IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- One of the Tyson Foods managers fired for betting on how many workers would contract COVID-19 at an Iowa pork plant said the office pool was spontaneous fun and intended to boost morale.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Thousands of Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are snorting and squealing their way across Puerto Rico in what many fear has become an unstoppable quest to eat and reproduce on an island struggling to stop them.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Dan Marshall's toy store should be crowded this time of the year with parents and grandparents buying gifts and children trying out games. Instead, only a handful of customers are in Mischief Toy Store at any time, and their visits are short and efficient.

On a Saturday afternoon in March as COVID-19 was bearing down on New York City, a dozen scientists anxiously crowded around a computer in a suburban drug company's lab. They had spent weeks frantically getting blood from early survivors across the globe and from mice with human-like immune s…

NEW YORK (AP) -- Clothing stores and specialty retailers are offering big discounts and heavily promoting curbside pickup in hopes of rescuing a lackluster holiday shopping season in which surging coronavirus cases have kept many shoppers at home.

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union's top court ruled on Thursday that Volkswagen breached the law by installing on its cars a so-called defeat device to cheat on emission tests and cannot argue it was merely protecting car engines.

China's Luckin Coffee has agreed to pay a $180 million penalty to settle accounting fraud charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission says.

SIOUX FALLS -- The South Dakota Corn Growers Association (SDCGA) board elected Dave Ellens of Madison as secretary-treasurer for 2021 at its annual meeting on Tuesday.

A recently formed pharmaceutical spinoff will slash 20% of its workforce as it tries to cut at least $1 billion in costs over the next few years.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has spent years, if not decades, telling his fellow Democrats they needed to do more to aid rural communities and reach out to them. But he has often lamented that no one listened.

Airbnb proved its resilience in a year that has upended global travel. Now it needs to prove it can live up to investors' sky-high expectations.

Tesla said Tuesday it is looking to raise up to $5 billion in capital through a stock offering. The announcement came on the same day CEO Elon Musk said he has moved his home to Texas from California.

BROOKINGS -- South Dakota State University Extension faculty will conduct a statewide comprehensive needs assessment to find more ways to help agricultural producers deal with stress through a new U.S. Department of Agriculture program.

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) -- Uber is selling off its autonomous vehicles development arm as the ride-hailing company slims down after its revenues were pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic.

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) -- Pacific Gas & Electric's household customers will be hit with an average rate increase of 8% to help the once-bankrupt utility pay for improvements designed to reduce the risks that its outdated equipment will ignite deadly wildfires in its Northern California s…

SPRING, Texas (AP) -- Tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it is moving its global headquarters to the Houston area from California, where the company's roots go back to the founding of Silicon Valley decades ago.

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) -- Business software pioneer Salesforce.com is buying work-chatting service Slack for $27.7 billion in a deal aimed at giving the two companies a better shot at competing against longtime industry powerhouse Microsoft.

Nasdaq is pushing for the more than 3,000 companies listed on its U.S. stock exchange to make their boardrooms less overwhelmingly male and white by hiring directors that better reflect the country's diverse population.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- The Indian government and protesting farmers were unable to reach common ground in talks held Tuesday, with the farmers saying their demonstrations against new agriculture laws will continue as will their blockades of key highways.

BERLIN (AP) -- German media giant Bertelsmann said Wednesday that its Penguin Random House division is buying rival Simon & Schuster in a megadeal that would reshape the U.S. publishing industry.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Thousands of angry Indian farmers protesting against new agricultural laws were allowed to enter the national capital late Friday after they clashed with police who had blocked them at the outskirts of the city.

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) -- RadioShack, a fixture at the mall for decades, has been pulled from brink of death, again.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Malaysia's Top Glove Corp., the world's largest maker of rubber gloves, said Tuesday it expects a two- to four-week delay in deliveries after more than 2,000 workers at its factories were infected by the coronavirus, raising the possibility of supply disruption…

NEW YORK (AP) -- The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, expects that holiday sales could actually exceed growth seen in prior seasons, despite all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a 2018 jury verdict that led to awarding monetary damages to neighbors of a North Carolina industrial hog operation for smells and noise they said made living nearby unbearable.

