Slowing growth in main export destinations such as the United States and China clouds the outlook, while policymakers are trying hard to talk down the yen after it surged to a 15-year high against the dollar last week.

Japan’s quarterly gross domestic product growth of 0.1 percent translates to annualized expansion of 0.4 percent, well below the median market forecast of 2.3 percent and the United States’ 2.4 percent annualized growth in the same quarter.

In Longnan, in poor and remote Gansu province, 20 died and more than 10,000 were trapped following torrential rains and landslides, state television said. Another four died in Gansu’s Tianshui city and dozens are missing province-wide.

More than 1,000 people died in the nearby town of Zhouqu when an avalanche of mud roared down the slopes of a mountain last weekend after unusually strong downpours.

GM reported second-quarter net earnings of $1.3 billion, compared with $865 million in the first quarter.

The second-quarter profit was the largest since 2004, when the U.S. auto market was still booming with annual sales of near 17 million vehicles and GM’s brands accounted for more than one in four purchases of new cars and trucks.

In Connecticut, wealthy former wrestling executive Linda McMahon easily won the Republican Senate nomination over a former congressman in the latest in a string of Republican primary victories by anti-establishment outsiders.

The Colorado and Connecticut Senate races were the highlight of primary voting in four U.S. states. Voters in Georgia and Minnesota also chose candidates to square off in November’s midterm elections.

Data since the U.S. central bank’s last policy-setting meeting in late June has been decidedly weak. Consumer spending is petering out and manufacturing, which had led the recovery, is losing steam. The unemployment rate is stuck at 9.5 percent, with firms showing a distinct reluctance to hire.

With U.S. interest rates already effectively at zero, the central bank is out of easy policy options. Top Fed officials argue, however, they can do more to fight renewed economic weakness, including reinvesting proceeds from maturing mortgage bonds back into that market.

The founders of Hewlett-Packard — some say Silicon Valley itself — built their empire on a people-centric management model they christened “The HP Way.” But author and veteran tech journalist Michael S. Malone says that mantra has come under siege in past years, culminating in the exit on Friday of CEO Mark Hurd following a sexual harassment inquiry.

Stanford alumni Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the 1950s outlined the tenets of a corporation that embraced performance bonuses, employee shares, ground-level decision-making, even tuition aid and allowing workers to leave early to get to Little League games. Business 101 today, novel at the time.