Business

The Labor Department's July jobs report, released Friday, showed employers added 215,000 workers and that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.3 percent.

So how would you interpret that report if you were a policymaker for the nation's central bank?

It really — really — matters how you read those numbers, because you have a huge decision to make in September. You and the other Federal Reserve Board policymakers have to set the direction for interest rates.

Updated at 9:50 a.m. ET

The U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs last month, just shy of the number forecast by economists. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3 percent.

Wages were up slightly, and the number of long-term unemployed remained the same as June.

Until recently, nurses at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Hospital had to maneuver through a maze of wheelchairs, beds, boxes and lights to find surgical supplies in the equipment closet for the operating rooms.

But as public hospitals like Harbor-UCLA try to cut costs and make patients happier, administrators have turned to an unlikely ally: Toyota.

An online food service offered a special promotion during last night's Republican debate: A free taco for every time Donald Trump said "Mexico," which turned out to be a platterful.

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Transcript

Not too long ago, a New York taxi medallion was worth more than a million dollars. Gene Friedman managed to buy more than 1,000. But that was before Uber, and now people like Friedman face bankruptcy.

Listen to the full story by Planet Money.

Businesses in Ferguson, Mo., are bracing as the city prepares for peaceful protests marking the first anniversary since it was embroiled in violence following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Brown was unarmed when he was shot by a police officer on Aug. 9. In November, many businesses were looted, vandalized and set on fire after a grand jury decided to not indict Wilson. Since then businesses have been working to rebuild.

Netflix maintains a network of DVD distribution centers across the country. Workers there typically report for their shifts at 2:00 a.m. and according to job postings, the work in these centers can be physically demanding and repetitive. It involves lifting, sorting and inspecting thousands of DVDs for damage.

These employees are offered vastly different benefits than are their white-collar colleagues.

The last defendant in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme is going to jail three years after he pleaded guilty to helping conceal the massive fraud from regulators.

Irwin Lipkin, 77, will spend six months in prison for his role in the scheme that defrauded investors of billions of dollars in investments.

Texts, instant messages, video calls, Snapchats, Facebook messages, direct tweets or Instagrams — with so many ways to communicate electronically, one would think that all the variations have been exhausted. And yet, developers keep hitting us with more.

Yahoo just launched a new video messenger app called Livetext, which allows users to send videos with one catch: There's no sound.

It's like if FaceTime had a baby with Charlie Chaplin and Snapchat.