Industrials

Eager to begin a monthlong break, Congress leavened its customary heavy partisanship on Wednesday with a pinch of compromise, advancing legislation to repair the deeply troubled Department of Veterans Affairs and working to clear funds for highway construction at home and missile defense in Israel.

Republican senators have blocked an election-year bill limiting tax breaks for U.S. companies that move operations overseas.

Opponents of expanding a natural gas pipeline through northwestern Massachusetts rallied on Boston Common on Wednesday, asking Gov. Deval Patrick to rescind his support for a new tax on New Englanders' electricity bills to help subsidize it.

Congressional investigators say the government is underestimating the threat of a chemical attack on America's densely populated cities and has failed to inspect virtually all of the chemical facilities that it considers particularly vulnerable to terrorists.

Gov. Tom Corbett is expected in Pittsburgh at a rally of coal industry supporters who oppose stricter Environmental Protection Agency regulations for coal-fired power plants.

The European Union's sanctions against Russia are bound to inflict pain on the country's ailing economy.

The Senate is scheduled to take up legislation Tuesday to keep federal highway money flowing to states, with just three days left before the government plans to start slowing down payments.

European Union ambassadors are meeting to discuss a dramatic toughening of the trade bloc's sanctions against Russia.

It's a battle pitting the nation's airlines against their passengers, and the first round has gone to the industry.

The U.S. nuclear industry has started building its first new plants in decades using prefabricated Lego-like blocks meant to save time and money.

European Union ambassadors have reached a preliminary deal on stepped-up sanctions against Russia, targeting its access to European capital markets and trade in the defense sector, dual-use goods and sensitive technologies.

FRIDAY, Aug. 1 WASHINGTON — Labor Department releases employment data for July, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases personal income and spending for June, 8:30 a.m.; Institute for Supply Management releases its manufacturing index for July, 10 a.m.; Commerce Department releases construction spending for June, 10 a.m.

United Airlines will be the first U.S. carrier to resume flights to Israel after a two-day hiatus caused by combat in the Gaza Strip.

The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted its ban on U.S. flights in and out of Israel, which the agency had imposed out of concern for the risk of planes being hit by Hamas rockets.

Delta Air Lines is canceling all flights to Israel until further notice, citing reports that a rocket landed near Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport.

Fewer people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, evidence that recent job gains should continue.

If there's anything that can unite Democrats and Republicans in the partisan swamp of Capitol Hill, it's free money.

The House is poised to act on a bill that would temporarily patch over a multibillion-dollar pothole in federal highway and transit programs while ducking the issue of how to put the programs on sound financial footing.

Two environmental groups are asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to immediately ban shipments of volatile crude oil in older railroad tank cars, citing recent explosive oil train wrecks and the department's own findings that those accidents pose an "imminent hazard." The petition filed Tuesday by the Sierra Club and ForestEthics seeks an emergency order within 30 days to prohibit crude from the Northern Plains' Bakken region and elsewhere from being carried in the older tank cars, known as DOT-111s.

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