SEATTLE -- It's not a second headquarters, but Amazon.com says it will add about 2,000 employees in New York City during the next three years, more than doubling an outpost focused on the online retailer's advertising business.

Seattle-based Amazon already employs about 1,800 people in the Big Apple, spread across advertising roles, a fashion ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Facebook said Thursday that it would turn over to Congress copies of more than 3,000 ads linked to a shadowy Russian company, for House and Senate committees' investigations of Kremlin interference in the 2016 election.

The move is an about-face for Facebook, which earlier this month said it had given the ads and other information...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The nation's top financial markets regulator has revealed that its computer system was hacked last year and that private information might have been used to make "illicit gains" through stock trades.

Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said in a statement posted on the agency's website Wednesday ...Read more

LONDON -- Iraq's Kurdish provinces plan to vote in a referendum on independence on Sept. 25, a poll that regional and Western powers, not to mention the central government in Baghdad, have decried as a catalyst for greater instability in a region gutted by war. At stake are the petrodollars that have helped sustain the Kurdish Regional ...Read more

Q: We were in the middle of buying our new home when Hurricane Irma arrived. We still want to buy the home. What happens now? -- Joan

A: When a hurricane is approaching, it becomes impossible to get homeowner's insurance, causing most closings to be delayed.

The standard real estate contract used in most closings will contain a clause dealing ...Read more

ATLANTA -- It's too early to know if Equifax's massive data breach will have a significant impact on the U.S. economy, but it's not too soon to worry, economists say.

The Atlanta-based company recently acknowledged that information on 143 million people was commandeered by hackers. That's not the largest such breach -- information from more ...Read more

Q: My desktop PC has started turning itself off less than five minutes after I turn it on. But when I restart the PC, it stays on with no problem. I run anti-malware software daily. What's wrong?

-- Maggie Freese, Plymouth, Minn.

A: If your PC has an electrical short circuit that's causing it to shut off, fixing it will be a job for a repair ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration's ban on the use of a Russian cybersecurity firm's software is heightening suspicion worldwide that private internet firms might be in league with their home governments, an industry leader said Wednesday.

The Trump administration last week told U.S. government agencies to remove Kaspersky Lab products ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- With three weeks to go until the explosive Waymo v. Uber trial begins, court-watchers got a peek Wednesday at the hefty price tag Uber could face if it loses.

Waymo is seeking $2.6 billion in damages for just one of the nine self-driving car trade secrets it claims Uber misappropriated, lawyers disclosed at a hearing in ...Read more

Advertisers on Facebook no longer can use offensive search terms such as "Jew hater" and "how to burn Jews" to target specific audiences, the company said Wednesday.

The new policy comes a week after ProPublica published a story demonstrating how advertisers could reach thousands of Facebook users by entering hateful search terms on the social ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- General Mills Inc.'s latest results disappointed investors, but executives said the company is on track to meet financial goals for its new fiscal year and revealed a potential hit product -- chocolate peanut butter Cheerios.

Recalibrating a financial model gone slightly awry, General Mills executives and staffers are now trying ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it would start slowly reducing the trillions of dollars in bonds it bought to try to stimulate the economy, another milestone in the central bank's efforts to return to a normal monetary policy after the Great Recession.

The long-awaited reduction in the Fed's $4.5 trillion balance ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Britain's secretary of state on Wednesday ruled that the bid by Rupert Murdoch's media company to control the European satellite TV service Sky must undergo more rigorous regulatory scrutiny.

Karen Bradley, Britain's secretary of state for culture and media, formally referred 21st Century Fox's bid to consolidate the Sky service ...Read more

HONG KONG -- Bitcoin is looking increasingly likely to splinter off again in November, creating a third version of the world's largest cryptocurrency as miners and developers pursue separate visions to scale its rapidly growing marketplace.

Major industry players, including the bitcoin investor Roger Ver, known as "Bitcoin Jesus" for ...Read more

Coincidence or not, China appears set to ease restrictions on foreign automakers and banks amid sustained pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to open up its economy.

China's central bank is said to be drafting a package of reforms that could include allowing foreign firms to take control of local joint-ventures in the nation's $40 ...Read more

Growth in home equity during working years is important because home equity is a potential source of spendable funds after retirement. In a recent article, I suggested that mortgage borrowers might develop an extra payment plan that would pay off their loan balance before term using calculator 2a on my website, which was developed solely for ...Read more

Earlier this month, Apple promised an "incredible" TV experience. It delivered a snooze fest.

Starting at $179, the new Apple TV, dubbed the Apple TV 4K and available on Sept. 22, is an upgrade worth skipping.

Really, for that price, all you get is the fourth-generation Apple TV with support for super-high resolution content, aka 4K. Otherwise...Read more