CNN chief leaving

CNN chief leaving

ATLANTA

CNN Chief Jim Walton said Friday that he is leaving the struggling cable network by the end of the year.

Walton joined CNN in 1981 and became president of CNN Worldwide 10 years ago, helping to build the network into a profitable news organization in the United States and internationally.

The ratings for the Atlanta-based cable channel have been suffering, however, with CNN’s U.S. network reporting its worst-ever ratings for a second quarter. The network now is in third place behind bitter rival Fox News as well as MSNBC.

Samsung extends lead in smartphones

NEW YORK

Samsung has extended its lead over Apple in smartphones, in part because its new Galaxy phones came out before Apple updated its iPhone, research group IDC said Friday.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 phones got good reviews when they were released late in the second quarter. In the U.S., the phones work with the faster fourth-generation, or 4G, cellular networks that major wireless companies have been building. The Galaxy’s screen is larger than the iPhone’s, and the Samsung phone is lighter and thinner.

An iPhone with 4G capabilities isn’t expected until this fall. The current model, the iPhone 4S, came out in October, and sales typically drop several months after each release.

Oil prices rise

NEW YORK

The price of oil climbed for a fourth day on expectations of more efforts by government officials and central bankers to help the global economy.

China is planning to pump billions of dollars into housing projects and other infrastructure to support its construction industry. The European Central Bank hinted that more support could be in the works for Europe’s debt-ridden nations, while the leaders of Germany and France vowed to do everything they can to keep the eurozone intact.

There’s also the chance the Federal Reserve could roll out new measures to spark a U.S. economy that grew at a tepid annual rate of 1.5 percent from April through June.

Any new government stimulus could reinvigorate consumers and spark spending and borrowing, which would prop up energy demand.

From wire reports