Markets steady after solid earnings reports

LONDON — Stock markets in Europe steadied Wednesday as Wall Street opened solidly following positive earnings news from aluminum company Alcoa.

The company reported better than expected results in an after-hours statement Tuesday. Alcoa traditionally kicks off the quarterly reporting season and its results helped soothe some concerns in the markets.

U.S. corporate earnings could be the biggest driver in markets over the coming weeks as investors look for signs that the strengthening U.S. economy has translated into higher sales and profits.

"With Alcoa kicking things off in style there is now going to be added pressure on companies to perform and back up the recent equity gains with strong corporate performances," said James Hughes, chief market analyst at Alpari.

Alcoa's results helped steady sentiment somewhat in the Europe and the U.S. following sizeable losses the previous day.

In Europe, France's CAC-40 rose 0.4 percent to close at 4,359.84 while Germany's DAX rose the same rate to 9,808.20. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.3 percent at 6,718.04.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.2 percent at 16,938.41 while the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.2 percent to 1,968.28.

The focus later will center on the release of the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's last policy meeting. After that meeting wrapped up, the Fed made clear that it sees no need to raise short-term interest rates from record lows anytime soon.

"While we don't expect too many surprises from them, given recent commentary from some Fed officials the market could well be underestimating the timing of a rise in interest rates in the U.S.," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

Earlier, Asian markets were mostly marked down as investors across the region responded to the previous day's rout across Europe and the U.S.

Japan's Nikkei 225 recouped some of its losses from earlier in the day to close down 0.1 percent at 15,302.65. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 1.6 percent to 23,176.07.

Seoul's Kospi dropped 0.3 percent to 2,000.50 and China's Shanghai Composite fell 1.2 percent to 2,038.61. Markets in Australia and Southeast Asia also fell.

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Obama officials pledge to stem immigration tide

WASHINGTON — Top Obama administration officials told senators Wednesday they're struggling to keep up with the surge of immigrants at the Southern border, acknowledging they've been overwhelmed as children show up by the tens of thousands from violence-torn Central America.

"We have not been what I would say successful yet" in ensuring that the unaccompanied kids are processed by the Border Patrol as quickly as required, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

"The children continue to come across the border. It's a very fluid situation," Fugate said. "Although we have made progress, that progress is oftentimes disrupted when we see sudden influxes of kids coming in faster than we can discharge them, and we back up."

Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said that the number of children picked up since October now stands at 57,000, up from 52,000 in mid-June, and more than double what it was at the same time last year.

The situation, Kerlikowske said, "is difficult and distressing on a lot of levels."

Their testimony came a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Congress to give him $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with the crisis, which has become a political test for his administration as it sparks fierce debate on Capitol Hill and beyond.

The president was in Texas Wednesday for a fundraising trip, but he resisted calls to visit the border. Instead Obama planned to meet in Dallas with faith leaders and Texas officials, including Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

The crisis gave Republicans a fresh opportunity to question the Obama administration's competence even as it complicated the debate over the nation's fractured immigration laws.

Republicans at Wednesday's hearing slammed Obama administration policies, blaming his efforts to relax some deportation rules for contributing to rumors circulating in Central America that once here, migrant kids would be allowed to stay.

"We're trying to stop human trafficking. Are we actually increasing it?" asked Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., noted that a high percentage of the children fleeing El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are able to succeed in their goal of staying in America because they're issued notices to appear at court hearings in the distant future, and many never do.

"Your odds are pretty good," McCain said. "There is ample incentive for them to come to this country."

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it's changing its priorities in order to respond to the crisis. Juan Osuna, director of the executive office of immigration review, testified that deportation cases involving unaccompanied child immigrants and parents traveling with children would be moved to the top of court dockets. That means lower priority cases will take even longer to wend through a court system where there's currently a backlog of more than 360,000 pending deportation cases.

Obama's emergency spending request would add more judges to the court system, but elsewhere on Capitol Hill Wednesday Republicans raised questions about it. House Speaker John Boehner was noncommittal about whether the House would vote on it.

