Business & Finance

Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. is expected to drop Google as its primary search engine and to unveil an in-house alternative in the coming months, The Wall Street Journal reported. Yahoo! now views Google, which once was an ally, as a rival for ad revenues derived from its 220 million monthly visitors, and spent $2 billion last year buying technology firms Overture Services and Inktomi to help it challenge Google's dominance, the newspaper said.

Bailouts of $22.5 billion each for two of the largest banks in China were announced by the Beijing government as part of a strategy to turn the institutions into "modern companies" with shareholders - some of them from overseas. But Bank of China and China Construction Bank, together with the other members of the state-owned "Big Four" - Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China - hold nonperforming loan portfolios of at least $240 billion, and analysts suggested as many as four more infusions of cash may be needed before they are sufficiently recapitalized.

Magellan Health Services, the nation's top provider of mental health services, emerged from bankruptcy Monday, The Washington Post reported. As part of its restructuring, the company cut $600 million in debt, will become 24 percent owned by Toronto-based Onex Corp., and plans to move its headquarters from Columbia, Md., to Connecticut. Megellan has 4,600 employees and serves 60 million people nationwide.

In a move that will cost 625 jobs, Archibald Candy Corp. of Chicago plans to close a nearby factory this month, the Chicago Tribune reported. The facility, built in the 1930s, makes sweets sold under the Fanny Farmer and Fannie May brands. The company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2002, is in final negotiations with an unnamed buyer for its 250 stores, but the buyer will produce candy elsewhere, the Tribune said.