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What’sNews

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World-WidenAn Afghan soldier killed atwo-star U.S. Army generalwhen he fired on a group ofWestern military officers,claiming the highest-rankingU.S. casualty of the war. A1, A8nA cease-fire in Gaza broughtthe first lasting calm to the re-gion in amonth, as Israel andHamas set security demandsahead of peace talks. A6nPutin ordered retaliatorymeasures against U.S. and EUsanctions, as Russia stepped uppressure on Ukraine. A8nA record 76% of U.S. adultslack confidence that their chil-dren’s generation will have abetter life than they do. A4nThe U.S. has held talks withIraqi Sunni Muslim leaderswho requested help organizinga force to counter jihadists. A6n Liberian officials questionedhow two Americans receivedan experimental Ebola drugunavailable to Africans. A3n Surveillance flights overNigeria have detected groups ofgirls hoped to be among thoseabducted by Boko Haram. A7nKansas Sen. Pat Robertswon the state’s Republican pri-mary, defeating a challengerbacked by tea-party groups.A4n The death toll from a week-end quake in southwest Chinareached 589, as hope faded forfinding more survivors. A7n The Florida man at thecenter of baseball’s drug scan-dal was charged with conspir-ing to distribute steroids. A3n China detained two long-time Canadian expatriateson suspicion of spying.A7

i i i

Sprint is ending its pur-suit of T-Mobile in the

face of opposition from regu-lators and is replacing CEODanHesse with Marcelo Claure. A1n Fox dropped its takeoverbid for Time Warner, citingthe target’s unwillingness to“engage with us” and a sharpdrop in Fox’s share price. A1nWalgreen said it won’t usean “inversion” in its Alliancedeal. The Treasury is seekingways to deter the tax tactic. B1nU.S. regulators told 11 banksto rewrite “living wills,” sayingthey haven’t shown they can failwithout causingmajor harm. C1nGannett is splitting its TVand publishing businesses,joining a growing band ofmedia firms doing so. B1nThe Dow dropped 139.81points to 16429.47, hurt bygeopolitical concerns. C1n BATS is in talkswith regu-lators to settle allegations theexchange gave unfair advan-tages to high-speed traders. C1n Standard Chartered is insettlement talks with New Yorkover alleged control lapses. C3n A judge approved a fraudsettlement between the SECand Citigroup after being over-ruled by an appeals court. C2nU.S. retailers are facing asteep and persistent drop intraffic at their stores. B1nAuto-racingmagnate Eccle-stone settled German briberycharges for $100million. B3n Disney posted a stellarquarter but saw skyrocketingsports-rights costs at ESPN. B4

Business&Finance

21st Century Fox abruptlyabandoned its takeover bid forTime Warner Inc., citing bothTime Warner’s unwillingness to“engage with us” and a sharpdrop in Fox’s stock price whichmade a deal “unattractive to Foxshareholders.”

Fox’s stock had fallen about11% since news broke last monththat it had made a takeover offerfor Time Warner valued at $85 ashare, or about $80 billion, in amix of cash and stock. Time War-ner rejected the offer, but Foxhad signaled it was prepared tocontinue fighting, including pos-sibly raising the offer to between$90 and $95 a share, or as muchas $89 billion.

But even a price of that range

wasn’t likely to be enough forTime Warner, which made clearin a statement last month that itbelieved its own plans for growthwould deliver more value forshareholders than any proposalFox was in a position to make.

People close to Time Warnerindicated that if it were going tosell, it would want a cash offer ofwell over $100 a share, a pricethat would stretch Fox’s balancesheet.

Time Warner, in a news re-lease Tuesday, acknowledgedFox’s withdrawn offer and said itwas “well positioned for successwith our iconic assets.”

Adding to the challenge facingFox was that the drop in its stockprice had reduced the value of itsoffer. At Tuesday’s closing price,before Fox announced its deci-

Pleaseturntothenextpage

BY MARTIN PEERSAND KEACH HAGEY

Fox Drops Its BidTo Buy TimeWarner

KABUL—An Afghan soldierkilled a two-star U.S. Army gen-eral when he opened fire on agroup of Western military offic-ers Tuesday, officials said, claim-ing the highest-ranking Ameri-can casualty in more than adecade of war and resurrectingconcerns about the U.S. exitstrategy from Afghanistan.

The attacker, armed with a ma-chine gun and wearing an Afghanarmy uniform, surprised the visit-ing group of Western military offi-cials and fired dozens of roundsbefore being killed on the groundsof the Afghan army officers’school, U.S. officials said.

The attack took the life of Maj.Gen. Harold J. Greene, 52 yearsold, an Army officer who had re-cently returned to Afghanistan toserve as deputy commander of thecoalition transition force responsi-ble for training and equipping Af-ghan troops, making him the high-est-ranking military officer killedsince the Sept. 11, 2001, terroristattacks, U.S. officials said.

The shooter wounded at least17 other people, including a Ger-

man brigadier general and Gen.Ghulam Sakhi, the Afghan officerrunning the university, military of-ficials said. The German militarysaid the brigadier general’swounds weren’t life threatening.

Tuesday’s attack reignitedconcerns about the dangersposed by members of the Afghansecurity forces, but Pentagon of-ficials said Gen. Greene’s deathwouldn’t change American plansto withdraw most forces fromAfghanistan by year’s end.

“I don’t see any impact to thecurrent plans to draw down ourforces in Afghanistan,” said RearAdm. John Kirby, the Pentagon

press secretary, who hailed the Af-ghan military for taking over thejob of battling Taliban insurgents.“This is a security force thatwe be-lieve grows stronger by theweek.”

