New Orders

New orders for computers, machinery and other capital goods rose last month, a sign that manufacturing and business investment will continue to add fuel to the recovery. The government said Wednesday that orders for all long-lasting or durable goods rose 2.2% in February from the prior month. The increase, however, was slightly below analysts' expectations and didn't offset the 3.6% decline in January. While far from spectacular, the rebound in demand still offered some encouraging signs: New orders for motor vehicles were up 1.6%, and they jumped 6.6% for computers and related products.

Major Lazer, like many dance-hall and EDM artists, traffics in nostalgia via sentimental '80s and '90s samples. New Order, a band that helped forge the sound of dance music decades ago, traffics in the nostalgia of its own songs. At Coachella on Saturday night, the former was more effective than the latter. Evidence of that was apparent from the crowd's reaction during Diplo's sundown set with Major Lazer, which was packed to bursting with frenzied fans. Candy-coated samples from the likes of House of Pain, Eurythmics, and, gasp, Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” were employed to great sentimental effect.

Demand for manufactured products posted its largest decline in three years in March, according to a government report released the day after several private reports found major gains in U.S. factory activity. The Commerce Department said that new orders slumped 1.5%, falling $7.1 billion to $460.5 billion, after growing 1.1% in February. That's the steepest drop since March 2009. Demand for transportation equipment suffered the most dramatic plunge, diving 12.6%. Strong auto sales earlier in the year cooled off last month as automakers such as Hyundai, Kia and Nissan watched their previously double-digit gains shrink . Without transportation, new orders overall were flat.

SHANGHAI - California Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday that he has asked his lawyers to review a new order from a panel of federal judges requiring him to file a fresh plan for reducing the state's prison population. The judges have threatened to hold state officials, including Brown, in contempt if they fail to comply within three weeks. "I did speak with my lawyers. I said, 'Take a good look at this stuff,'" Brown told reporters as he headed for a Huangpu River cruise with Yao Ming, a former NBA star turned Napa Valley winemaker.

Huawei Technologies Co. will place $6 billion in new supply orders with three California tech firms, raising the profile of the fast-growing Chinese telecom giant. Huawei executives said the investment would be spread over three years and was a “significant increase” over the its current contracts with Broadcom, Qualcomm and Avago Technologies. The announcement was made Friday morning in downtown Los Angeles. The three California tech companies will provide advanced information and communication technologies such as chipsets for Huawei's networks, solutions and mobile phones.

Factories got a vote of confidence in May, with customers placing more orders for U.S.-made goods after two months of declines, according to the government. But the 0.7% uptick in demand to $469 billion in new orders may not mask an overall decline in the manufacturing sector, which many analysts have pegged as a key driver for economic growth. The Commerce Department's report Tuesday showed a 1.3% increase in new demand for durable goods such as transportation and electrical equipment.

Los Angeles home builder KB Home reported a 20% drop in earnings in its fiscal fourth quarter compared with a year earlier as the company sold fewer homes in areas that yield higher profits, usually more affluent neighborhoods. But net new orders for homes grew 38% and gave the company its biggest year-end backlog since 2008, Chief Executive Jeffrey Mezger said Wednesday. "We believe these results demonstrate our success in adapting to current market realities and positioning our business for the future," Mezger said.

Airbus said deliveries of commercial aircraft rose 7% in the first quarter from a year earlier as it worked off a record backlog of 3,687 planes. New orders in the period also rose. Shipments reached 123 planes, including 102 of the A320 single-aisle series, 19 long-range planes and two A380 super-jumbo jets, the Toulouse, France-based company said. Airbus won new orders for 420 planes in the period compared with 134 a year earlier.

Lennar Corp., the second-worst performer among U.S. home-building stocks last year, fell 14% after posting a wider first-quarter loss. The loss was $155.9 million, or 98 cents a share, compared with $88.2 million, or 56 cents, a year earlier, the Miami-based company said. That exceeded the 78 cents projected in a Bloomberg survey. Revenue fell 44% to $593.1 million. Lennar wrote down $10.2 million for 1,100 home sites it no longer intends to build on and said new orders tumbled 28% even as mortgage rates hit historic lows.

Motorola Inc.: The Schaumburg, Ill., diversified firm said first-quarter profit rose to a record $123 million, up 8% from a year earlier. Sales rose 11% to $2.17 billion. The firm said higher operating profit in the semiconductor products sector and General Systems Group were partially offset by lower profit in the communications sector. New orders in all three businesses were records for any quarter. Tables, Page 14

This post has been updated. See below for details. Former "The Price is Right" model Brandi Cochran has lost out on a nearly $8.5-million judgment in a discrimination lawsuit after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge overturned a jury's findings and ordered a new trial. Cochran, one of the game show's models, filed suit against the producers after she was denied a return spot on the show after she became pregnant in 2010. A jury agreed with her late last year and came to a 9-3 decision to order FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions to pay her the money.

