LOS GATOS, Calif. - The online video giant Netflix says it will expand into the Netherlands, its 41st country, later this year.
Subscribers will be able to stream Hollywood fare, local TV series and Netflix originals like "House of Cards" and "Arrested Development" on TVs, game consoles, computers and mobile devices.
SEOUL, South Korea - Asian markets were mostly lower Wednesday as investors waited for an update on the U.S. economy from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The results of a two-day Fed policy meeting will likely ripple through stock markets once investors learn whether there will be changes in the U.S. central bank's strategy for shoring up the world's No. 1 economy. The meeting is set to wrap up on Wednesday in Washington.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - Satellite TV operator Dish Network Corp. said Tuesday it would not submit a revised bid for Sprint, leaving the path open for the wireless carrier to accept what it already considers a superior offer from Japan's Softbank.
Dish said that Sprint Nextel Corp.'s decision to cut Dish's due diligence process short, among other things, made it "impracticable" to submit a revised bid. It said it will continue to focus on its bid for Clearwire, a wireless network operator in which Sprint has a majority stake.
BEIJING, China - Chinese property and cinema conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group says it is buying British yacht maker Sunseeker and will develop an upmarket London hotel, expanding into the luxury market as part of the latest foray abroad by a major Chinese firm.
The company said Wednesday it was acquiring a 91.81 per cent stake in Sunseeker in a deal worth 320 million pounds ($500 million). Wanda also says it plans to invest 700 million pounds ($1 billion) in a five-star, 160-room London hotel on the South Bank overlooking the Thames River.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. foiled a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange because of the sweeping surveillance programs at the heart of a debate over national security and personal privacy, officials said Tuesday at a rare open hearing on intelligence led by lawmakers sympathetic to the spying.
The House Intelligence Committee hearing provided a venue for officials to defend the once-secret programs and did little probing of claims that the collection of people's phone records and Internet usage has disrupted dozens of terrorist plots. Few details were volunteered.
BOSTON - The Cape Wind offshore wind project has secured a $200 million investment from a Danish pension fund in what the wind farm's president said Tuesday is a milestone for the long-delayed project.
In a statement announcing the commitment, PensionDanmark's chief executive Torben Moger Pedersen noted the fund has already invested in two offshore wind projects in Denmark and said it was "delighted to participate in the Cape Wind project."
WASHINGTON - There's no guarantee that President Barack Obama's health care law will launch smoothly and on time, congressional investigators say in the first in-depth independent look at its progress.
But in a report to be released Wednesday, the congressional Government Accountability Office also sees positive signs as the Oct. 1 deadline approaches for new health insurance markets called exchanges to open in each state — in many cases over the objections of Republican governors.
Netflix Inc. got its start renting DVDs through the mail in the U.S. during the late 1990s and added Internet video streaming in 2007. It has been expanding globally with a streaming-only service. Here's a look at its international expansion so far.
— Sept. 22, 2010: Service in Canada begins, first outside the U.S.
SEOUL, South Korea - Asian markets opened mostly lower Wednesday as investors waited for an update on the U.S. economy from the Federal Reserve and for some clarity from the Fed about its future course.
The results of a two-day Fed policy meeting will likely ripple through stock markets once investors learn whether there will be changes in the U.S. central bank's strategy for shoring up the world's No. 1 economy. The meeting is set to wrap up on Wednesday in Washington.
DETROIT - After initially defying federal regulators, Chrysler abruptly agreed Tuesday to recall some older-model Jeeps with fuel tanks that could rupture and cause fires in rear-end collisions.
But the recall, which came in an 11th-hour deal between the automaker and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, covers only 1.56 million of the 2.7 million Jeeps that the government wanted repaired. The rest are part of a "customer service action" and many may not get fixed.
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Johnny Rockets, the Southern California-based burger chain with 1950s flair, has been sold to a private equity firm that targets underperforming and specialty companies.
The Orange County Register reported Tuesday (http://bit.ly/10tQxV1) that Sun Capital Partners has purchased the company, which is headquartered in Aliso Viejo.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The American Beverage Association says efforts by the mayors of 18 cities to stop food stamps from being used to buy sugary drinks won't make the nation healthier.
Mayors from cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are reviving a push against letting food stamps be used for soda and other sugary drinks. They say in a letter sent to congressional leaders Tuesday it's time to evaluate approaches limiting the use of the subsidies for sugar-laden beverages in the interest of fighting obesity.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings has died in a car accident in Los Angeles.
BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith says he learned from a family member that the 33-year-old died early Tuesday.