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors says a pending breakthrough in battery chemistry will cut the price of its electric vehicles so they equal those powered by gasoline within five years. The technology also will increase the range per charge to as much as 450 miles.

LONDON (AP) -- British airline easyJet has posted its first full-year loss in its 25-year history as a result of the coronavirus pandemic but laid out hope that the rollout of vaccines will help it bounce back strongly next year.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Warren Buffett's company has trimmed its huge stake in Apple and added new investments in several drugmakers while tweaking several other holdings in its stock portfolio.

TOKYO (AP) -- U.S. retailer Walmart is selling off 85% of its wholly owned Japanese supermarket subsidiary Seiyu, while retaining a 15% stake, in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, the companies said Monday.

Brian Contreras represents the worst fears of the lucrative business travel industry.

BEIJING (AP) -- China's sales of vehicles including trucks and buses rose 12.5% over a year earlier in October as the industry recovered from the coronavirus, but total purchases in the year's first 10 months still were below pre-virus levels, an industry group reported Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The nation's largest beauty store chain, Ulta Beauty, has a deal to place shops in more than 100 Target stores by mid-2021.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The re-election defeat of U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson in Minnesota and some key retirements mean a shakeup is coming for the industry on Capitol Hill, with power likely to shift from the Midwest to the South and the coasts.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A divided Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday the state's dairy workers are entitled to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week, a decision expected to apply to the rest of the agriculture industry.

LONDON (AP) -- AstraZeneca hopes to show its COVID-19 vaccine is effective by the end of this year and is ramping up manufacturing so it can supply hundreds of millions of doses starting in January, Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said Thursday.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- German automaker BMW said third-quarter net profit rose 17% to 1.81 billion euros ($2.22 billion) as sales boomed in China and highly profitable luxury models such as the 8 Series coupe and X7 large sport-utility vehicle helped fatten the bottom line.

MILAN (AP) -- Luxury sportscar maker Ferrari on Tuesday reported its profits remained flat in the third quarter as it recovers lost production from the coronavirus shutdown.

NEW YORK (AP) -- When asked about Google, Bryan Clayton voices a familiar lament among small business owners.

WILBRAHAM, Mass. (AP) -- Friendly's Restaurants, the 85-year-old East Coast dining chain known for its Fribble milkshakes and ice cream sundaes, is filing for bankruptcy protection.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Microsoft reported quarterly earnings Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations, as it continued to weather the coronavirus pandemic amid increased demand for its flagship software and services.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Advanced Micro Devices is buying Xilinx for $35 billion in an all-stock deal that will combine the two Silicon Valley chip makers and accelerate an already rapid-fire pace of mergers and buyouts in the industry.

BERLIN (AP) -- German health care company Bayer said Monday it is buying Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, a U.S.-based firm specializing in gene therapy, in a deal worth up to $4 billion.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Sunflower farmers in the U.S. are expected to produce their biggest crop in five years, and North Dakota farmers are expecting their best yield in history.

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson has reported upbeat third quarter earnings, helped mainly by the rollout of 5G wireless networks in China and a strong U.S. market.

HONG KONG (AP) -- Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific Airways said Wednesday it would cut 8,500 jobs and shut a regional airline as it grapples with the plunge in air travel due to the pandemic.

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) -- The number of passengers screened in a single day for flights in the U.S. topped one million for the first time since COVID-19 infections began to spike last March.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The coronavirus pandemic has put millions of Americans out of work. But many of those still working are fearful, distressed and stretched thin.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- First there was taco night, then barbecue sandwiches, followed by meats by the pound -- all splashy marketing events to generate buzz leading up to Proof BBQ's grand opening in the Cleveland suburbs. And then came coronavirus.

HONG KONG (AP) -- Shares of Miniso Group Holding jumped in their first day of trading, while the broader markets were on pace for their third straight loss this week.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- JPMorgan Chase said Thursday it will extend billions in loans to Black and Latino homebuyers and small business owners in an expanded effort toward fixing what the bank calls "systemic racism" in the country's economic system.