Bottomline

NEW YORK:

Amazon is increasingly claiming territory once held exclusively by department stores and it’s doing so again, essentially placing a dressing room in your house.

Amazon is testing a new service for Prime members that allows them to try on the latest styles before they buy at no upfront charge. Customers have seven days to decide what they like and only pay for what they keep. Shipments arrive in a re-sealable box with a pre-paid label for returns.

Amazon said Tuesday that more than a million pieces of clothing and accessories are eligible and include brands like Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Theory and Levi’s, labels that are big names at department stores. Shoppers receive discounts depending on how much they keep.

Prime Wardrobe is Amazon’s latest thrust into fashion and could be another big blow to department stores like Macy’s, which are struggling with weak sales. It’s also a potential concern for Walmart, which has been snapping up online clothing brands including ModCloth and Bonobos as it tries to snare millennials. (AP)

NEW YORK:

Apple Inc broadened a legal attack on Qualcomm Inc, arguing to a US federal court that license agreements that secure the chipmker a cut of every iPhone manufactured were invalid.

If successful, Apple’s attack would undermine a core tenet of Qualcomm’s business model.

Apple sued San Diego-based Qualcomm in January, saying the chipmker improperly withheld $1 billion in rebates because Apple helped Korean regulators investigate Qualcomm.

Apple’s initial lawsuit was a relatively narrow one focused on whether it violated a contract with Qualcomm by helping regulators that were investigating Qualcomm’s business practices. (RTRS)

LOS ANGELES:

A decision on 21st Century Fox’s proposed? 11.7 billion ($14.9 billion) takeover of Sky has edged closer after the British government received a report on the deal from regulatory agency Ofcom on Tuesday. The contents of the report were not disclosed.

The agency was tasked by the government in March with examining whether the deal would affect media plurality in the UK. The regulator’s report, thought to run to 100-plus pages, was delivered to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Tuesday morning.

To be licensed by Ofcom, UK media companies also need to pass a test on “fit and proper” ownership. Ofcom is likely to have also offered its guidance to the department on that element of the deal. (RTRS)

SAN FRANCISCO:

Google is promising to be more vigilant about preventing terrorist propaganda and other extremist videos from appearing on its YouTube site amid intensifying criticism about the internet’s role in mass violence.

Its crackdown will involve both computer programs and an expanded group of people dedicated to identifying videos promoting terrorism so they can be blocked from appearing on YouTube or quickly removed.

Google is making the commitment in the wake of violent attacks in the US and elsewhere. A van struck a crowd of people outside a London mosque Sunday, the second time an automobile was used as a weapon in that city this month, and less than a week after a gunman attacked GOP lawmakers on a baseball field. (AP)

TOKYO:

Takata shares dived again Tuesday, losing one-third of their value in just two days of trading on reports the troubled airbag maker will file for bankruptcy protection and sell its assets to a US company.

The embattled stock finished the day at 324 yen, tumbling by nearly 20 percent — its maximum daily loss limit — on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, after it plunged 16.5 percent Monday.

Investors bolted for the exit doors after Japan’s Nikkei business daily said the company, with liabilities exceeding one trillion yen ($9 billion), would make a formal decision about the bankruptcy filing at a board meeting this month. (AFP)

DETROIT:

Ford Motor Co will export the next-generation Focus compact car from China to North America in 2019, rather than from Mexico as earlier planned, saving the company $500 million, a top executive said on Tuesday.

It is the first major manufacturing investment decision made by new Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett, who succeeded Mark Fields in late May. Discussion about the small-car production shift from Mexico to China began “a couple months ago” under Fields, said Joe Hinrichs, president of global operations.

In January, after US President Donald Trump criticized Ford for shipping small-car manufacturing to Mexico, Ford said it would kill plans to build a $1.8-billion Focus plant in San Luis Potosi and instead produce the new Focus at an existing plant in Hermosillo. (RTRS)

ATLANTA:

USis adding a new charge of under $1 for shipments to residential customers during peak delivery periods in November and December.

United Parcel Service Inc said Monday it will add 27 cents for residential deliveries from Nov 19 to Dec 2 and Dec 17-23. USwill add a fee of between 81 cents and 97 cents to overnight, second- or third-day deliveries for residential deliveries Dec 17-23.

It will also add a new peak surcharge of $24 for oversized packages — if width plus length times two is more than 130 inches — and $249 for packages weighing more than 150 pounds, from Nov 19 through Dec 23. Those seasonal fees are on top of regular surcharges for large or heavy items. (AP)

MASSACHUSETTS:

Parexel is being acquired by Pamplona Capital Management in a $5 billion deal that will make the pharmaceutical contract researcher a private company.

The private equity fund manager said Tuesday that it will pay $88.10 for each share, which represents a nearly 28 percent premium to the company’s stock price in early May before speculation about the deal first began to rise.

Shares of Parexel jumped more than 4 percent, to $87.60, before the opening bell.

Parexel International Corp, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, provides clinical research, technology consulting and medical communications to the drug and medical device industries. (AP)