TOKYO - Japan's trade deficit rose nearly 10 per cent in May to 993.9 billion yen (nearly $10.5 billion) as rising costs for imports due to the cheaper yen matched a rebound in exports, the Ministry of Finance reported Wednesday.
Exports rose 10.1 per cent in May over a year earlier to 5.77 trillion yen ($60.7 billion) while imports also surged 10 per cent, to 6.76 trillion yen ($71.1 billion), the ministry said. Japan's trade deficit in May 2012 was 907.93 billion yen.
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission says the agency will start requiring companies and individuals to admit wrongdoing in some big settlements.
Currently, under a longstanding practice, the SEC allows companies and individuals to settle charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing. Critics, including a federal judge, have complained that policy doesn't deter repeat violations.
SEATTLE - United Airlines says an oil filter issue has prompted the crew of a Boeing 787 flying from Denver to Tokyo to divert to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
According to the Seattle Times (http://is.gd/PHA5Xv ), Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer says United Flight 139 landed safely in Seattle shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday after the crew declared an emergency.
EDMONTON - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has suspended the licence of an Edmonton business over non-compliance of meat inspection regulations.
The business, Aliya’s Foods Ltd., took effect on Monday.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Arkansas' attorney general filed a brief Tuesday backed by his counterparts in 35 other states asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to uphold a $1.2 billion fine levied against Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary over the marketing of the antipsychotics drug Risperdal.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel called on the justices to reject the companies' appeal of a Pulaski County jury's ruling last year in which it found that the drug makers downplayed and hid risks associated with taking Risperdal. The companies have asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.
LAVAL, Que. - Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (TSX:VRX) has priced its previously announced public offering of shares aimed at helping finance the US$8.7-billion acquisition of eye care company Bausch + Lomb.
Valeant says it will issue slightly more than 23.5 million common shares at a price of $85 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds of some $2 billion.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - In a bid to kick start Jamaica's chronically stagnant economy, the Caribbean country is wooing its citizens living abroad to invest in the island of their birth.
On Tuesday, hundreds of entrepreneurs and other Jamaican expatriates mingled with government officials and local business leaders, brainstorming ways to boost growth and development. The sessions were part of a four-day "Jamaica Diaspora" conference aimed at tapping into the wealth, education and know-how of the island's expatriates.
OTTAWA - A Manitoba Conservative MP has changed her mind and decided to file a new expense claim with Elections Canada for the 2011 federal election.
House Speaker Andrew Scheer announced the decision by the MP for St. Boniface on Tuesday as he handed a committee the tricky question of whether Glover and James Bezan, the Tory MP for Selkirk-Interlake, should be suspended over doubtful campaign spending.
OTTAWA - One week after defeating Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's attempt to open MPs' expenses to public scrutiny, the NDP has won approval for a proposal of its own.
New Democrat MP Peter Julian won unanimous consent late Tuesday for a motion aimed at creating an independent body to oversee House of Commons spending, including MPs' expenses.
TORONTO - Half of Canada's First Nations children are living in poverty, triple the national average, according to a new analysis of census statistics that pegs the cost of easing the problem at $580-million a year.
The study by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives being released Wednesday also paints a grim picture of Metis, Inuit, and non-status Indian children, as well as of children of immigrants and visible minorities.
OTTAWA - The most bitter spring sitting of parliament since Stephen Harper's Conservatives came to power more than seven years ago has ended with a rare piece of agreement — unanimous consent to adjourn for the summer.
All parties agreed late Tuesday night to pull the plug after almost a month of late-night sittings.
VANCOUVER - A B.C. Supreme Court decision over land use on Vancouver Island could force the provincial and federal governments to implement a treaty first negotiated by the Crown more than 160 years ago, says a lawyer for a First Nation.
In a decision posted online Tuesday, Justice Gordon Weatherill refused to reverse a decision by the provincial government, allowing Western Forest Products Inc. to remove 14,000 hectares land from a tree-farm licence on the island's northern tip.
GENEVA - The last day of Ahmad Mokaled's short life dawned on a sunny spring February morning in the southern Lebanon town of Nabatieh.
Feb. 12, 1999, was Ahmad's fifth birthday. So his father, Raed, pulled him out of school for an impromptu celebration with Ahmad's older brother, Adam, at a bustling public park where the boys sprinted into a growing throng of children.
MAPLE, Ont. - The Great One firmly believes the NHL will return to Quebec City.
The Quebec capital has been without an NHL franchise since the Nordiques left in 1995. But hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said Tuesday his gut feeling is that Quebec City will again have its own pro hockey franchise.
