amazing and totally unexpected coincidence, Verizon is reporting that there has been a spike in vandalism and sabotage against its facilities since workers went on strike on April 13. (That's sarcasm, folks.) Paul J. Gough at the Pittsburgh Business Times has reported the company's claim that "there have been more than two dozen cases of what it called sabotage to cables and its…

On Friday, the New York Daily News broke the news that "The head investigator for the state Board of Elections probed the 2014 fundraising efforts by (New York City) Mayor de Blasio and his team on behalf of the (New York State) Senate Democrats and found enough 'willful and flagrant' violations to warrant a criminal referral to the Manhattan DA’s office." The story has attracted virtually no…

Solary energy company SunEdison filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. According to Reuters, the company's stock traded as high as $33.44 in July 2015. The stock closed at 22 cents today. Nine years ago, the company's market value was over $17 billion. According to the Associated Press, in July of last year it was still worth $10 billion. The losses aren't limited to investors, however, a fact that…

On Sunday, I noted how the Associated Press wouldn't let the awful national news from the Federal Reserve on Industrial Production (second straight month of 0.6 percent contraction) stand alone without trying to offset it with phony evidence that U.S. manufacturing is showing "signs of stability." That "evidence" was primarily a positive manufacturing survey result from just one state: New York.…

On April 1, the Associated Press, in an online video which I covered in an April 2 NewsBusters post, interviewed three California business owners about the impact the state's just-passed $15-per-hour minimum wage would have on their businesses. Though the video was headlined "Small Businesses React to Calif. Wage Increase," the owners interviewed weren't representative of the whole state in any…

Three important things happened at Tuesday's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. The first was the testimony of two mothers of children killed by illegal immigrants. The second was the outrageous and false contention by a Methodist bishop that the mere act of bringing attention to these heinous offenses is a form of "blind vengeance" over "…

In another blow to the U.S. and worldwide economy, chipmaker Intel announced today that it is reducing its worldwide workforce by 12,000 people, a cut of 11 percent. Of course, there are tech-related reasons why the company made the move, most notably the shift by some users to tablets and smartphones, where the company's market penetration has been weak and almost non-existent, respectively, as…

The government reported this morning that seasonally adjusted March housing starts and building permits fell by 8.8 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively, far worse declines than analysts and economists predicted. After the report, the business wires at least communicated the facts accurately, but continued to insist almost to the point of editorializing that there's no reason to be worried…

Earlier today, Tim Graham at NewsBusters covered a poll done by an Associated Press-led partnership which found that, in AP's words, "Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of other institutions." The poll noted that "Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it's extremely or very…

Key data about the U.S. economy's performance released this past week was mostly dismal. Wednesday brought news that seasonally adjusted March retail sales, instead of climbing as predicted, fell by 0.3 percent. Later that morning, the government reported that manufacturing and trade inventories and sales both fell in February. The worst news came on Friday, when the Federal Reserve reported…

For better or worse, the press, Wall Street and others routinely place a great deal of faith in the federal government's payroll employment estimates. But when Republican Governor Rick Scott's supporters cited data from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics to defend him against an insufferably rude leftist who started screaming and cursing at him in a Starbucks coffee shop, Associated Press…

Just three months after Arch, the nation's Number 2 coal mining company, filed for bankruptcy, Number 1, Peabody Energy, has followed suit. Five of the industry's largest firms have now gone bankrupt in the past 12 months. Two Associated Press stories on Peabody this week managed to avoid mentioning the name of President Barack Obama, whose hostility toward the industry has been obvious since…

Today's report from the government on retail sales was awful — "unexpectedly" so, according to both Bloomberg and Reuters. Following on the heels of a 0.4 percent seasonally adjusted decline in January and a flat February, March sales fell by 0.3 percent. Two of the three main U.S. business wire services blamed the American people, not the worst post-recession economy since World War II during…

On Tuesday, shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed California's $15-an-hour minimum wage legislation, the Associated Press's Michael R. Blood and Don Thompson called the move "a victory for those struggling on the margins of the economy and the politically powerful unions that pushed it." As seen in a NewsBusters post on March 31, it's definitely a win for union members whose wages are set…