Wednesday Evening Business Brief

Stocks slipped again today, after yesterday's big sell-off. The Dow dropped 25 points to 13,077. The S&P 500 was down 4 points to 1,409. The Nasdaq composite declined nearly 9 points to 2,982.

• A former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble board member has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for feeding inside information about board dealings with a billionaire hedge fund owner and friend. Rajat Gupta was sentenced by a federal judge who also ordered him to pay a $5 million fine.
• Wrapping up a two-day policy-setting session, the Federal Reserve says more help is needed to boost growth and reduce unemployment. The central bank, headed by Chairman Ben Bernanke, took no new action, wanting more time to monitor the effects of aggressive steps launch in September aimed at nudging growth.
• The Commerce Department says sales of new homes rose last month to the highest level in more than two years. New home sales gained 5.7 percent, up 27 percent in the past year.
• The world's longest commercial flight - Singapore to Newark, N.J. - is being cancelled. Singapore Airlines has announced it will end its nonstop flight between Singapore and Newark, a distance of about 9,500 miles. A slightly shorter route between Singapore and Los Angeles will also end. The two routes were flown on gas-guzzling Airbus A340-500s. Both flights take about 18 hours or more.