Target increases annual profit outlook
Target increases annual profit outlook
NEW YORK
Target has raised its annual profit outlook and said its second-quarter net income more than tripled.
The company said second-quarter earnings were $753 million, or $1.18 per share for the three-month period ended Aug. 1. That compares with $234 million, or 37 cents per share, a year earlier.
Adjusted earnings were $1.22, above Target’s range of $1.04 to $1.14 per share.
Target says revenue at stores open at least a year rose 2.4 percent, in line with expectations. In comparison, Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores saw a 1.5 percent increase.
Target believes that it will earn $4.60 to $4.75 per share for the full year. That’s up from its prior projection of $4.50 to $4.65 per share.
Last official charged in chemical spill enters guilty plea
CHARLESTON, W.VA.
The executive who appeared unsympathetic when he spoke to the public after a chemical spill sullied tap water for 300,000 people pleaded guilty Wednesday to pollution charges and could face up to three years in prison.
Freedom Industries President Gary Southern, who told reporters a day after the January 2014 spill that he had had a “long day” and tried to leave a news conference multiple times, is the last of six company officials to plead guilty in the spill.
The spill happened when a corroded Freedom tank in Charleston leaked coal-cleaning chemicals into the water supply for nine counties, spurring a ban on tap water for up to 10 days.
Southern will be sentenced Dec. 16.
Ex-Massey CEO: Exclude testimony, finances from trial
CHARLESTON, W.VA.
Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s lawyers say his compensation and stock holdings and the testimony of a former subordinate are irrelevant to his criminal case and should be excluded from his trial.
Evidence of Blankenship’s finances and testimony from David Hughart, a former president of Massey subsidiary White Buck Coal Co., would unfairly prejudice the jury, defense lawyers said in motions filed Tuesday in federal court.
Hughart was sentenced in 2013 to 31/2 years in prison on conspiracy charges that grew out of the criminal investigation into the 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29 men. He admitted his role in ensuring that miners at other Massey subsidiaries got illegal advance warning of surprise safety inspections. He also implicated Blankenship in the conspiracy during his plea hearing in 2013.
UN airs wiretapping concerns to AT&T
UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations said Wednesday it expressed concern to AT&T about a report that the telecom giant allowed the United States to wiretap all Internet communications at U.N. headquarters.
The world body also announced bidding for new communications contracts in the coming months.
Vannina Maestracci, a U.N. spokeswoman, told reporters that discussions with AT&T on the reported wiretapping would continue “over the coming months.”
Staff/wire reports