Government And Institutions

A Delaware judge is considering Duke Energy's request for a six-month halt of a shareholder lawsuit prompted by a massive coal ash spill in North Carolina while the company tries to resolve related lawsuits and finalize a $102 million settlement of a federal criminal investigation.

State regulators in both Carolinas have signed off on their first federal permits to allow companies to conduct seismic testing for oil and natural gas off the Carolinas coast — subject to some conditions.

Texas moved Monday to ban its own cities from imposing prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing and other potentially environmentally harmful oil and natural gas drilling activities within their boundaries — a major victory for industry groups and top conservatives who have decried rampant local "overregulation." Lawmakers in America's largest oil-producing state scrambled to limit local energy exploration prohibitions after Denton, a university town near Dallas, passed an ordinance in November against fracking, attempting to keep encroaching drilling bonanzas outside their community.

The Supreme Court will hear a dispute over an electricity regulation in which utilities pay energy users in the wholesale market to reduce consumption.

State officials are investigating a Texas-based energy company after a spike in complaints from customers over higher-than-expected bills.

Vermont lawmakers head into what are expected to be the final two weeks of their 2015 session with debates still unresolved on taxes, water quality, education, vaccines and other issues.

Film students and professors from more than a dozen colleges and universities in Massachusetts came to the Statehouse Monday to urge lawmakers to keep the state's film tax credit, saying helps boost their job prospects.

Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated).

Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson spent an entire day Monday denying that Las Vegas Sands officials had a hand in firing Steven Jacobs as Sands China Ltd. president in July 2010.

Asian stock markets rose Monday after Wall Street rebounded and China's leaders promised more measures to shore up slowing growth.

Chinese manufacturing suffered its sharpest contraction in a year in April, raising pressure on Beijing to roll out new stimulus to keep growth in the world's No.

Rail tank cars used to transport crude oil and many other flammable liquids will have to be built to stronger standards to reduce the risk of a catastrophic train crash and fire, under sweeping new safety rules unveiled Friday by U.S. and Canadian transportation officials.

The owners of a power plant that supplies more than 2 million customers throughout the Southwest have reached an agreement that will ensure it has coal through 2022.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is raising the country's minimum wage to help workers being battered by inflation running at more than 60 percent a year.

A senior economist from Moody's Analytics says Rhode Island still lags in recovering from the recession but it's starting to catch up with its New England neighbors.

Paychecks for U.S. workers are rising at a faster pace as strong hiring in the past year has lowered the unemployment rate and increased competition for workers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is trying to steer his electric car company's battery technology into homes and businesses as part of an elaborate plan to reshape the power grid with millions of small power plants made of solar panels on roofs and batteries in garages.

Richard Sung Kang's American dream came crashing down in a shower of broken glass.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is majority-owned by the U.K. government, reported Thursday a loss of 446 million pounds ($690 million) for the first quarter of 2015 after taking charges for regulatory probes and restructuring.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled Thursday that some of the 2013 cuts to public-employee retirement benefits are unconstitutional, wiping out much of the savings lawmakers were aiming for and likely raising pension costs for state and local governments.