"If we don't secure the border, nothing's going to change. And if you look at the president's request, it's all more about continuing to deal with the problem," Boehner told reporters. "We've got to do something about sealing the border and ending this problem so that we can begin to move on with the bigger question of immigration reform."

Obama's decision to skip a border visit was providing more fodder for the Republicans and the handful of Democrats who say the president hasn't responded quickly and forcefully enough to the mounting crisis.

Perry, a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016, has been scathing in his criticism of Obama, saying the White House has failed to respond to his repeated warnings about a flood of minors at the border. But Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House was not worried about the optics of the president traveling to Texas without visiting the border.

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Associated Press writers Alicia A. Caldwell, Julie Pace and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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Newspaper apologizes for Clooney story

LONDON — Britain's Daily Mail has apologized to George Clooney over a story that claimed his fiancee's mother opposed the marriage on religious grounds.

Clooney is engaged to London lawyer Amal Alamuddin, who comes from a family of Druse — adherents of a monotheistic religion based mainly in Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

The Daily Mail, citing unnamed sources, reported that her mother Baria Alamuddin wanted her daughter to marry a Druse man.

Clooney called the story "completely fabricated."

The Daily Mail said Wednesday that the story had been "supplied in good faith by a reputable and trusted freelance journalist."

But it said in a statement that "we accept Mr. Clooney's assurance that the story is inaccurate and we apologize to him, Miss Amal Alamuddin and her mother, Baria, for any distress caused."

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Google picks 5 charities to create ideas for Glass

WASHINGTON — Google has chosen five charities to develop ideas using Web-connected Google Glass to enhance their work.

After receiving 1,300 proposals, Google is announcing five nonprofits Wednesday that'll get a free pair of the glasses, a $25,000 grant and support from developers.

Classroom Champions of Jacksonville, Florida, will use the glasses to create first-person educational videos by Paralympic athletes for high-need schools.

Lumberton, North Carolina-based 3,000 Miles to a Cure will deliver information to riders participating in a bicycle race for charity.

Mark Morris Dance Group of New York will create dance-based tools for people with Parkinson's disease.

Women's Audio Mission in San Francisco will develop music and media-based learning programs for women and girls.

And Baltimore-based Hearing and Speech Agency will develop new ways to help people with communication difficulties.

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World Cup: Germany-Brazil match scores Twitter records for sports chatter

Germany's 7-1 trouncing of host country Brazil in the 2014 FIFA World Cup semifinals Tuesday registered as the most-discussed sporting game ever on Twitter, with 35.6 million tweets posted worldwide during the match.

The blowout also set a Twitter record for posts per second, as Deutschland's fifth goal in the 29th minute produced 580,166 tweets per minute.

By comparison, this year's Super Bowl XLVIII registered 24.9 million tweets during the Seattle Seahawks' blowout of the Denver Broncos, slightly above 24.1 million for the 2013 Super Bowl. The 2014 game had a peak of 381,605 tweets per minute, after Seattle's Percy Harvin returned the second-half opening kickoff for a touchdown.

According to Twitter, the two weeks 2014 World Cup group play registered more than 300 million tweets over a 15-day period -- double the 150 million tweets about the 2012 Summer Olympics in London over 16 days. Prior to the Germany-Brazil match, the most-tweeted games of the tourney had been June 28 s Brazil-Chile meeting in the round of 16 with 16.4 million posts and the June 12 Brazil-Croatia opening match with 12.2 million.

Twitter chatter about the Germany-Brazil match included quips and reaction from athletes and celebs:

•      Germany=Surgeons on the pitch #respect #WorldCup #greatness -- Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant)
•      Taped the match, but I'm sure Brazil's got this. #sports #BrazilvsGermany --  Zach Braff (@zachbraff)
•      Can you believe this...I cant . 1...2...3.....4....5....6.....7... http://t.co/sacRPiQG41 -- Heidi Klum (@heidiklum)
•      GERMANY WRITING WORLD CUP HISTORY TODAY !!! HUGE HUGE COMPLIMENT !!! SO PROUD OF THEM !! --  Jurgen Klinsmann (@J_Klinsmann)
•      Do you think #BRA is missing Neymar today???? Wow! #GER is surgical with their execution both offensively and defensively. #worldcup -- Larry Fitzgerald (@LarryFitzgerald)
•      Is this a real game? I feel like I'm watching my nephew play FIFA #worldCup against my mom on play station. -- Lolo Jones (@lolojones)

(C) 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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US stocks creep higher after two days of losses

NEW YORK — Stocks are edging higher in early trading after corporate earnings got off to an encouraging start.

