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Most laid-off US workers take pay cuts in new jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economic recovery hasn't felt much like one even for people who managed to find new jobs after being laid off. Most have had to settle for less pay.

Only 56 percent of Americans laid off from January 2009 through December 2011 had found jobs by the start of this year, the Labor Department said Friday. More than half of them took jobs with lower pay. One-third took pay cuts of 20 percent or more.

The figures would be even worse if people who could find only part-time jobs were included in the total.

The report provides an illustration of the job market's persistent weakness well after the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. It also documents that while the economy has added nearly 3 million jobs since the recovery began, many pay less than those that were lost.

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AP Exclusive: Romney uses secretive data-mining

WASHINGTON (AP) — Building upon its fundraising prowess, Mitt Romney's campaign began a secretive data-mining project this summer to sift through Americans' personal information — including their purchasing history and church attendance — to identify new and likely wealthy donors, The Associated Press has learned.

The project employs strategies similar to those the business world uses to influence the way Americans shop and think. Now they're being used to sway presidential elections. The same personal data consumers give away — often unwittingly when they swipe their credit cards or log into Facebook — is now being used by the people who might one day occupy the White House.

For Romney's data-mining project, which began as early as June, the Republican candidate quietly turned to a little-known but successful analytics firm that previously performed marketing work for a colleague tied to Bain & Co., the management-consulting firm that Romney once led.

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2 killed, 9 wounded outside Empire State Building

NEW YORK (AP) — A laid-off worker fatally shot an executive at his former company outside the Empire State Building on Friday, setting off a chaotic showdown with police in front of one of the world's best-known landmarks. Officers killed the gunman and at least nine others were wounded, some by stray police gunfire, authorities said.

The gunshots rang out on the Fifth Avenue side of the building at around 9 a.m., when pedestrians on their way to work packed sidewalks and merchants were opening their shops.

Wearing an olive suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, Jeffrey Johnson walked up to the import company vice president, Steven Ercolino, put a gun to his head and fired without saying a word, authorities said. A witness told investigators that Johnson shot Ercolino once in the head and, after he fell to the sidewalk, stood over him and shot him four more times.

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Gulf of Mexico oil companies start evacuations

Oil companies are evacuating some Gulf of Mexico oil rigs in advance of Tropical Storm Isaac.

For now the storm is close to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. But oil installations would be at risk if it heads to the Gulf of Mexico and reaches hurricane strength.

BP said Friday it has begun evacuating all workers from its Thunder Horse platform in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and will suspend oil and natural gas production there. It is also evacuating non-essential workers from offshore facilities in the central Gulf.

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Drop in key US durable goods orders shows weakness

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs that U.S. manufacturing is faltering emerged from a report Friday that orders for long-lasting factory goods, excluding the volatile transportation category, fell in July for the fourth time in five months.

Overall orders for durable goods rose a seasonally adjusted 4.2 percent in July, the Commerce Department said. But excluding aircraft and other transportation goods, orders dropped 0.4 percent.

Durable goods are items meant to last at least three years. Orders for so-called core capital goods, a key measure of business investment plans, fell 3.4 percent. That's the biggest drop since November and the fourth decline in five months. And June's figure was revised down to show a drop of 2.7 percent — much worse than the initial estimate of a 1.7 percent fall.

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Alzheimer's drug fails study but flashes potential

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Alzheimer's treatment from Eli Lilly and Co. failed to slow memory decline in two separate patient studies, but the drug did show some potential to help in mild cases of the mind-robbing condition that is notoriously difficult to treat.

The Indianapolis drugmaker's announcement could be a step toward a long-awaited breakthrough in the fight against the disease. But researchers not tied to the studies — and Eli Lilly itself — cautioned against overreacting to the initial results.

Lilly said Friday that its treatment, solanezumab, failed to slow the rate of cognitive decline, which involves a person's ability to remember things, in two late-stage studies of about 1,000 patients each. But when data from the trials were combined, scientists saw a statistically significant slowing of that rate in the bigger population.

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SKorean court rules Samsung didn't copy iPhone

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean phone maker Samsung won a home court ruling Friday in its global patent battle against Apple and its popular iPhone and iPad devices.

Judges in Seoul said Samsung Electronics Co. didn't copy the look and feel of the iPhone and ruled that Apple infringed on Samsung's wireless technology.

However, the judges also said Samsung violated Apple's technology behind a feature that causes a screen to bounce back when a user scrolls to an end image. Both sides were ordered to pay limited damages.

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Analysts cut 2012 PC, chip shipment forecasts

NEW YORK (AP) — What once looked like a good year for computers and chips has now fizzled, say researchers.

IHS iSuppli said Friday that global semiconductor chip shipments are set to fall by 0.1 percent this year. That's down from a previous forecast for growth of up to 3 percent. It's the first annual decline since recession-colored 2009.

ISuppli said shipments slowed noticeably compared to normal seasonal patterns in the April to June period. The weak global economy is one culprit, but most of the slowdown is in chips for PCs, iSuppli said.

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Court upholds block on graphic cigarette warnings

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The federal government can't require tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill people, a divided federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington affirmed a lower court ruling that the requirement ran afoul of the First Amendment's free speech protections. The appeals court tossed out the requirement and told the Food and Drug Administration to go back to the drawing board. The decision is considered a blow to one of the Obama administration's major public health initiatives, raises the prospect of another U.S. Supreme Court tobacco battle and opens the door to further challenges of FDA's regulatory scheme.

Some of the nation's largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sued to block the mandate to include warnings to show the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit lighting up. They argued that the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy. The government argued the photos of dead and diseased smokers are factual in conveying the dangers of tobacco, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths in the U.S. a year.

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By The Associated Press(equals)

The Dow Jones industrial average finished 100.51 points higher at 13,157.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 9.05 to 1,411.13. The Nasdaq composite index rose 16.39 to 3,069.79.

Benchmark crude traded in New York fell 12 cents to finish at $96.15. Brent crude traded in London fell, too, down 28 cents to $113.31. Brent crude is used to price international varieties of oil.

Natural gas fell 10 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $2.70 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline at New York Harbor rose a penny to $3.12. Heating oil fell 2 cents to $3.12.