Market Minute: Apple Catches a Break; N.Y. Times Hacked -- Again

A judge goes easy on Apple, and overseas hackers take aim at The New York Times. Those and more are what's in business news Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial index (^DJI) tumbled 170 points Tuesday, as prospects increased for U.S. military action in Syria. That brings the Dow's loss to nearly 900 points since it hit a record high on Aug. 2. The Standard & Poor's 500 (^GSPC) index lost 26 points and the Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC) slid 79. That's a drop of more than 2 percent.

Apple (AAPL) breathes a big sigh of a relief. A federal judge has narrowed her ruling about how much oversight the company requires after being found guilty of fixing prices on electronic books. The judge says she doesn't want to curtail the company's ability to innovate, and that her order for government oversight won't apply to Apple's music, television or movie deals.

For the second time this month, The New York Times (NYT) website has suffered a major outage. The same hacker group claimed it was responsible for both attacks. That group supports Syria's president. The Times says yesterday's incident was likely due to a "malicious" attack.

The casino operator Las Vegas Sands (LVS) has agreed to pay $47 million to settle a government money-laundering investigation. The company failed to report millions of dollars of cash bets made by a gambler who turned out to be an accused drug kingpin.

TiVo (TIVO) has posted an operating profit, reversing a year ago loss. The maker of set-top boxes for your TV also said it added more than 200-thousand new subscribers, and that it's revenue going forward will be helped by some legal settlements.

Two companies are likely to get a big boost from strong earnings: semiconductor maker Avago (AVGO) and Accuray (ARAY), which makes high-tech surgical devices.

And Burger King (BKW) is getting lots of attention for a new menu item -- the French Fry Burger. It puts the fries on the sandwich, instead of on the side.

-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.

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