The U.S. military is in the pro-cess of winding down operationsin Afghanistan by year’s end andis planning to leave about 10,000American troops to help shoreup Afghan forces and carry outlimited operations to combat alQaeda threats in the region.

That assumes that the next Af-ghan president will sign a securityagreement solidifying the plan.The rival candidates vying to suc-

PleaseturntopageA8

By Nathan Hodge,Dion Nissenbaum

and Margherita Stancati

U.S.GeneralKilled inAfghanAttack

When the founders of TPG came to Oregon ear-lier this year hunting for investment money, itdidn’t take long for the private-equity firm’s uglypast to resurface.

A member of the Oregon Investment Council,which makes decisions for the state’s public pen-sion fund, asked how TPG planned to avoid the“creep” or “siren’s song” of megadeals like Texasutility TXU Corp. and Seattle thrift WashingtonMutual.

Those two deals, done by TPG several yearsback, blew up on the firm, costing Oregon andother investors more than $2.8 billion. This week,

litigation broke out over a third megadeal that hassoured—the 2008 takeover of the casino companynow known as Caesars Entertainment Corp. byTPG and Apollo Global Management LLC.

“I can assure you, based on the gray hair I havehere, that I have no desire to go back to” the fren-zied deal making that preceded the financial crisis,Jim Coulter, one of TPG’s founders, responded tothe Oregon questioner.

TPG is at a critical stage in a yearslong effort topersuade investors that a rough patch of disas-

PleaseturntopageA10

BY MIKE SPECTOR

NEW PITCH

After Slip-Ups, Buyout Firm TPGPlots Its Comeback

After making a mint in thereal-estate business, Jason Buzidecided it was time to share thewealth by creating @Hidden-Cash, the Twitter handle thatannounces the cash giveawaysthat have recently drawn thou-sands of treasure hunters fromCalifornia to Spain.

“It’s been tremendously re-warding in a way you can’t mea-sure financially,” says Mr. Buzi,who estimates he’s given awayroughly $60,000 so far in allot-ments of about $2,000 at a time.

He hides some of thecash himself—tweet-ing hints about the lo-cation of the dough afew hours later.

But like many asummer fad, this onemay also be short-lived.

Some @Hidden-Cash hunters havegone to extreme lengths to un-cover the concealed bills, rootingthrough bins full of garbage,scrambling atop bus shelters, us-ing rakes and shovels to digthrough dirt and sand.

The unintended re-sult: a few of theevents have turnedinto stampedes, withzealous fortune-seek-ers sometimes leavingbehind trails of trashand big bills for prop-erty damage.

In other instances,plans have gone awry;

and in one case Mr. Buzi foundthat his generosity was not onlyfrowned upon, but consideredunlawful.

This past Sunday, in New YorkPleaseturntopageA10

BY SHEILA V KUMAR

For Treasure Hunters, Free Money Is Such a Tweeti i i

But for Twitter Giver, Some Good Deeds Go Punished; Snarling Traffic

Americans’ Anxiety DeepensDirection of the country

100

0

25

50

75

%

20092008 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Headed in theright direction

22%

On the wrong track

71%

Source: WSJ/NBC News polls, most recent of 1,000 adultsconducted July 30–Aug. 3; margin of error: +/–3.1 pct. pts. The Wall Street Journal

NO CONFIDENCE: Americans registered high levels of concern aboutopportunities for the younger generation, in a Wall Street Journal/NBCNews poll. Many said the country is on the wrong track. A4

Caesars in court fight with creditors over plans torework its debt load.............................................................. B3

Army Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greenewas killed in an attack Tuesday.

U.S.A

rmy/Re

uters

Relief in Gaza as Israel, Hamas Prepare for Talks

TENTATIVE BREAK: Palestinians crowd into an ice-cream shop in Gaza City Tuesday. Many poured into thestreets as a 72-hour truce appeared to hold, bringing the first extended calm to the region in months. A6

Finb

arrO’Reilly/R

euters

After months of arguing thatit couldn’t compete effectivelywithout a merger partner,Sprint Corp. is preparing to goit alone.

The company decided Tues-day to end its pursuit of T-Mo-bile US Inc. in the face of stiffopposition from regulators andreplace Chief Executive DanHesse with Marcelo Claure, a bil-lionaire entrepreneur who is un-tested as a wireless operator.

The decisions, made at a Sprintboard meeting Tuesday, put anend to a deal that would have val-ued T-Mobile at $32 billion andcreated a more muscular rival tomarket leaders Verizon Commu-nications Inc. and AT&T Inc. In-stead, Sprint will have to try tobulk up the hard way—by launch-ing a fierce fight to rebuild itssubscriber rolls after sheddingcustomers for years.

An extensive network over-

haul has hurt service quality andmade it difficult for the coun-try’s third largest wireless car-rier to recruit customers aggres-sively. But much of that work isnow done, and Sprint said lastweek it is testing new priceplans in preparation for a strongpush later this year.

Whether it can succeed is anopen question. The company haslost money every year back to2007, the fallout of a disastrousmerger with Nextel that left itsaddled with disparate networktechnologies and poor customerservice. The company was takenover more than a year ago bySoftBank Corp., but the Japa-nese company’s chief executive,Masayoshi Son, has struggled tochange Sprint’s culture. Mr.Hesse declined to comment.

Meanwhile, it will face an in-vigorated competitor in T-Mo-bile. Sprint’s erstwhile mergerpartner has added more than 4million of the industry’s lucra-

Pleaseturntothenextpage

BY RYAN KNUTSONAND DANA MATTIOLI

Sprint AbandonsT-Mobile Pursuit,Ousts CEO Hesse

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