Merck said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined an application to include information on the labels of its diabetes drugs—Januvia and Janumet—that the treatments do not raise the risk of major heart problems. Merck is reviewing the agency’s response to its application, the company said on Friday. The application was submitted on the basis of a keenly watched study in 14,724 patients with type 2 diabetes and a history of heart disease. The study’s results, announced in 2015, showed that

A lawyer charged along with notorious pharmacy bro Martin Shkreli in an alleged securities fraud conspiracy has knowledge of other uncharged crimes committed by Shkreli that are unknown to prosecutors, the lawyer’s own attorney said Friday. “We have every intention to do it,” said Reed Brodsky, Greebel’s defense attorney. “We will be duty-bound to destroy Mr. Shkreli’s credibility,” Brodsky said. “We are going to get up and we are going to say that Mr. Shkreli is guilty,” Brodsky said. “In this

I choose not to listen to the people, studies and many articles that say you need at least seven to nine hours of sleep a night. So, I’ll spend those early AM hours cleaning my apartment, or meal-prepping, or doing any little thing I can squeeze in before I finally get “tired” enough for sleep (read: downright exhausted). Wanting to stay up late isn’t a bad thing. Hey, if I can get my chores out of the way during the week so my weekend is free, I’ll take it. However, blaming your body for not ge

Median gross rent includes the costs of monthly rent and utilities for all kinds of rental properties, and median homeownership cost includes monthly mortgage payments, real estate taxes, insurance and utilities. The median cost people pay nationwide to own a home is 54% more than the median cost to rent each month. The median cost people pay nationwide to own a home is 54% more than the median cost to rent each month. The state where the premium to own a home is lowest is Florida, where it cost

An S&P Global analysis of not-for-profit Blue Cross insurers on the Obamacare exchanges found that 75 percent saw an improvement in operating performance in 2016. One of the biggest unanswered questions for insurers has to do with Obamacare subsidies that help low-income enrollees with out-of-pocket costs. With so much up in the air, there is increasing concern that insurers could pull back, leaving some of those areas without insurance options for 2018. “If there’s no insurance, there’s no insu

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Friday told reporters that he plans to announce additional economic sanctions aimed at Syria in the near future, part of the U.S. response to a poison gas attack that Western countries say was carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “We expect that those (sanctions) will continue to have an important effect on preventing people from doing business with them,” Mnuchin said. “These sanctions are very important and we will use them th

The U.S. military used about 60 Tomahawk missiles in this week’s operation against the Syrian government airbase. The Tomahawk originally was designed in the 1980s to carry a nuclear warhead but was later converted to conventional weapon use. NBC News reported that all but one of the Tomahawk missiles hit their intended target in Syria. One of the priorities is adding more warships to the Navy fleet, both destroyers as well as submarines — a decision likely to result in more need for the Tomahaw

The National Security Council has presented President Trump with options to respond to North Korea’s nuclear program — including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News. Read the full report on NBC News. Watch: Trump, Xi & North Korea

Ads targeting Ossoff have claimed he lacks experience and is too closely tied to top Democrats. One even hit him for dressing up as “Star Wars” character Han Solo when he was in college. Another tied Ossoff to terrorist groups, even including an image of Osama bin Laden, because his filmmaking company reportedly produced documentaries for news outlet Al Jazeera. If no candidate in the April 18 election wins 50 percent of the vote, it goes to a June runoff. However, he faces a much tougher task i

The headline unemployment rate might not be the best measure of jobs Friday, 7 Apr 2017 | 9:59 AM ET | 00:39The unemployment rate fell to 4.5 percent in March, according to the Labor Department. But relying on that one headline number as an indicator for the economy as a whole ignores important information just below the surface. Economists look past the official unemployment rate — that 4.5 percent figure, also known as the “U-3” — to other measures of jobs in this country. One of those measure