OTTAWA - A Postmedia News and Ottawa Citizen investigation exposing the use of "robocalls" to mislead and harass voters during the 2011 federal election campaign has won the 2012 Michener Award.
The foundation handing out the award noted that the "detailed and sustained reporting" led to Elections Canada investigating complaints, a Federal court ruling that electoral fraud occurred in six ridings and a PC campaign worker facing charges.
TERRACE, B.C. - There is a growing imbalance between oil supply and delivery in Canada and doing nothing is not an option, the lawyer for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers told a federal panel weighing the Northern Gateway project.
Keith Bergner told the review panel Tuesday that current pipeline capacity is not sufficient, and producers are finding themselves with product on their hands and no way to ship it to buyers — "shut-in" as it's known in the industry.
OTTAWA - Refugee numbers around the world are at their highest level since 1994, the United Nations refugee agency reported Tuesday in a sobering look at global displacement.
More than 45.2 million people either fled their own countries or were internally displaced in 2012, compared to 42.5 million the year before, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in its annual global trends report.
TORONTO - A team of Canadian and U.S. researchers has developed a new "sharp-shooter" drug they hope may be a breakthrough in treating several types of aggressive cancer.
The drug, known for now as CFI-400945, is a new class of cancer agent that targets an enzyme involved in some malignancies, among them certain types of breast cancer, and ovarian, colorectal, pancreatic and prostate cancers.
WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain urged the world on Tuesday to learn from past mistakes as it passively observes Syria's bloody civil war while Canada's defence minister, Peter MacKay, stood by the Canadian government's decision against arming the Syrian rebels.
"There's an old line about those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them," McCain told reporters at the Canadian embassy in the U.S. capital.
MONTREAL - Quebec's construction strike settled into its second day with a warning that workers are ready to stay off the job for a long time.
Yves Ouellet, spokesman for the alliance of construction unions, said the 175,000 workers had already made several concessions to "reduce the cost of projects" at the request of their bosses and are ready for a lengthy strike.
OTTAWA - The RCMP should amend its code of conduct to explicitly define and prohibit harassment, a Senate committee recommends.
In a newly tabled report, the senators said Tuesday that spelling out the prohibition in direct language would avoid ambiguity.
OTTAWA - Conservative attacks against Justin Trudeau's paid public speaking career have boomeranged into questions about the propriety of using the Prime Minister's Office to fire off purely partisan missiles.
The tables turned Tuesday after the Barrie Advance newspaper outed the PMO as the source of documents circulated to media Monday showing three fundraising events headlined by Trudeau in 2006 and 2007 — before he became an MP — lost money.
QUEBEC - The Quebec government is spending $500,000 to create a committee to examine wasteful spending by the federal government.
The pro-independence Parti Quebecois government wants to examine how much it costs to have federal services that duplicate ones already offered by the province or that encroach on provincial jurisdiction.
MONTREAL - Montreal has had its second scandal-provoked mayoral resignation in less than a year, with an arrest and criminal charges leading to the departure Tuesday of its interim city-hall boss.
Replacement mayor Michael Applebaum stepped down a day after he was slapped with 14 criminal charges.
OTTAWA - Two speakers hired by the Senate to help motivate senators and staff in the midst of a raging scandal over the abuse of taxpayers' money have had their event cancelled pending further discussion.
Communications consultant Barry McLoughlin and motivational speaker Marc-Andre Morel had been slated to talk about "the enduring value of the Senate and help bring a little perspective to the current situation," according to an invitation that went out Tuesday morning.
OTTAWA - Leaked documents suggest Canada helped the United States and Britain spy on participants at the London G20 summit four years ago.
Britain's Guardian newspaper says spies monitored the computers and intercepted the phone calls of foreign politicians and officials at two G20 meetings in London in 2009.
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland - The Group of Eight stopped short of calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad in its final statement on Tuesday, but called for a swift end to the bloody civil war and urgent peace talks to stop the country from spiralling further into chaos.
Despite the lack of consensus among the G8 around the fate of Assad, as well as the use of chemical weapons by his regime, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the outcome was better than he expected.
MIAMI - LeBron James led a title-saving charge, and now his crown will be on the line one more time in Game 7.
James powered Miami to a frantic fourth-quarter rally and overtime escape as the Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs 103-100 on Tuesday night to extend the NBA Finals as far as they can go and keep Miami's repeat chances alive.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Tomas Tatar scored twice as the Grand Rapids Griffins won the Calder Cup on Tuesday with a 5-2 victory over the Syracuse Crunch in Game 6 of the American Hockey League's championship series.
Tatar scored on the power play 12:41 into the second period then added an empty-net goal for some insurance in the final minute of play.
