Claims

U.S. housing and factory data on Thursday showed the economy still gaining strength in December but at a pace unlikely to cause the Federal Reserve to rethink its stimulus program. Economists said they expected Friday's reading of gross domestic product to show the world's biggest economy picking up speed, albeit short of the pace needed to bring down unemployment significantly. The National Assn. of Realtors said its pending home sales index, based on contracts signed in December, rose 2% to 93.7.

Convicted of profiting from illicit arms sales to Angola, a former French interior minister is roiling the political establishment by accusing other officials of knowing about the deal and demanding that the government open secret files to prove him right. Charles Pasqua, the former minister who now is a member of France's Senate, and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of a former president, were among 36 people found guilty Tuesday of knowingly profiting from or facilitating the unauthorized $790-million sale in the 1990s.

"Lennay Kekua" ain't got nothing on LeBron James. James recently called out Manti Te'o, saying that he's faster than the former Notre Dame linebacker. In the Miami Heat locker room Tuesday, James told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he ran a 40-yard-dash in 4.6 seconds without training for the sprint last summer. "It's better than Manti Te'o, I'll tell you that," James said.  Te'o clocked a time of 4.82 in the 40-yard-dash at the NFL scouting combine on Monday, 0.2 seconds slower than James' said time.

Ford Motor Co. has been crowing about the huge fuel economy ratings of its Fusion and C-Max hybrids. Consumer Reports did its own tests and said it couldn't replicate the 47 miles per gallon Ford is claiming for the city, highway and combined ratings for the vehicles. “After running both vehicles through Consumer Reports real-world tests, CR's engineers have gotten very good results. But they are far below Ford's ambitious triple-47 figures,” the magazine, which operates its own testing center in Connecticut, said Thursday.

Burger King's biggest franchise holder, Carrols Restaurant Group,   reportedly has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle claims of sexual harassment. The settlement, Reuters reported, brings to an end a 14-year lawsuit involving 88 women who formerly worked for Carrols and one current female employee . The company, which owns and operates more than 520 Burger King locations, denies guilt, citing legal costs as the reason for settling.  The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged that employees harassed women by making obscene comments, exposing their genitalia and subjecting the women to strip searches, unwanted touching and even rape, The Examiner reported.

A Los Angeles firm agreed to pay $31,500 to settle allegations that it imported and sold toys that were hazardous to young children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. TGH International Trading Inc. brought more than 11,000 toys into the U.S. from March 2005 to June 2006 that contained small parts that presented a choking hazard to children. Many of the hazardous toys were seized at the Port of Long Beach by federal officials before they could reach store shelves, the agency said, and those that did reach stores were recalled.

Insurance giant AIG will pay nearly $79 million to the Los Angeles Unified School District to settle a lawsuit over its failure to pay claims on properties with environmental and pollution hazards, The Times has learned. Although AIG admitted no wrongdoing, the $78.8-million settlement, combined with earlier payments under the policy, approach the full value of $100 million in coverage the district purchased in 1999. "This is a gold medal, not a bronze, in terms of success, a lot of money," said David Tokofsky, a former member of the Board of Education that voted to purchase the policy and later sued to enforce it. "Sometimes the huge L.A. Unified is the little guy against such giants as AIG. " The district's goal at the time was to provide a financial hedge against any extraordinary cleanup costs incurred during its $20-billion school construction effort.

Anthem Blue Cross will pay more than $3.2 million to medical providers under a settlement reached this week with California regulators related to the company's mishandling of overdue bills. The California Department of Managed Health Care said Anthem owed doctors and other providers interest on claims that were paid late from 2007 to 2011. The state said Anthem, the state's largest for-profit health insurer, must make these payments, including penalties, within 120 days. Officials said Anthem also must make changes to its claims processing, including improved training and additional audits.

A hacker Tuesday claimed to have stolen 50 gigabytes of information from 79 banks over the last three months. The hacker, whose Twitter handle is Reckz0r but who also goes by " Jeremy " according to a PasteBin post, posted a text file of his hacks that contained a portion of the data he claimed to have stolen -- enough, he said, to prove he isn't kidding. Within that text file are details from 1,700 individual Visa and MasterCard credit cards accounts, according to ZDNet . The details posted by Reckz0r includes people's names, card types and both their postal and email addresses.

Federal District Judge Lucy Koh said she will review claims that the jury foreman in the Apple-Samsung patent infringement case hid information during the jury selection process. In a major blow to Samsung, a jury in August awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages. Samsung is arguing that jury foreman Velvin Hogan did not disclose that he filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s after being sued by his former employer, Seagate Technologies, according to CNET . Since 2011, Samsung has owned shares of Seagate and has a partnership with the company, according to the Register . Test your knowledge of business news Additionally, Samsung said that one of the lawyers who represented Seagate against Hogan is married to one of the lawyers who represented Samsung in the case, according to the Register.