More than 400 striking hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers union (USW) at Lyondell Basell Industries' Houston refinery are scheduled to vote on the company's last, best and final offer on Monday and Tuesday, a local union official said on Sunday.
Legal & Regulatory
Texas House approves bill that limits city bans on fracking
A bill that would stop Texas cities from enacting their own bans on hydraulic fracturing in the nation's top crude oil and natural gas producing state was approved on Friday in the state House of Representatives.
Google's EU showdown offers openings to competitors
Start small, win quick, then move on to bigger issues. That appears to be the European Union's strategy to pursue Google (GOOGL.O) in a competition dispute by choosing to push a narrow set of charges around its shopping service, while opening another investigation of Google's Android mobile phone software.
France tells cigarette companies to use plain packs
France, home of historic Gitanes and Gauloises cigarettes with their iconic blue-and-white packaging, will require all tobacco companies to sell their wares in plain boxes from next year in an anti-smoking crackdown.
EU accuses Google of hurting consumers, competitors in Web search case
The European Union accused Google Inc on Wednesday of cheating consumers and competitors by distorting Web search results to favor its own shopping service, after a five-year investigation that could change the rules for business online.
Latest News
The United States is planning to impose a major new regulation on offshore oil and gas drilling to try to prevent the kind of explosions that caused the catastrophic BP Plc (BP.L) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing Obama administration officials.
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) has rejected a contract offer from the United Steelworkers (USW) local chapter representing hourly workers at the company's Beaumont, Texas, refinery and renewed its offer of a six-year contract, a union official said on Wednesday.
Japan and Taiwan have imposed trade restrictions on poultry and poultry products from Ontario, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Tuesday, a day after bird flu was confirmed in the Canadian province.
Argentina's central bank will send regulators to the headquarters of Citibank Argentina on Monday, the head of the monetary authority has said, the latest move between the bank and the state over defaulted debt.
China's top regulator has ruled that more than half of the 54 mitigation projects that recently sought to register for carbon credits are ineligible, it said on Friday, amid worries that a glut of permits is undermining its pilot carbon markets.
China has prepared a draft law for charities to register directly with the government, making it easier for them to raise funds and gain tax exemptions, while allaying public concern over the way they are run, following some high-profile scandals.
Hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers union (USW) at Marathon Petroleum Corp's Catlettsburg, Kentucky, refinery voted on Friday to approve a new contract, ending a two-month work stoppage, a company spokesman said.
Mozilla Corp, creator of the popular Firefox web browser, said on Thursday it would follow Google Inc and no longer recognize new certificates of trust issued by a Chinese Internet agency.
McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) plans to raise the average pay of about 90,000 U.S. workers to around $10 an hour, but the increase will not benefit workers at the vast majority of the restaurants, because they are operated by franchisees, who make their own wage decisions.