TORONTO - A seven-game win streak and the emergence of Esmil Rogers as a reliable starter is taking some of the pressure off injuries to the Blue Jays' pitching rotation.
Edwin Encarnacion had a home run and three RBIs to back Roger's strong outing against his former club and Toronto took a 8-3 interleague victory over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night.
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. - State and local police spent hours at the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Tuesday night as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before.
Police at the scene and prosecutors would not comment on the actions while Sports Illustrated, citing an unidentified source, reported that Hernandez was not believed to be a suspect in what was being treated as a possible homicide. Police had spoken with Hernandez, the magazine said.
Serena Williams says in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that, while not blaming the victim in the Steubenville rape case, "she shouldn't have put herself in that position."
The comment is made in one paragraph of a lengthy story posted online Tuesday about Williams, a 16-time Grand Slam title winner who is ranked No. 1 heading into Wimbledon, which starts next week.
VANCOUVER - Many golfers would consider a pair of top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour in the same season as a breakthrough.
But not Graham DeLaet.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Veronica Campbell-Brown's agent insists one of the cornerstones of Jamaica's wide-ranging sprint success "is not a cheat," even though the test results disagree.
While her case is being decided, the three-time Olympic gold medallist will sit out and her country will try to make sense of one of its longest-held fears: a high-profile track star getting busted for doping.
BOSTON - The trend of hiding injuries is nothing new in sports. But Chicago coach Joel Quenneville may have added a new wrinkle to the art of deception.
Blackhawks star Marian Hossa was a late scratch for Game 3 Monday against the Bruins, replaced by Ben Smith.
MAPLE, Ont. - The Great One firmly believes the NHL will return to Quebec City.
The Quebec capital has been without an NHL franchise since the Nordiques left in 1995. But hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said Tuesday his gut feeling is that Quebec City will again have its own pro hockey franchise.
SAN FRANCISCO - Major League Baseball is dragging its feet on having team owners vote on the Oakland Athletics' proposed move to a new ballpark over 60 kilometres south in San Jose, Calif., said San Jose city officials in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit — filed in federal court in San Jose — is disputing MLB's exemption from federal antitrust law, which MLB has used as a "guise" to control the location of teams, according to the suit.
VANCOUVER - Brad Knighton will attempt to improve his job security Wednesday night.
The Vancouver goalkeeper is looking to cut down his goals against as the Whitecaps host Chivas USA at B.C. Place Stadium. His role as the club's starter — and future with the team — have come into question amidst reports that the Whitecaps are attempting to secure the services of a new 'keeper.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees was postponed by rain Tuesday night, delaying the renewal of their old October rivalry.
The game was called about 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch. It will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader Wednesday, with start times of 1:05 p.m. and 7:05 p.m.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Defenceman Slava Voynov agreed to a new six-year, $25 million contract Tuesday with the Los Angeles Kings, who signed yet another young cornerstone to a long-term deal.
The 23-year-old Siberian would have been a restricted free agent this summer after his breakout playoff performance for the Kings, whose Stanley Cup title defence ended in the Western Conference finals against Chicago.
Defenceman Mark Streit is staying in Philadelphia
Less than a week after Streit was acquired by the Flyers in a trade with the New York Islanders, the 35-year-old defenceman agreed to a four-year $21 million contract, according to a person familiar with deal.
TORONTO - John Herdman has pleaded patience with his work-in-progress women's soccer team this season.
Two more newcomers will have the chance to audition for Canada's head coach when the Canadians play perennial powerhouse Germany in a friendly on Wednesday.
VANCOUVER - Vancouver Whitecaps winger Kekuta Manneh has been suspended one game for a collision with New England Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth.
Vancouver coach Martin Rennie revealed the suspension after a practice Tuesday. The Whitecaps will not appeal the suspension, and Manneh will sit out Wednesday's home game against Chivas USA.
BOSTON - Chris Kelly, Daniel Paille and Tyler Seguin have proved to be a winning combination for the Boston Bruins.
"I'm just a little ticked off that I didn't put them together sooner," Boston coach Claude Julien joked Tuesday.
MONTREAL - The Crown has withdrawn domestic violence charges against ex-NHL star Vincent Damphousse.
The prosecution announced today that it has withdrawn six charges of simple assault against the ex-star, explaining its decision to do so after going over the case.
MONTREAL - Coach Marco Schallibaum was serving a one-game suspension when his Montreal Impact had perhaps their worst game of the Major League Soccer season last weekend in Columbus.
He'll want a better showing from the Eastern Conference leaders when he returns to the sidelines for a game Wednesday night against the visiting Houston Dynamo.
