Business news in brief

A former bank manager from Philadelphia was charged Tuesday with embezzling more than $2.3 million from a credit union that he used to try to buy 15 kilograms of cocaine and real estate, federal authorities said. Ignacio "Nacho" Morales, 40, was manager of the Borinquen Federal Credit Union, which served low-income Hispanics in North Philadelphia. In June 2011, the National Credit Union Association took over BFCU, but within two weeks, closed the credit union and liquidated its assets. The sudden shuttering of the financial institution puzzled and upset community leaders who, at the time, were not told what had happened. The court documents explained why. According to U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger, Morales stole $600,000 in 2008 to buy real estate and stole $560,000 in 2009 in an attempt to buy 33 pounds of cocaine. Morales is charged with conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims, misapplication and embezzlement, making false reports on federal credit institution entries, engaging in monetary transaction in property derived from specified unlawful activity, filing false federal income tax returns, and attempted possession with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine. - Sam Wood

Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac posted net income of $1.2 billion for the second quarter and isn't requesting additional federal aid for the period. The government rescued Freddie and larger sibling Fannie Mae in September 2008 after massive losses on risky mortgages threatened to topple them. Taxpayers have spent about $170 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, the costliest bailout of the 2008 financial crisis. Freddie Mac said its net income attributable to common shareholders amounted to 37 cents per share in the April-June period. That compares with a loss of $3.76 billion, or $1.16 per share, in the same period a year ago. It was Freddie's first profitable quarter since the first quarter of 2011. - AP

Knight Capital Inc., the trading firm that fought for its survival over the weekend, is getting back its trading responsibilities. The New York Stock Exchange said it would restore Knight to its job as a "designated market maker" on Monday. A market maker ensures there is orderly trading of the stocks it's in charge of. That means it must be ready to buy and sell those stocks at any time. Knight is in charge of 524 stocks listed on the NYSE, out of about 2,300 corporate issuers. The NYSE temporarily suspended Knight from that role Monday as Knight got a $400 million financial lifeline to avoid collapse. Knight is recovering after a foul-up in its systems flooded the market with erroneous orders last Wednesday. - AP

CVS Caremark Corp.'s second-quarter net income jumped 18.4 percent, as its drugstores took business from rival Walgreen Co. and an expansion of its pharmacy benefits management segment pushed revenue higher. The company's earnings topped Wall Street expectations, and it raised and narrowed its 2012 forecast. CVS Caremark said a recently settled split between rival drugstore chain Walgreen and Express Scripts Holding Co. sent more customers to CVS drugstores, and it aims to keep many of them. In the second quarter, CVS Caremark earned $966 million, or 75 cents per share. That's up from $816 million, or 60 cents per share, a year ago. Its adjusted earnings came to 81 cents a share. Analysts expected, on average, 79 cents per share, according to FactSet. Revenue grew 16 percent to $30.71 billion, which fell short of the analyst forecast for revenue of $31.02 billion. - AP

U.S. employers posted the most job openings in four years in June, a sign that hiring may pick up. The Labor Department said job openings rose to a seasonally adjusted 3.8 million in June, up from 3.7 million in May. That's the most since July 2008. Layoffs fell. The data follow Friday's report that said employers in July added the most jobs in five months. A rise in openings could signal better hiring in the coming months. It typically takes one to three months to fill a job. Even with the increase, there were 12.7 million unemployed people in June, or an average of 3.4 unemployed people for each job. In a healthy job market, the ratio is usually around 2 to 1. - AP

U.S. homeowners are getting better about keeping up with their mortgage payments, driving the percentage of borrowers who have fallen behind to a three-year low, according to a new report. Still, the rate of decline remains slow, credit reporting agency TransUnion said. The percentage of mortgages going unpaid is unlikely to return soon to where it was before the housing market crashed. About 5.49 percent of the nation's mortgage holders were behind on their payments by 60 days or more in the April-to-June period, the agency said. That's the lowest level since the first quarter of 2009. - AP

Americans cut back on credit-card use in June, further evidence that high unemployment and slow growth have made consumers more cautious about spending. Overall consumer borrowing rose because of increases in auto and student loans. The Federal Reserve said total borrowing increased 3 percent to $2.58 trillion in June from May. That's just below the all-time high reached in July 2008. Credit-card debt fell 5 percent to $864.6 billion. A category of borrowing that includes auto and student loans increased 7 percent to $1.71 trillion. - AP

Italy's recession deepened in the April-June period, when the economy shrank for the fourth quarter in a row, official government statistics showed. The economy contracted by 0.7 percent in the second quarter compared with the previous three months, more than the 0.6 percent drop expected by economists surveyed by FactSet, a financial data provider. The ISTAT statistics agency said activity fell in all sectors - industry, services and agriculture. - AP

More than 20,000 AT&T Inc. workers in California, Nevada and Connecticut started two-day strikes Tuesday to protest what the union called harassment by the company. The phone company is negotiating new contracts with the Communications Workers of America. AT&T is restricting standard bargaining-support activities such as wearing union stickers and buttons, said Libby Sayre, president of the CWA district covering California and Nevada. AT&T spokesman Marty Richter said the company has been "negotiating in good faith." The workers are on the landline side of the company. At issue in the negotiations are job protection clauses and health-care premiums and co-payments. - AP