Yahoo said Monday that after it sells its Internet properties to Verizon, the holding company that remains will be called Altaba Inc. That firm will manage the company’s investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Altaba’s board will be reduced to five directors: Tor Braham, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank Securities ; Eric Brandt , a former Broadcom Corp. CFO ; Catherine Friedman , a former managing director of Morgan Stanley ; Thomas McInerney , former CFO of IAC; and Jeffrey Smith , chief investment officer of activist investor group Starboard Value. Brandt, who became the chairman of Yahoo’s board on Monday, will continue to hold that role at Altaba.
There are six directors that plan to resign after the Verizon deal closes, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and co-founder David Filo. Yahoo declined to comment.
It’s unclear if the Verizon deal will go through.
Previously, Yahoo had planned to spin off its Asian investments in a new company called Aabaco. That plan was scrapped after the Internal Revenue Service indicated the deal wouldn’t receive favorable tax treatment. Yahoo’s small-business unit still carries the Aabaco name.
The Obama administration cut mortgage-insurance premiums charged under a government program that’s popular with first-time home buyers with little money for a down payment, a move that may ease the burden of rising interest rates.
The annual fees the Federal Housing Administration charges to guarantee mortgages it backs are being cut by a quarter of a percentage point, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said on Monday. With the reduction, the annual cost for most borrowers will be 0.60 percent of the loan balance.
The change — which could be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump takes office — will force the Trump administration to weigh Republican objections over lower fees against the benefits to home buyers.
The reduction, which lowers the cost of a home for those who use the FHA, is charged to mortgage borrowers. HUD on Monday said the fee cut would save new FHA-insured homeowners an average of $500 this year. The cut would take effect on Jan. 27.
Consumers increased their borrowing in November at the fastest pace in three months.
The Federal Reserve says total borrowing in November climbed $24.5 billion, compared to a smaller $16.2 billion in October. The increase pushed total debt to a fresh record of $3.75 trillion.
The acceleration reflected a big jump in the category that covers credit card debt, which rose $11 billion, compared with a much smaller $2.4 billion increase in October.
It was the largest monthly advance since March and was a good sign at the start of the holiday shopping season.
Growth in the category that covers auto loans and student loans slowed a bit in November, showing a rise of $13.5 billion after a $13.8 billion increase in October.
Alphabet Inc. is in talks to sell the Skybox Imaging satellite business it acquired for $500 million less than three years ago, another sign the technology giant is ratcheting back grand ambitions to blanket the globe with Internet service.
Planet Labs , a San Francisco satellite imaging startup, may acquire Skybox, according to people familiar with the situation. Some employees from the Alphabet division , renamed Terra Bella last year, are moving to Planet Labs as part of the deal, while others may get different positions at Google, according to these people. They asked not to be identified because the transaction is private.
A representative from Planet Labs, now known as Planet, declined to comment. A spokeswoman from Alphabet’s Google unit declined to comment.
The move signals an ambitious agenda for the startup, which has raised more than $150 million. In contrast, Google parent Alphabet has been curbing its Internet-access plans. In October, the company cut about 9 percent of staff from its Fiber fast Internet service.
The Chevy Bolt has been named top car in North America, an important milestone for a car General Motors hopes will finally get Americans hooked on electric vehicles. The honors were announced Monday morning at Detroit’s Cobo Center as the North American International Auto Show’s press preview days kicked into high gear.
The Bolt beat out the Genesis G90 and Volvo S90 for the car award. The electric car from Chevrolet went on sale late last year. It gets more than 200 miles per battery charge, which is more than the average American drives in a day. The Bolt also sells for around $30,000 when a federal tax credit is included. Electric vehicles have failed to catch on with most American consumers, but General Motors hopes the improved range and price help shift opinions.
Chronicle News Services

