Investors' focus shifts to 2Q earnings reports
NEW YORK - Investors, whose optimism was recently shaken by surprisingly weak economic data, are now hoping companies can provide some clues about a recovery.

Harvard pres.: School has tough choices in decline
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Drew Gilpin Faust started as Harvard's president when the university's prosperity seemed limitless. With its ballooning wealth, Harvard planned almost frenzied growth, from a building boom into Boston to vast increases in student financial aid.

In Philly schools, most students get a free lunch
PHILADELPHIA - For students at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, there IS such a thing as a free lunch _ and a free breakfast, too. With no strings attached.

Bankruptcies low in states that don't seize wages
States that allow debt collectors to seize consumers' wages have sharply higher bankruptcy rates than neighboring states that prohibit or strictly limit the practice, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Chrysler names remaining directors to new board
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Chrysler Group LLC on Sunday announced the remaining members of its new board of directors, a group that includes a former CEO of Northwest Airlines, investment bankers and top officials of the Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA.

Submarine detects signal from Yemenia black boxes
PARIS - A submarine scouring the Indian Ocean on Sunday detected the signal beacons of the two black boxes from a Yemenia Airways flight that crashed off the Comoros Islands, the French aviation agency said.

As retailers cut back cities confront 'ghostboxes'
BISMARCK, N.D. - Hundreds of anxious shoppers watched as city officials used power saws to cut 2-by-4s during Home Depot Inc.'s ribbon-cutting ceremony for its 102,700-square-foot building center in Bismarck. Less than three years later, the home improvement retailer shuttered the underperforming store, leaving a big orange empty eyesore on the outskirts of town.

Geeks double as scourges and sages at media summit
The media moguls attending an annual powwow staged by investment bank Allen & Co. used to be able to rest comfortably in the Idaho mountains as they mulled their next moves.

`Transformers,' `Ice Age' tie for No. 1 at $42.5M
LOS ANGELES - Prehistoric creatures and robots were in a photo finish for the Fourth of July box-office crown Sunday, with "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" tied with $42.5 million each.

Biden predicts more jobs because of stimulus money
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration "misread" the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the $787 billion stimulus plan quickens, Vice President Joe Biden said.