CAIRO - The young policeman with scuffed boots and sleepless eyes sat on a motorcycle in a neighborhood that no longer feared or respected him. Khaled Sayed wore the colors of his trade: a black beret adorned with a silver eagle. An officer for three years, Sayed patrols streets where guns flow and jobless youths roam with knives and rage. Uniformed men with badges and battered side arms once held sway here, but their swagger has been clipped by a new and dangerous order. Egypt's police and central security forces, for decades the thuggish protectors of Hosni Mubarak's repressive state, now safeguard a new government run by Islamist elements they once persecuted.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's service sector expanded last month at a slightly faster pace than in October as new orders offset a dip in hiring. The Institute for Supply Management's purchasing managers' index rose to 54.7 in November, up 0.5 from the previous month, the group said Wednesday. A reading above 50 indicates growth, and November marked the 35th straight month of expansion. Analysts had expected the pace of growth to slow last month to about 53.5. ISM reported Tuesday that the manufacturing sector contracted in November for the first time in three months, though Hurricane Sandy might have caused the reading to fall to its lowest level since 2009.

If you're looking to get an iPhone 5, you can now order it from Apple.com and receive it in two to four days, a far cry from a two-week wait when it launched in September. As pointed out by 9 to 5 Mac , shipping wait times for Apple.com orders of the iPhone 5 have normalized. A quick glance at the iPhone 5 order page shows all storage sizes for the device, regardless of color, are available for delivery within a few days. That's a much faster wait time than many people have had to deal with since the phone launched more than two months ago. QUIZ: What set the Internet on fire in 2012?

CAIRO - Egypt and Turkey are forging an alliance that showcases two Islamist leaders maneuvering to reshape a Middle East gripped by political upheaval and passionate battles over how deeply the Koran should penetrate public life. The relationship may foreshadow an emerging regional order in which the sway of the United States gradually fades against Islamist voices no longer contained by militaries and pro-Western autocrats. Each country has a distinct vision of political Islam, but Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, and Egypt, the traditional heart of the Arab world, complement each other for now. Turkey's strong economy may help rescue Egypt from financial crisis, while Cairo may further Ankara's ambition to rise as a force among Islamic-backed governments.

WASHINGTON -- Growth in the crucial service sector slowed last month as business activity and new orders dipped, according to a key private-sector index released Monday. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index dipped to 54.2 in October from 55.1 the previous month, the group said. The figure was slightly below analyst expectations of about 54.5 and marked the first slowdown in growth since June. Still, the group's widely watched purchasing managers index showed growth in the sector for the 34th straight month.

If you're looking to get an iPhone 5, you can now order it from Apple.com and receive it in two to four days, a far cry from a two-week wait when it launched in September. As pointed out by 9 to 5 Mac , shipping wait times for Apple.com orders of the iPhone 5 have normalized. A quick glance at the iPhone 5 order page shows all storage sizes for the device, regardless of color, are available for delivery within a few days. That's a much faster wait time than many people have had to deal with since the phone launched more than two months ago. QUIZ: What set the Internet on fire in 2012?

Suffering from a 33% drop in revenue, Humphrey Inc. on Wednesday reported a loss of $453,974 for the year ended Dec. 31, 1984, the firm's first annual loss since 1974. Revenue in 1984 was $8.4 million, compared to the prior year's $12.5 million. Net income in 1983 was $123,604. Paul E. Humphrey, chairman and president of the gyroscope and precision instruments manufacturer, blamed the slide on increased quality-control demands on government contracts and on new production start-up costs.

WASHINGTON — The economic slowdown in spring was worse than most thought — and the current quarter isn't looking that much stronger as manufacturing is weakening. The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday revised down the nation's economic growth in the second quarter to a measly 1.3% annual rate, down from its previous estimate of 1.7%. Most analysts were expecting the government's third and final report for the second quarter to show that gross domestic product — or total value of goods and services produced — expanded by 1.7%.

WASHINGTON -- The economic slowdown in spring was worse than most thought - and the current quarter isn't looking that much stronger as manufacturing is weakening. The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday revised down the nation's economic growth in the second quarter to a measly 1.3% annual rate, down from its previous estimate of 1.7%. Most analysts were expecting the government's third and final report for the second quarter to show that gross domestic product - or total value of goods and services produced -- expanded by 1.7%.