The early gains Wednesday follow two days of losses for major U.S. indexes.

Alcoa rose 3 percent after reporting earnings the night before that were better than investors were expecting.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 20 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,928 in the first few minutes of trading.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose three points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,967. The Nasdaq composite rose nine points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,401.

As companies begin turning in second-quarter results this week, investors will be looking for signs that the strengthening U.S. economy has translated into higher profits.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.57 percent.

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Website apologizes for Clooney mother-in-law story

LONDON — The British website Mail Online apologized Wednesday to George Clooney for alleging that his fiancee's mother opposed their marriage on religious grounds — a story Clooney called both wrong and irresponsible.

Clooney is engaged to Beirut-born London lawyer Amal Alamuddin, whose father Ramzi belongs to a prominent Druse family. The Druse are adherents of a monotheistic religion based mainly in Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Citing unnamed family "friends," Mail Online, which is affiliated with Britain's Daily Mail tabloid, reported this week that Baria Alamuddin wanted her 36-year-old daughter to marry a Druse man.

It said Amal Alamuddin risked being "cast out of the community" if she wed Clooney and claimed that several Druse women had been murdered for not abiding by strict Druse rules.

Clooney called the story "completely fabricated."

In a statement issued to USA Today, he said Baria Alamuddin — a well-known journalist — was not Druse and "is in no way against the marriage."

Clooney, 53, added that "to exploit religious differences where none exist is at the very least negligent and more appropriately dangerous."

"We have family members all over the world, and the idea that someone would inflame any part of that world for the sole reason of selling papers should be criminal," he said.

Mail Online said Wednesday in a statement that the story had been "supplied in good faith by a reputable and trusted freelance journalist."

"We accept Mr. Clooney's assurance that the story is inaccurate and we apologize to him, Miss Amal Alamuddin and her mother, Baria, for any distress caused," it said.

Mail Online said it had removed the article and will contact Clooney's representatives "to discuss giving him the opportunity to set the record straight."

Clooney and Alamuddin have not announced a date yet for their nuptials. It is the second marriage for him and the first for her.

The Druse are a close-knit community and rarely marry outside their sect, but some Druse have welcomed Clooney.

Walid Jumblatt, political leader of the sect in Lebanon, told The Associated Press recently he hoped the couple would soon visit the Druse heartland.

Clooney will bring us "great publicity," Jumblatt said. "He can make a movie about the Druse sect."

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Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Medicare providers complain of duplicative audits

MIAMI — Health care companies say they're losing millions of dollars that are tied up in appeals because of increasing numbers of Medicare audits. But a new report says the rise in the often duplicative audits has failed to reduce Medicare fraud.

A report released Wednesday by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging reveals Medicare fraud in the fee-for-service program has steadily declined since 2009. But improper payments rose between from $30 billion to $36 billion between 2011 and 2012, according to the report that cites the most recent data available.

Around that same time, officials started using a $77 million technology screening system designed to fight fraud the way credit card companies scan charges and can freeze accounts.

Health care companies and other stakeholder are meeting with committee chairman Sen. Bill Nelson on Wednesday to discuss what they call burdensome audits and reviews.

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Stocks creep up after 2 days of losses

NEW YORK — Stocks inched higher midday Wednesday, reversing a two-day decline, as the quarterly earnings season got underway with some positive news from the giant aluminum company Alcoa.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 30 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,937 as of 12:06 p.m. Eastern. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose four points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,968 and the Nasdaq composite rose 17 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,408.

ALCOA CAN'T WAIT: Alcoa kicked off the second-quarter earnings season late Tuesday, posting a profit of $138 million, better than Wall Street expected. The aluminum giant also reported stronger revenue than analysts estimated. Alcoa rose 71 cents, or 5 percent, to $15.57 on the news.

