[naviga:h3]Casinos cool to 24 hour liquor sales[/naviga:h3]

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers recently passed legislation giving the state’s 12 casinos the ability to sell liquor between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., but casinos say they aren’t biting.

That’s partly because the cash-strapped state wants $1 million per license.

Sands Casino CEO Mark Juliano said that the Bethlehem casino won’t pay the $1 million, and he doesn’t know of any casino that will. Juliano says it’s also not worth hiring the staff to serve the sparse late-night crowds and Sands doesn’t want to be the go-to drinking hole after every other place closes.

Eric Schippers of Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course said it has no need to serve liquor around the clock and it probably wouldn’t take a license if it were free.

[naviga:h3]DuPont tops 2Q forecasts[/naviga:h3]

WILMINGTON, Del. — DuPont today reported second-quarter earnings of $1.02 billion.

On a per-share basis, the company said it had net income of $1.16. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and to account for discontinued operations, came to $1.24 per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.10 per share.

The chemical company posted revenue of $7.06 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $7.05 billion. DuPont shares have increased slightly more than 3 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed 6 percent.

[naviga:h3]Bud maker hikes its bid for Miller[/naviga:h3]

LONDON — Anheuser-Busch InBev has increased its cash offer for SABMiller to 45 pounds ($58.98) per share after pressure from investors who had seen the value of the bid drop as the pound declined following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

The maker of Budweiser increased the offer Tuesday by one pound a share, valuing the total transaction at 79 billion pounds.

Since the deal was first announced in the fall, AB-InBev has been working to satisfy regulatory concerns about a merger that will combine the world’s two largest brewing companies.

[naviga:h3]BP’s earnings take 45% drop[/naviga:h3]

LONDON — BP’s second-quarter earnings fell 45 percent as lower oil prices hit the British energy company.

Underlying replacement cost profit, which excludes one-time items and fluctuations in the value of inventories, fell to $720 million from $1.3 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, the company said. BP’s net loss narrowed to $1.4 billion from $5.8 billion.

BP took a pre-tax charge of $5.2 billion in the quarter for costs related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The company sought to draw a line under the incident earlier this month, saying it estimated the final pre-tax cost of the spill at $61.6 billion. The statement marked an important milestone for BP as it tries to persuade investors that the years of retrenchment have ended.