Cuomo adds 3 firms to auction-rate probe

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday he is expanding his investigation into the collapse of the auction-rate securities market to include J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Corp. Last week, Cuomo's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission reached settlements that forced Swiss bank UBS to repurchase $18.6 billion of the securities, while Citigroup agreed to buy back $7 billion of them. UBS will also pay a fine of $150 million and Citigroup will pay a $100 million fine.

Waste Management Inc. has raised its unsolicited buyout offer for Republic Services Inc. by 9 percent to $6.73 billion, escalating a takeover battle among the nation's largest trash haulers. Monday's sweetened offer of $37 a share comes less than a month after Waste Management, the nation's largest trash collector, offered to buy No. 3 Republic in an all-cash buyout worth $34, or about $6.19 billion. That bid was quickly rejected by Republic, which this summer agreed to buy Allied Waste for $6.07 billion in a stock deal, creating a company with revenue nearly as large as Waste Management's.

Toy retailer Toys "R" Us Inc. said Monday it will offer an exclusive line of baby products and apparel created by Amy Coe at its Babies "R" Us stores. The 300-piece collection, in stores this month, includes furniture, bedding sets, diaper bags and apparel. Coe previously designed a line of children's bedding and other products for retailer Target Corp. Toys "R" Us Chairman and CEO Gerald Storch said that the line was created to put a contemporary spin on baby products.

The number of new high-speed Internet subscribers in the United States fell in the second quarter to the lowest level since a research company began tracking the broadband market seven years ago. The 20 largest cable and telephone companies added a net 887,000 residential and small-business subscribers in the three months ending June 30, Leichtman Research Group Inc. said Monday. The number of new customers is half that of the second quarter of 2007. Bruce Leichtman, president of the firm, said phone companies added just 23 percent of the customers they added in last year's second quarter. The largest phone companies, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., have begun to emphasize faster, more expensive services over entry-level DSL. Cable companies added 85 percent as many subscribers as they did a year ago.

Newsstand sales of U.S. magazines fell 6.3 percent in the first half of 2008, an industry group said Monday. Most top titles, including best-selling Cosmopolitan and O, the Oprah Magazine, had sharp declines. Of the top 10 newsstand sellers, only People, the entertainment news magazine, and In Style posted gains. Publishers redouble efforts to sign up subscribers during economic slowdowns because they know newsstand sales will ebb. Newsstand sales are far more lucrative than subscriptions, though, meaning circulation revenue is dropping at most titles.