EXPECTATIONS: As companies begin turning in second-quarter results this week, investors will be looking for signs that the strengthening U.S. economy has translated into higher sales and profits. Analysts expect earnings increased 6.6 percent in the three months through June compared with the previous year, according to S&P Capital IQ, a research firm.

"Stocks are not cheap, and we need to be assured that these companies' growth is going to continue," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist with Prudential Financial.

FED WATCH: At 2:00 p.m. Eastern time, the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its most recent meeting in June. After that meeting wrapped up, the Fed made clear that it sees no need to raise short-term interest rates from record lows anytime soon.

AAL ABOARD: American Airlines, stock ticker "AAL," rose $1.38, or 3.5 percent to $41.64. The world's largest airline raised its sales forecast for the second quarter, typically the busiest time of year. The news helped lift other airline stocks, including Delta, which rose 1 percent. Airline stocks had taken a beating earlier this week.

BOXED UP: The Container Store, which went public less than a year ago, plunged $2.52, or 9 percent, to $24.55. CEO William Tindell warned that the company was in a "retail funk" and that the sluggish sales of the winter seemed to be lingering into the spring and summer. The Container Store went public at $18 a share in November and its shares doubled in price on the day of its debut to $36.20.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: As investors were buying stock, they sold bonds. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 2.58 percent from 2.56 percent Tuesday. Oil fell $1.06, or 1 percent, to $102.33 as one of Libya's oil fields came back online Wednesday.

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Corinthian Colleges seeking to reassure students

SILVER SPRING, Md. — A for-profit education company sought to reassure nervous students Tuesday that they'll be able to finish their degrees even though their campuses were being closed amid concerns from the Education Department about its practices.

Santa Ana, California-based Corinthian Colleges Inc. announced that the campuses being closed operate under the Everest name and are scattered in 11 states. The company faces multiple state and federal investigations.

Corinthian reached an agreement with the Education Department late last week that has it shutting down those campuses and putting 85 U.S.-based campuses up for sale. About a dozen others in Canada will also be sold.

The company was informing the 3,400 students at the affected campuses that if they have already started taking classes, they will be able to earn degrees. Operations at the campuses will wind down gradually, Corinthian spokesman Kent Jenkins said, and the company was in the midst of drafting a formal letter to students that will be sent once the Education Department approves of the language.

While most students will be able to finish their degrees at the same campuses where they enrolled, some might need to transfer to nearby schools with similar programs, Jenkins said. Some students will also be eligible for refunds under the agreement with the department.

Last month, the Education Department put Corinthian on heightened financial monitoring with a 21-day waiting period for federal funds. That was after the department said it failed to provide adequate paperwork and comply with requests to address concerns about the company's practices. The department said the concerns included allegations of falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims to prospective students, and allegations of altered grades and attendance.

Some students left comments on the Everest Facebook page expressing concerns that their degrees would be worthless. Corinthian was reaching out to those students individually and asking them to call for more information.

"I can certainly reassure students that nothing that's happening right now affects the accreditation of their schools or the value of their degree," Jenkins said.

Corinthian owns Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech schools, which together enroll about 72,000 students.

An Associated Press reporter who visited Corinthian's Silver Spring, Maryland, campus Tuesday afternoon was asked to leave by a woman who threatened to call security. She identified herself as the campus president but declined to repeat or spell her name. A few minutes earlier, after a reporter took business cards of campus staff left for visitors at the reception desk, a person walked to the desk and removed all the remaining cards.

The campus goes by the name Everest Institute and trains students to work as medical assistants. It occupies the seventh floor of a 12-story, glass-and-steel office building in the densely populated Washington suburb.

One employee hugged two receptionists as he left the office, carrying a pair of speakers and other personal items. A receptionist answered the phone by telling callers it was a "great day" at the Everest Institute.

The other campuses that are closing are in Bensalem, Pennsylvania; Chelsea, Massachusetts; Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Eagan, Minnesota; Fort Worth, Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Merrillville, Indiana; Salt Lake City; St. Louis; and McLean, Virginia.

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AP Education Writer Kimberly Hefling contributed to this report.

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