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DETROIT (AP) – The Toyota Camry has been the nation’s top-selling vehicle for 15 years, if you exclude pickup trucks. Now it’s in danger of losing its crown, a potential victim of the SUV craze. And even a much-anticipated revamp unveiled Monday at the Detroit auto show may not be enough to keep the competition at bay.
Toyota’s own RAV4 small SUV and Honda’s CR-V have racked up impressive sales gains as buyers shift away from passenger cars toward the higher-sitting and more versatile SUVs. The CR-V, for instance, outsold the Camry an uncharacteristic five months last year.
The Camry, last reworked four years ago, has made a living by being a solidly reliable if dull ride for people who simply want to get from place to place. It’s not much fun to drive, and in the past some analysts compared its looks to an appliance. Although styling has improved, it’s still square-looking when compared to competitors such as the Honda Accord or Chevrolet Malibu.
Toyota says it increased the distance between the wheels on the new version by 2 inches and lowered the hood and roof height. The result is a lower center of gravity and a wider look that the company calls “beautiful and futuristic. ” Toyota describes the new interior as cockpit-like.
The revamped Camry gets two all-new engines, a 3.5-liter V6 and a 2.5-liter four, both paired with a new eight-speed automatic transmission.
All 2018 Camrys come standard with a suite of safety systems that includes automatic emergency braking.
Horsepower, gas mileage and price weren’t released. The new Kentucky-built Camry will be available late in the summer.
Dealers have been promised game-changing updates before, such as with the 2013 model year. But Toyota executives conceded they didn’t want too much change, fearing that they’d alienate loyal Camry buyers.
Stu Stewart, general manager of his family’s Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach, Florida, says close-up pictures of the new car he saw at a recent dealer meeting give him hope that this version will live up to its billing. “I’m excited to see something pretty sporty,” he says.
But a sportier look may be too little to help the Camry or any midsize car given the seismic consumer shift to SUVs.
Five years ago, midsize cars made up 15.8 percent of U. S. auto sales, says Tom Libby, an industry analyst with IHS Markit. This year the market share fell more than three percentage points to 12.5. During the same five years, small SUVs rose from 12.7 percent of U. S. sales to 18.7 percent, Libby says.
A Camry with nicer styling, improved engines and reduced weight for better fuel economy will help, but Libby sees no sign of the trend away from cars changing. “That’s all they can do,” he says of Toyota, adding that the company must be prepared should the market shift back, perhaps if gas prices shoot higher.
The midsize car market is still huge, Libby says. Although sales fell more than 8 percent last year, Americans still bought over 3.2 million of them. Toyota sold more than 400,000 Camrys annually from 2012 to 2015, but sales dropped 9.5 percent to about 389,000 last year, according to Ward’s Automotive. By comparison sales of the RAV4 rose almost 12 percent in 2016 to 352,000, while Honda’s CR-V posted a 3 percent gain to just over 357,000. If Camry sales this year fall by the same amount as 2016, and the CR-V and RAV4 grow even slightly, both will pass the Camry.
Michael Kranjec, sales manager at Adams Toyota in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, near Kansas City, says that in the past, Toyota has discounted the Camry to keep it No. 1. But with the market shift, he doubts that will be enough in the future.
Still, he hopes Toyota will set the Camry apart from competitors, which he says all look alike. “I’m hoping it’s waking up some of the designers,” he said.

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TOKYO — Manny Ramirez has agreed to terms with the Kochi Fighting Dogs of Japan’s independent Shikoku Island League.
The four-team Japanese independent league is based in Shikoku, the smallest and least populous of Japan’s four main islands.
The 44-year-old Dominican, whose signing was announced Monday, played for Taiwan’s Rhinos in 2013, .hitting .352 with eight home runs and 43 RBI.
Ramirez finished his 19-season major league career with a .312 batting average, 555 home runs and 1,831 RBI.
A 12-time All-Star, Ramirez helped the Boston Red Sox win World Series titles in 2004 and ’07, the first for the franchise since 1918.
On the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, Ramirez was suspended for 50 games in 2009 while with the Los Angeles Dodgers for using a banned female fertility drug. He retired in 2011 rather than face a 100-game suspension after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance. He applied for reinstatement that December, and his suspension for the second failed test was cut from 100 games.
Brown pitched and coached for the Texas Rangers, who said Brown died Sunday after a long illness. Brown died in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the community where he was born.
Brown was the Rangers’ pitching coach from 1979-82, and later had stints in that role for the Chicago White Sox (1992-95) and Tampa Bay (2002).
Washington announced on Twitter that its star right-hander has a stress fracture in the knuckle of his right ring finger.
The team said the ongoing rehabilitation will keep Scherzer off the U. S. team at the WBC, which is in March, but he is still “expected to be a full participant” at spring training, which starts next month.
Scherzer went 20-7 with a 2.96 ERA and 284 strikeouts last season, including a record-tying 20 in one game, for the NL East champion Nationals.
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21:17 ET
Preview: Die Preisgewinner der Washoku World Challenge 2016, dem japanischen Kochwettbewerb für internationale Köche, stehen fest
Jan 05, 2017, 02:00 ET
Preview: Prize Winners Picked for Washoku World Challenge 2016, Japanese Cooking Contest for International Chefs

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