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The office supply chain store Staples Incorporated has reported decline in 2014 fourth quarter earnings. The eighth straight decline showed that Staples should seal its deal to buy Office Depot Inc., office supply retailing company headquartered in Boca Raton. After the company’s earnings report, shares of Framingham-headquartered company dropped by 2.27% to about $16.1 in afternoon trading on Friday.

According to the company, sales for the fourth quarter of 2014 dropped by about 4% to $5.7 billion compared to fourth quarter earnings of 2013. The company said that poor demand for computers and strong dollar could be blamed for the drop in sales.

The Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-based company Triple Five Group has planned to build the largest shopping mall in the US which will be named as the 'American Dream Miami'.

The mall will be roughly double the near 100-acre Mall of America in Minnesota, which is North America's largest mall owned by the company. It will be built on 200-acre grazing land in northwestern Miami-Dade county. The mall is expected to cost as much as $4 billion and employ nearly 25,000 workers.

The Canadian mall owner and operator also owns 'West Edmonton Mall' in Canada and the American Dream Meadowlands mall. It will open at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey by fall of 2016.

Lockheed Martin has successfully tested a new laser weapon system ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset) that can disable the engine of a small truck from more than a mile away in a matter of seconds.

Usually, a laser pointer has a beam of around 1 milliwatt, but ATHENA creates a beam of 30 kilowatts, which is 30 million times more.

While describing the weapon system, Lockheed Martin said that it is the "highest power ever documented by a laser weapon of its type" and is economical too.

Recently, web magazine Engadget reported that the cost of firing one surface-to-air missile is about $400,000. The experimental laser costs about 59 cents per shot.

During testing, the truck was not actually running but was up on the props for the test with the engine running and in drive.

’s Tesla Motors has listed 78 job openings in its new stationary-storage unit. The new unit of the company will make battery packs and will also help the company to expand his range beyond the electric vehicles for providing energy to homes, businesses and utilities.

The job openings can be seen on the company’s website. These openings are for the storage team, including several engineers, chief counsel, a regulatory and policy advocate and an installation project manager.

After having a close look at Tesla’s filings and presentations, it is clear that the growth trajectory has been quite progressive and bright in the segment.

It is comparatively easier and quick to make batteries for the stationary storage devices rather than making cars, as they are more long-term investment.

Current unemployment rate in the US is 5.5% and is low enough to be considered as an indication of a healthy job market. The percentage is considered to be a seven-year low.

Though the multi-year low unemployment should be rejoiced, as per experts it’s not as encouraging as it might sound. In February, US employers employed 295,000 people. Economists suggest that the percentage decreased majorly because people stopped searching for job.

Therefore, they were no more officially counted as unemployed. It shall however, be noted that wage gains remained sluggish. This is the reasons that job market seems to be improving, but it is not as it seems to be sounding.

iPhone and Mac giant Apple will be shortly added to the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average index on March 19. The move will mean exit of AT&T from the index. In order to balance the impact of technology sector on the index, the Cupertino, California-based technology major Apple will be added.

The 119-year old stock market barometer has been holding AT&T for almost 100 years. AT&T has been kicked out of the index a few times in the past as well. AT&T has not commented on the move announced by the index manager S&P.

Dow Jones is currently hovering around its all time high and the current move to change AT&T by Apple won’t have a big impact on the index. Apple stock ended marginally higher at $126.6 on Friday.