*By Mike Teich*
Amazon shares jumped nearly 4 percent Friday after the e-commerce juggernaut delivered blockbuster earnings results on Thursday.
The tech giant impressed investors by delivering operating profit of $1.9 billion. Amazon's blockbuster numbers reflected its success in retail sales and growth in its cloud services business, said Michael Pachter, an analyst from Wedbush Securities.
Amazon also announced that it would be raising its Prime membership fee by $20, up to $119 a year. Pachter said the "odds are less than 1 percent that there is a decline in membership" as a result of the price hike.
Pachter compared Amazon Prime's cost to Netflix, noting that Prime was priced below Amazon's video-streaming rival and offers content that is "75 percent as good."
Even as the number of instances of child labor labor violations surged in recent years, lawmakers in some states have worked to ease the use of minors in often dangerous working conditions.
MTV, a division of Paramount, is planning to shut down its news division and lay off 25 percent of its workforce. The company cited "broader economic headwinds" as the reason for the shuttering. The decision comes as Paramount makes cuts to better compete with rival entertainment giants.
Consumer prices in the United States rose again in April, and measures of underlying inflation stayed high, suggesting that rising costs could persist for months to come.
Goldman Sachs will pay $215 million to settle a years-long class action lawsuit that claimed the bank discriminated against women when it came to pay, performance evaluations and promotions.
