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By Siddharth Cavale (Reuters) - U.S. retailer Sears Holdings cast bigger doubts on the progress of its turnaround after reporting a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss, hurt by cooler spring weather. Shares of the company, which also said it was considering selling its service contracts business, fell 12 percent to $51.41 in heavy trading after the bell. The disappointing results came just months after Chairman and controlling shareholder Eddie Lampert took over as chief executive from Louis D'Ambrosio, who stepped down due to a family member's health issue. ...

By Lauren Tara LaCapra SALT LAKE City (Reuters) - After dozens of meetings with executives and regulators, 100,000 hours of employee training and an immeasurable amount of public grief, Goldman Sachs Group Inc's Lloyd Blankfein claimed success in putting the bank and his legacy as CEO back on track. At Goldman's annual meeting on Thursday, Blankfein unveiled details of a three-year review and overhaul of the bank's practices in dealing with clients, following high-profile missteps that tarnished its reputation in the aftermath of the financial crisis. ...

By Nick Brown NEW YORK (Reuters) - While bond insurers MBIA Inc and FGIC Corp receive the lion's share of Ally Financial Inc's $2.1 billion contribution to the debts of mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC, hedge funds like Paulson & Co may have obtained a better deal. Under an agreement made public on Thursday, MBIA and FGIC, which insured residential mortgage-backed securities issued by ResCap, get about $1 billion - a bigger share of the total pot than they would have received in an earlier version of the settlement. Other bond insurers get a total of $96 million. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are in the early stages of an antitrust probe into whether Google Inc, which dominates web display advertising, has broken antitrust law in how it handles some ad sales, a source told Reuters on Thursday. The source said that it was unlikely that the Federal Trade Commission had sent out civil investigative demands in relation to the probe, which would be the sign of a formal and more serious investigation. ...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - For the past few months, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been squarely in the financial markets' corner, thanks to its massive dollops of monetary stimulus. But signs that the central bank is discussing reducing that support by purchasing fewer bonds mean that trading is likely to get bumpier in coming months. ...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) - All trades in American Electric Power Inc and NextEra Energy Inc in a crash that happened in the first minute of trading on Thursday will stand, the New York Stock Exchange said, following the latest in a flurry of unexplained sharp drops in the market. The stocks each dropped more than 50 percent in the first minute of trading, though ended just down slightly. The share drops were the latest such incidents for the market since the May 6, 2010, "flash crash," a computer-driven trading glitch that caused a sudden afternoon tumble in the major U.S. ...

By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday told Congress it expected a 1 percent drop in the cost of its biggest weapons program, the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 fighter jet, while averting the huge cost increases seen on other weapons programs in recent years. The Defense Department's annual report to lawmakers showed a $40 billion, or 2.4 percent, cost increase in 78 major arms programs, mainly due to accounting changes and higher order quantities. ...

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Institutional Shareholder Services has settled civil charges by U.S. regulators that an employee of the prominent proxy advisory firm shared nonpublic voting data in exchange for meals and concert tickets. The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that ISS, a unit of MSCI Inc, will pay a $300,000 penalty and hire an independent compliance consultant. In settling, ISS neither admitted nor denied the SEC allegations that it violated financial adviser rules designed to prevent misuse of material non-public customer information. ...

(Reuters) - Gap Inc reported a higher first-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by a rise in same-store sales at its Old Navy and namesake chains, and growth in Asia. Gap has staged a comeback in the last few years, offering hipper fashions that have found favor again with shoppers that in the interim had flocked to Zara parent Inditex SA and homegrown competitors such as Forever21. The company, which also owns Banana Republic, posted net income of $333 million, or 71 cents per share, for the quarter ended May 4, up 42.9 percent from $223 million, or 47 cents per share, a year earlier. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel and SoftBank Corp said on Thursday they had received all necessary state regulatory approvals for the Japanese company's proposed $20.1 billion purchase of 70 percent of Sprint. The California Public Utilities Commission voted on Thursday to approve the deal, according to the companies, which said this was the final state approval required for the transaction. The companies are still working with the Federal Communications Commission and other Federal government agencies reviewing the transaction, SoftBank and Sprint said. Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. ...

By Emily Flitter and Matthew Goldstein NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for SAC Capital Advisors called a meeting with U.S. prosecutors and FBI agents in April to argue that there should be no insider trading charges filed against the $15 billion hedge fund or its founder, Steven A. Cohen, according to sources familiar with the matter. Lawyers for the firm made an "aggressive presentation," according to the sources, reviewing the government's investigation in detail to support their claim that the government did not have enough evidence to charge Cohen. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs banker Neil Morrison agreed to pay $100,000 to settle charges for his role in a pay-to-play scheme involving a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign, the largest such penalty paid by an individual, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday. Morrison also was barred from the securities industry for five years in the first industry ban for violating municipal bond market rules on "pay-to-play," or the making of campaign donations in exchange for political favors, the SEC said. ...