NEW YORK -- U.S. stock futures cut their gains on Thursday after the Labor Department reported jobless claims rose by 13,000 last week to 380,000, the highest since late January. The four-week average climbed by 4,250 to 368,500, the highest in a month. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average held a 22-point gain at 12,766. Futures for the S&P 500 were up 2.7 points at 1,366.70. Nasdaq 100 futures were up 8.25 points at 2,712.50....

BP PLC said late Friday it has reached a $7.8 billion settlement with a “substantial majority” of the thousands of plaintiffs who sued in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP said the settlement will be paid from a $20 billion trust fund set up after largest maritime oil spill in U.S. waters. “The proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the Deepwater Horizon accident,” BP Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley said in a company statement U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New...

U.S. stock futures shaved Thursday losses after a round of U.S. economic reports, including a drop in jobless claims last week to a near four-year low. “The labor market continues to improve as the pace of firings recede again,” Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, wrote in an email. “If this trend continues, one would have to believe, given previous relationships, that the monthly employment report will begin printing 200,000 plus job additions on a regular basis,” noted Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG LLC. Stock-index futures had pointed to a...