Bloomberg The earliest indicators for China’s economy in June signal that the manufacturing sector may be poised to decelerate, while other challenges loom in the second half of this year. Small- and medium-sized enterprises showed the lowest level of confidence in 16 months, a gauge of manufacturing drawn from satellite imagery slumped, and conditions in the steel business remained lackluster. …

Bloomberg Glencore Plc’s years-long pursuit for a bigger Australian coal business was delivered another setback after Rio Tinto Group passed on the company’s offer for a second time. Now the mining giant run by a former coal trader is running out of time to come back with a better offer or lose out on a deal the company has chased …

Bloomberg Google lost its biggest regulatory battle yet, getting a record 2.4 billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine from European Union enforcers who say the search-engine giant skewed results to thwart smaller shopping search services. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has 90 days to “stop its illegal conduct” and give equal treatment to rival price-comparison services, according to a binding order from the European …

Bloomberg The Navajo generating station, the biggest coal-fired power plant in the US West, may live to see another two years. On Monday, Navajo Nation leaders agreed to a deal with the plant’s utility owners that, as originally proposed, could keep the ailing, 2,250-megawatt complex online through December 2019. It would buy the tribe more time to try to attract …

Bloomberg Old-school rental-car agencies may have a road map to prosper in the age of self-driving taxis after all. Avis Budget Group Inc. agreed to manage a fleet of 600 self-driving Chrysler minivans for Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo autonomous technology division. In addition, Hertz Global Holdings Inc. will lease Lexus sport-utility vehicles to Apple Inc., which will convert them to self-driving …

Bloomberg Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc., the two largest US cable companies, met with executives at Sprint Corp. in the past month to discuss reselling wireless services or an acquisition, people familiar with the matter said. The more likely scenario is the cable giants strike a deal that lets them resell services on Sprint’s wireless network, the people said, …

Bloomberg Stada Arzneimittel AG’s months-long sale process unraveled as a small group of the German drugmaker’s investors held out for a better deal than the 5.3 billion-euro ($5.9 billion) offered by two private equity firms. Only 65.5 percent of the shares were tendered in Bain Capital and Cinven’s offer by the Thursday deadline, Bad Vilbel, Germany-based Stada said in a …

WASHINGTON / Reuters The White House warned Syrian President Bashar Al Assad that he and his military would ‘pay a heavy price’ if it conducted a chemical weapons attack and said the United States had reason to believe such preparations were underway. The White House said in a statement the preparations by Syria were similar to those undertaken before an …

Bloomberg Bahrain accused Qatar of a ‘military escalation’ of the crisis that has embroiled the Gulf region for the past three weeks, and warned there would be consequences. While he didn’t identify Turkey by name, Foreign Minister Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa was apparently referring to the Turkish government’s decision earlier this month to accelerate legislation on the planned deployment …

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shouldn’t rush to change Japan’s 70-year-old constitution, a former defense minister and rival for the ruling party’s leadership said in an interview. Shigeru Ishiba, 60, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party who has emerged as a critic of Abe, said he was concerned that the premier was being hasty in asking his party to …