That’s good news for workers, but not for the companies that are most reliant on labor. Retail companies like Wal-Mart, Staples or Gap are worth $50,000 to $100,000 in market capitalization for each person they employ. That’s much lower than average, indicating that those companies would be hit harder by a dollar increase in wages. That’s slightly less of a gain than last month, but continues the general upward climb over the last few years. Those additional costs have hit wage-sensitive stocks

The U.S. dollar sunk immediately after the jobs report, which seemed to make all the sense in the world. “We didn’t have a completely, unambiguously negative report,” commented Kathy Lien, managing director of foreign exchange strategy at BK Asset Management. The “knee-jerk” reaction post-jobs report was to sell the dollar, said Win Thin, global head of emerging market currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, in a phone interview. The rise was also driven by a “general short-squeeze around

And I know it’s down a lot, I know people have given up on the shopping center, but this is [CEO] Don Wood, he’s delivered and he’s delivered and he’s delivered. Even though they don’t have a lot of debt coming to you right now, I am concerned.” And, you know, that’s what they do.” That’s why I prefer to stick with Home Depot, then I don’t have to worry so much about the weather.” I don’t know.

What baffles the “Mad Money” host is that the move is unfounded, or at least not based on any positive news in the semiconductor space that would fuel a typical rally. He has spotted bids underneath in the housing stocks, railroad plays, and supermarket names like Kroger and Whole Foods. “The bid underneath, and the reach, are classic components of a true bull market,” Cramer said. “Another reason why this market, for all its flaws, is a lot more resilient than it looks to the naked eye.” Mad Mo

Cramer vets a newly public trucking play that could be the next big Trump stock Friday, 7 Apr 2017 | 7:15 PM ET | 10:17While business in the trucking industry has lately been, in CEO Christopher Lofgren’s words, “tepid,” Schneider also recently made two acquisitions that will better position the shipping giant for success in the stay-at-home economy. “That’s why Schneider National could end up being a major Trump stock,” Cramer said. “Rolling back regulations, especially the environmental regula

“And the amount of call option buying in the major independent oils with Permian exposure this week, it was extraordinary.” “That would be a sign that the Trump meetings with the Chinese president this week went very well,” he said. Delta: The airliner reports earnings ahead of market open, and Cramer is worried about the effects of a slowdown in travel, though he does not expect any major bombshells. In the case of Wells Fargo, Cramer hopes to gauge whether the bank has evaded the cross-selling

Their attitude toward the NCOs — those sergeants who acted as intermediaries between the officers and the enlisted Iraqis — was only slightly less condescending. The Sunnis and the Shiites split apart almost at the very beginning of Islam, in the seventh century. Both the Kurds and the Shiite Arabs resented the Sunnis in a deadly serious way. The Kurds were loyal to the Americans, but their Peshmerga warriors were fighting insurgents in the north without consulting with us. That meant building r

The electric vehicle market is currently dominated by Tesla Motors, which reached a market cap this week of $48 billion. But as EV sales grow — Tesla pulled in more than $7 billion in revenue last year and just had its best quarter — there are several EV start-ups aiming to catch Elon Musk’s EV company, and they share a common source of support: Chinese investors. Chinese venture capital investors have poured more than $1.4 billion into electric vehicle and battery start-ups in the past three ye

“On a technical basis, today’s a disappointing day,” Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, commented Friday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” Maley explained that with their morning spike to $1,273.30, gold futures managed to rise decisively above their 200-day moving average. “The fact that it rolled back over and it’s not going to hold that level by the close is disappointing.” Long term trends ‘against gold’From a fundamental perspective, gold is torn between catalysts, according to Gina Sanc

Get ready to open up your wallet a lot wider at the gas pump. RBC Capital Markets Head of Commodity Strategy and CNBC Contributor Helima Croft predicts prices will climb to the low $60s within months — a nearly 20 percent move from current levels. “We see it grinding higher over the back half of the year,” Croft told “Futures Now,” recently. Summer driving season will also give prices a “boost,” and demand won’t fall anytime soon, according to Croft. However, given that President Trump had previ