It seems that Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) have finally reached a settlement on a dispute that lasted for almost two months. During the time of this dispute, the online retail giant did not offer DVDs from Disney for preorder. The issues in question included promotion on the Amazon.com website, pricing, and who is responsible for the difference in price when Amazon loses money to match the prices of its retail rivals.

Details of the discussions were not available and it cannot be determined whether the two firms are signed a new deal for the long term, or if the talks have simply gotten to a point where Amazon was willing to concede a little bit. But it was confirmed that upcoming DVD releases by Disney, such as “Million Dollar Arm,” “Planes: Fire and Rescue,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The 100-Foot Journey,” and “Maleficent” were back on the Amazon site last week.

The feud between Amazon and Disney started in early August. In the spring Amazon and TimeWarner Inc (NASDAQ:TWX) become embroiled in a similar dispute, and continued for several weeks. While the deal with Amazon and Time Warner had made significant progress, but the two companies still have not finished figuring out the details.

Amazon is still in the process of negotiating a contract with Hachette Book Group, a publishing unit of Lagardere SCA. The talks are in regards to the pricing terms of e-books. Amazon has reduced the delivery of many titles from Hachette for the past six months, taken away discounts, and slowed down preordering as a method to get the publisher to agree to its terms of the deal. The online retailer was the publishing company to price the majority of its e-books at $9.99, a price that Amazon says will yield the most sales. Hachette maintains that it should be able to price its titles as it sees fit.

The outcome of Amazon’s discussions with Hachette will likely set the tone for its negotiations with the other major publishing companies. This is one of the main reasons that Michael Pietsch, the chief executive officer of Hachette, has maintained his stance against Amazon’s persuasion efforts, even though authors of Hachette have complained that the disagreements has significantly impeded sales.

Complicated renewals of contracts with suppliers is an area of expertise for the online retail company. However, its discussions in the past year have been more in the public eye than usual. In its past disputes, Amazon took engaged in fewer measures of negotiation, like stopping preorders and manipulating search results to put certain products at a disadvantage.

According to Dr. Tom Frieden, a hospital at the hospital, the patient departed Liberia on September 19^th, and arrived back in the United States on the 20^th of September. This patient is the first to be diagnosed with this specific strain of the disease outside of Africa.

Mr. Frieden said to reporters at a press conference that the patient did not display any symptoms when leaving Liberia or entering the United States. But on the 24^th of September, four or five days later, he starting developing and showing signs of the symptoms.

The patient was in the United States visiting family in Texas. He initially sought care on the 26^th of September, but was directed to go home and was not admitted to the hospital until two days after. He was put in isolation at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. Currently, the patient is still critically ill.

Mr. Frieden said that the next steps are essentially threefold. First, the patient must be cared for by providing the most effective care possible and as safely as possible to keep the chances or likelihood of infecting anyone else to an absolute minimum. Second, the care must maximize the possibility that the patient can recover.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention as well as health officials in Texas are currently working to discover and monitor anyone who may have come in contact with the patient.

According to health officials, only someone who is sick with the Ebola disease can spread the illness. Once those people who have come in contact with the patient have been identified, they will be monitored for twenty one days after exposure to see if they develop a fever or any other symptoms.

Mr. Frieden also stated that it even though it is possible for someone who had come into contact with the patient to develop Ebola in the coming weeks, it is likely that the infection will be contained. At this point, there is supposedly zero chance that the disease was transmitted to anyone on the flight with the patient because did not display any of the symptoms when he was traveling.

Officials are unsure of how the patient become infected, but they are sure that he had come into close contact with an individual who was sick with Ebola or who had died from it.

The patient is currently staying at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he is receiving treatment. Dr. Edward Goodman, the epidemiologist at the hostpital, and a team of medical staff have had a treatment plan in place in the event that someone brought the Ebola disease to the United States. Mr. Goodman noted that the team had a meeting to prepare for such a crisis just one week prior to the patient’s arrival at the hospital.

Officials at the facility are evaluating the different options for treatment right now, such as experimental therapies, which have shown to be successful in other patients.

