Washington / AFP A hot air balloon that went down in a fiery crash in a Texas pasture, killing all 16 people on board, likely struck a power line, an investigator said on Sunday. “There’s physical evidence to indicate the balloon or some component of the balloon hit the wires themselves,” US National Transportation Safety Board official Robert Sumwalt ...

  Bloomberg As many airlines across Asia join a rush to expand their fleets by ordering hundreds of jets, China’s top budget carrier is putting a pause to its new plane orders and said it will instead focus on operations. After signing an agreement in December with Airbus Group SE for 60 A320 aircraft, Spring Airlines Co. said it has ...

  Bloomberg A startup online lending marketplace began offering retail investors access to individual corporate bonds for as little as 100 pounds ($132) on Monday. WiseAlpha said its online platform provides potential annual yields of 5 percent to 8 percent and is a “compelling alternative” to low-yielding savings accounts, the stock market or peer-to-peer lending, according a statement. The average ...

  Bloomberg Just before the stores open in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district, buses pull up, unleashing Chinese tourists and their credit cards to snap up televisions, rice cookers and other gadgets. Walk into any department store and there they are, buying mascara, t-shirts and other merchandise. China’s infatuation with Japanese products is now discovering a new source of satisfaction: the ...

  Bloomberg At a quarry in Bridgeport, Texas, where rock is crushed, sorted and cleaned, it’s hard to tell that the nation’s construction boom may be hitting a wall. Workers maneuver front-end loaders to fill a long line of rail cars and trucks with up to 25 tons of washed stone each. The destination: one of many construction projects that ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong’s secondary property prices rose in the second quarter, marking a pause in a correction that analysts said may resume amid higher supply and weaker demand. Secondary property prices advanced 1.6 percent in the three months ended June 30, compared with a drop of 4.8 percent in the prior three months, according to figures released Friday by ...

  Bloomberg Rexel SA’s new chief executive officer will review the company’s 2020 targets as partial recoveries in the French construction and oil and gas markets help the electrical-equipment maker meet its goals for this year. The management team will focus on “delivering our 2016 targets, along with reviewing our action plans and updating our 2020 ambitions,” Chief Executive Officer ...

  AFP Price rises for new homes in China accelerated in July from the previous month, a survey showed on Monday, with some buyers possibly prompted by moves in some cities to curb prices. The average price for new homes in 100 major cities increased 1.63 percent month-on-month in June to 12,009 yuan ($1,814) per square metre, the China Index ...

  Bloomberg Inside a packed Vodafone Group Plc store in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, a group of the city’s tech-savvy students wait in line for wireless modems they hope will transform their ability to surf the internet. They don’t even care that they won’t be able to get a voice plan to talk over the British mobile operator’s network ...

  Bloomberg GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the UK’s biggest drugmaker, is forming a joint venture with Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s life-sciences business to explore using electrical signals to treat diseases. Glaxo will hold a 55 percent stake in the venture, called Galvani Bioelectronics, and Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences LLC will hold 45 percent, according to a statement on Monday. The companies will ...