The daily business briefing: August 26, 2016

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1. Fed officials make case for rate hike ahead of Yellen speech
2. Apple issues patch to close iPhone security hole
3. Durable goods orders surge in July
4. Duke sues McClendon estate for unpaid $9.9 million pledge
5. Sears gets $300 million loan from CEO's hedge fund as sales drop

published 26 August 2016

1. Fed officials make case for rate hike ahead of Yellen speech

Two Federal Reserve officials argued Thursday that, with the economy near full employment and inflation rising toward the Fed's target, the case was getting stronger for another interest rate hike. The statements came at the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ahead of Friday's speech by Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Investors have traded cautiously all week as they wait for clues from Yellen on how she sees the economy, and when the next interest rate increase might come.

Apple on Thursday issued a patch to block a security flaw in iPhones and iPads after a hacking attack against the smartphone of a prominent United Arab Emirates dissident. The dissident, Ahmed Mansoor, received a text message inviting him to click on a link. He wasn't fooled, and forwarded the message to the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, where researchers determined the link would have installed a program getting the hackers through a security hole in Apple's operating system that it hadn't spotted.

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Demand for durable factory goods rose by a seasonally adjusted 4.4 percent in July, their biggest gain since last fall. Economists had expected a 3.2 percent July increase. The gains marked a rebound after a 1.2 percent increase in June. Much of the improvement in long-lasting products, such as machinery, came from rising orders for civilian aircraft. Orders for businesses' core capital goods also increased, indicating that companies are feeling more confident that future demand will justify big investments.

Duke University has filed a $9.9 million claim against the estate of alumnus and oil magnate Aubrey McClendon, saying the former Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO had made pledges that were unpaid when he died in a fiery car crash in March. McClendon, 56, was killed when he slammed his SUV into an Oklahoma bridge wall at nearly 80 miles per hour a day after he was indicted on bid rigging charges. His death was later ruled an accident. The school said McClendon had made nearly $19 million in charitable pledges for scholarships, an auditorium, the football program, and a student plaza, but had only paid half.

Sears Holdings reported declining sales and another in a series of quarterly losses on Thursday. The struggling retailer said it would receive another $300 million loan from the hedge fund of its CEO, Edward Lampert. Sears' troubles mirror those reported by other big retailers, including Kohl's and Target, which said their stores were seeing sales drop as shoppers continued to shift toward online retailers.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.