In Filing, Casino Operator Admits Likely Violation of an Antibribery Law

 In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well...

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Hasbro Expands Transformers Brand Into New Media

Marcus Yam for The New York TimesRyan Yzquierdo, who has been a Transformers fan since he was 7, is introducing his daughter to the franchise. To Hasbro, no one is too young or too old to play with a Transformers robot, watch a Transformers television show or play a Transformers video game. The toy maker started the Transformers franchise with a Japanese partner in 1984. The concept — robots...

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F-35 Jets Returned to Service by Pentagon

The Pentagon lifted its grounding of the new F-35 jet fighter on Thursday after concluding that a turbine blade had cracked on a single plane after it was overused in test operations. The office that runs the program said no other cracks were found in inspections of the other engines made so far, and no engine redesign was needed. It said the engine in which the blade cracked was...

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DealBook: Heinz Case May Involve a Side Bet in London

Regulators have escalated an investigation into suspicious trades placed ahead of the $23 billion takeover of H. J. Heinz, focusing on a complex derivatives bet routed through London, according to two people briefed on the matter.The development builds on a recent regulatory action on a Goldman Sachs account in Switzerland that bought Heinz options contracts. It also comes a week after the Federal...

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Media Decoder Blog: SFX Entertainment Buys Electronic Dance Music Site

SFX Entertainment, the company led by the media executive Robert F. X. Sillerman, has agreed to buy the music download site Beatport, part of the company’s plan to build a $1 billion empire centered on the electronic dance music craze.Mr. Sillerman declined on Tuesday to reveal the price. But two people with direct knowledge of the transaction, who were not authorized to speak about it, said it was...

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DealBook: Confirmation Hearing for Mary Jo White Said to Be Scheduled for March

Mary Jo White appears poised to face a Senate confirmation hearing next month, a crucial step for the former federal prosecutor on her path to becoming the top Wall Street regulator.Ms. White, whose nomination to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission has lingered for over a month, plans to testify in March before the Senate Banking Committee, three Congressional officials briefed on the matter...

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Paul McIlhenny, Head of a Tabasco Empire, Dies at 68

Paul C. P. McIlhenny took joy in escorting visitors to his company’s warehouse, where wooden whiskey barrels filled with the aging pepper mash that is the main ingredient in Tabasco sauce were stacked six-high to the ceiling. William Widmer for The New York TimesPaul McIlhenny, at company headquarters in Avery Island, La. Lars Klove for The New York TimesThe...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps...

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Many States Say Cuts Would Burden Fragile Recovery

States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington’s latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession. Some states, like Maryland and Virginia, are vulnerable because their economies are heavily dependent on federal workers,...

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Sheryl Sandberg, ‘Lean In’ Author, Hopes to Spur Movement

Before Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, started to write “Lean In,” her book-slash-manifesto on women in the workplace, she reread Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.” Like the homemaker turned activist who helped start a revolution 50 years ago, Ms. Sandberg wanted to do far more than sell books. Todd Heisler/The New York TimesSheryl Sandberg, the chief operating...

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The Trade: A Revolving Door in Washington With Spin, but Less Visibility

Obsess all you’d like about President Obama’s nomination of Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Who heads the agency is vital, but important fights in Washington are happening in quiet rooms, away from the media gaze.After a widely praised stint as a tough United States attorney, Ms. White spent the last decade serving so many large banks and investment houses that by the...

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Honda to Offer Customers a Home Solar System Option

Automakers have long resorted to incentives like zero-percent financing, rewards points and rebates to inspire customer loyalty. Now Honda is offering a different deal: inexpensive home solar power systems for customers. Through a partnership with SolarCity, a residential and commercial installer, Honda and Acura will offer their customers home solar systems at little or no upfront cost,...

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DealBook Column: A Reputation, Once Sullied, Acquires a New Shine

How do you describe Steven L. Rattner?Up until three years ago, he was typically referred to in these pages as a former journalist turned successful financier — the vice chairman of the investment bank Lazard and then a co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm.With much fanfare, he then became the White House auto czar assigned to fix General Motors and Chrysler, after years of...

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Allure of Self-Insurance Draws Concern Over Costs

WASHINGTON — Federal and state officials and consumer advocates have grown worried that companies with relatively young, healthy employees may opt out of the regular health insurance market to avoid the minimum coverage standards in President Obama’s sweeping law, a move that could drive up costs for workers at other companies. Companies can avoid many standards in the new law by insuring...

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Dismissed as Doomsayers, Advocates for Meteor Detection Feel Vindicated

For decades, scientists have been on the lookout for killer objects from outer space that could devastate the planet. But warnings that they lacked the tools to detect the most serious threats were largely ignored, even as skeptics mocked the worriers as Chicken Littles. Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDr. Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive, has warned...

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Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case

Aaron P. Bernstein for The New York TimesVernon Hugh Bowman, an Indiana farmer, is challenging Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, over genetically modified crops. With his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, “I’m not even big enough to be called a farmer.” Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world’s...

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DealBook: Confidence on Upswing, Mergers Make Comeback

The mega-merger is back.For the corporate takeover business, the last half-decade was a fallow period. Wall Street deal makers and chief executives, brought low by the global financial crisis, lacked the confidence to strike the audacious multibillion-dollar acquisitions that had defined previous market booms.Cycles, however, turn, and in the opening weeks of 2013, merger activity has suddenly roared...

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