Sam's starts grocery delivery in 3 cities
Sam's Club -- the warehouse division of Walmart Inc. -- will begin delivering groceries to customers in three markets through a partnership with Instacart.
The company said late Monday the same-day delivery service will be available in Dallas, St. Louis and Austin, Texas, beginning today. Items eligible for same-day delivery include produce, meat, frozen foods, everyday essentials and small appliances.
Instacart customers in those markets will be able to shop local Sam's Club stores online without a membership with the delivery service, according to the company. Sam's Club members who use the service will receive membership rewards and lower, member-only pricing on items.
Sam's Club said it plans to expand its Instacart delivery service to additional markets.
-- Robbie Neiswanger
New-home sales slip again in January
WASHINGTON -- Sales of new U.S. homes fell in January for the second straight month, possibly dragged down again by bad weather.
The Commerce Department reported Monday that last month's sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000, the lowest level since August and down 7.8 percent from a revised 643,000 in December.
Economists had expected new home sales to bounce back after tumbling during harsh winter weather in December. But they may have underestimated how bad January's weather turned out to be.
Sales skidded 33.3 percent in the Northeast in January from December and 14.2 percent in the South. But they rose 15.4 percent in the Midwest and 1 percent in the West.
-- The Associated Press
Lift freeze, pipeline builder asks judge
BATON ROUGE -- The company building a crude oil pipeline through environmentally sensitive wetlands in Louisiana's swampy Cajun country asked a federal judge Monday to suspend her own order temporarily halting construction.
Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC asked U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick for a ruling on that request by today so it can pursue an appeal "if necessary."
On Friday, Dick halted construction through the fragile Atchafalaya Basin, ruling in a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. The company said the construction halt could cost it close to $1 million per day -- $1.6 million daily if the order is deemed to apply to the entire length of the pipeline in Louisiana.
The lawsuit claims the Corps didn't adequately consider the project's oil spill risks. In a recent hearing, Dick heard testimony that the project is tearing down centuries-old trees, destroying animal habitats and jeopardizing fishermen's livelihoods.
-- The Associated Press
Shkreli cost investors, sentencer rules
Martin Shkreli's hopes of avoiding more prison time for his fraud convictions took a hit as the federal judge who's going to sentence him ruled his crimes cost investors more than $10 million, rejecting Shkreli's claim he made them money.
When Shkreli was convicted in August, he proclaimed to be "delighted" with the verdict because he'd been "acquitted of the most important charges" and predicted he'd spend no time in prison. His lawyers said he shouldn't be imprisoned because he'd been cleared of "the money count."
But U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, N.Y., rejected those arguments Monday, finding that the former hedge fund manager turned pharmaceutical executive fraudulently induced investors in one of his funds to put up more than $6.3 million and also caused investors in another fund to lose more than $4 million by funneling their money into Retrophin Inc., a company he founded.
The judge's determination on losses is separate from how much Shkreli may have to pay his victims. Prosecutors say he should surrender $7.4 million and the sentence Matsumoto imposes will be based in part on the amount of investor losses.
Shkreli didn't manage his hedge fund "for the benefit of investors but instead used it to fund his own personal or unrelated professional debts and to support the development of Retrophin," Matsumoto said.
-- Bloomberg News
DowDuPont unveils 3 businesses' names
WASHINGTON -- DowDuPont is announcing the names of the three businesses it will become when it breaks itself into three, eight months after the Justice Department approved a $62 billion merger between the chemical giants Dow and DuPont.
The company said Monday that its agriculture division will be called Corteva Agriscience, based in Wilmington, Del. The division had more than $14 billion in revenue last year.
The second company, focused on materials science, will be based in Midland, Mich., and will keep the Dow name and red diamond logo. The third spinoff, which produces and sells specialty products, will be called DuPont. Its headquarters will also be Wilmington.
-- The Associated Press
UPS suing EU over TNT acquisition veto
United Parcel Service is suing the European Union for $2.1 billion in compensation for the damage it says it suffered when regulators wrongly vetoed its attempted takeover of parcel delivery rival TNT Express.
UPS is asking the EU's General Court to award it compensation plus interest and taxes it would pay on any windfall payment, according at a court filing published on Monday. The same court threw out a 2013 veto because merger watchdogs had failed to inform the Atlanta-based logistics giant when they changed an economic model used to weigh evidence.
The company wants to "be put in the position it would have been in had the unlawful decision not been adopted," it said in the filing. Blocking the deal prevented UPS "from materializing the benefits associated with that proposed transaction."
The EU has become one of the toughest regulatory hurdles for big takeovers, squeezing hefty concessions from global companies to allay concerns over how a deal might hurt competition in Europe.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 02/27/2018