Walmart posts mixed results, expects "challenging" quarter; earnings report also discloses $73M expenses related to foreign bribery probes.

Microsoft to Google: We need APIs to fix YouTube app.

Abercrombie & Fitch signs Bangladesh safety agreement as deadline passes for Gap deal.

Apple defends brand (but not Steve Jobs) in US book price-fixing suit.

Boeing and GE hunt for engine defect in 777s.

Campbell Soup uses digital marketing to target Millennials.

Capri-Sun targeted by German ad watchdog for misleading marketing.

Cisco profit is boosted by services.Continue reading...

Google may be the target of a Us antitrust probe,  as brand's bid for Nortel’s patent assets coincides with Larry Page’s first day back as CEO.

Japan sets new radiation safety level for seafood after nuclear plant spews highly contaminated water into sea as Tepco shares plunge to record low. Also, Toyota reports misunderstanding over US impact and Honda targets rise in US sales but faces supply restrictions.

Amazon, Costco and Kohls are top brands for customer service in a new survey. 

BAT to develop “safer” nicotine products for long-term use. 

Boeing and Southwest deal with aftermath of fuselage tear.Continue reading...

Big bank Goldman Sachs is trying to repair its reputation, damaged by charges of civil fraud and a criminal investigation — never mind an embarrassment of riches in the firm's report of over $13 billion of net earnings in 2009.

So it may come as no surprise that Goldman Sachs is reportedly considering everything from an ad campaign to an appearance on The Oprah Show by CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Fiona Laffan, head of media relations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Goldman Sachs, publicly stated that "mistrust and hatred of bankers, not just those at Goldman Sachs, remained near an all-time high and that the bank, as an industry leader, needed to do a better job of explaining what it did and how."

Goldman Sachs has already gone on the offensive.Continue reading...

A day after BP CEO Tony Hayward's lackluster appearance before the U.S. congressional inquiry on the company's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told Sky News today that the mild-mannered CEO is no longer overseeing the company's Gulf spill operations. Svanberg said he is now "handing over the operation to Bob Dudley," an American who became the oil firm's managing director last year. "It is clear Tony has made remarks that have upset people."

Hayward had been dispatched to America after the spill (and famously told reporters he wanted his life back), but with the flow still ongoing and fallout for the brand as costs mount, he will no longer be the voice or face of the company's oil spill response. Svanberg said he also intends to expand his own involvement: "This has now turned into a reputation matter, a financial squeeze for BP and a political matter, and that is why you will now see more of me."

Svanberg was criticized in a Times of London article published June 9th, which stated that BP shareholders were more supportive of Hayward and distressed by the chairman's lack of profile in handling the Gulf diaster, and was also drubbed for saying BP cared about "the small people" affected by the spill, which he later attributed to his native Swedish.

BP's shares rose on the news of Hayward's changed role. For more on Svanberg's Sky News interview, click here. [6/19 update: BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams told the New York Times that Hayward is still in charge of the Gulf cleanup operations, as he came under new fire for participating in a yacht race on Saturday.]

Separately, the company said it is seeing progress with Kevin Costner's OceanTherapy Solutions technology to remove oil from the Gulf, and reported its best day so far for collecting spilled oil.