Both the Texas Department of State Health Services and the CDC have performed lab tests that are supposed to be extremely accurate in detecting traces of the Ebola virus.

Dr. David Lakey, a commissioner for the Texas Department of State Health Services, the organization’s lab has a specially trained team to deal with any high risk patients, such as the one that was just admitted. The department does not have any other suspected cases of Ebola cases in Texas at this time.

The director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, Zachary Thompson, emphasized to residents that the agency was doing all that they could do to protect the safety of the community and that they will be working in close proximity with the local health officials and the CDC to examine and track all potential contacts of the patient.

In a statement released by the hospital on Monday, an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been put in strict isolation given the patient’s recent travel history and medical symptoms. The facility stated that it was making the effort to keep its staff, doctors, and patients safe.

The next day, the hospital disclosed that the symptoms that the patient pointed to Ebola, a virus that has already killed over 3,000 people in West Africa and have infected several Americans who have traveled to that area.

According to the CDC, twelve other people in the United States have been tested for Ebola since July 27^th. These people tested negative for the virus.

Four aid workers from the United States have become infected while doing volunteer work in West Africa. These individuals have been treated in special isolations units in hospitals Georgia and Nebraska. A doctor from the United States who was exposed to the virus is undergoing observation in a facility at the National Institutes of Health.

Even though there are only four isolation units in the United States, the CDC insists that any hospital can safely treat someone infected with Ebola.

Ebola symptoms can include vomiting, muscle pain, fever, and bleeding. These symptoms can show up as late as 21 days after the initial exposure to the disease.

According to Jason McDonald, a spokesperson for the CDC, health officials use two primary methods to decide whether or not an individual should be tested for the virus.

The first step is to determine if they have traveled to the West African region. The second determinant is whether the individual has been in close proximity to other individuals who have been exposed.

Health officials in the United States have been preparing for the arrival of an infected traveler since the summer. Hospitals have been trained in the steps to control the infection and to prevent the disease from spreading in health facilities. Individuals boarding plans in the outbreak regions are checked for symptoms and fever, but symptoms can begin as late as twenty one days after exposure. The virus is not contagious until symptoms begin to show up, and must be in close contact with infected bodily fluids.

Mr. Frieden stated that there may be several potential contacts of the patient who need to be monitored. However, he compared that with the 900 contacts that were monitored in July when an infected patient transmitted the virus to Lago. This reinforced his confidence in the ability of health officials to contain the disease.

The Army caused controversy from rivals of the European company in June when it announced that it plans to retire two types of training helicopters and replace them with 155 units of the new EC-145 helicopters, manufactured by Airbus. This deal would have expanded on a similar deal signed in 2006.

A Finmeccanica, a rival manufacturer of helicopters based in Italy, took the bold step earlier this month of filing a lawsuit against the United States government to stop the continuation of the Airbus contract. The Italian company claimed that the United States government broke its own rules stipulating open contract to encourage competition.

AgustaWestland North America Inc is the business unit of Finmeccanica that operated in the North American region. The branch requested that a United States judge issue a temporary restraining order that would bar the Army from awarding the contract to Airbus without holding a competition. The complaint was filed on September 19^th with the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington.

The United States Army stated that it does not expect to decide whether the porposed deal will be open to competition or not until January. The discussion regarded the contract could take an additional two months to begin.

Airbus refused to issue a comment.

The United States judge has not yet issued a ruling on the restraining order, but the official from the Army in charge of the proposed contract stated that the entity has not yet approved any awards to Airbus without a competition.

Officials from the United States government have agreed that the overall level of competition awards has decreased. Frank Kendall, the chief of acquisitions of the Defense Department, issued a new guidance last month that intended to promote competition. The statement contained guidelines for proposed deals without a contest.

The Army’s helicopter contracting officer, Paula Parker, said that the justification for giving the contract to Airbus was revised following the note from Mr. Kendall on the government’s increased efforts to boost competition.

The Army has increased the length of time for the comment period on its justification for giving the contract to Airbus until October 4^th. The government entity must issue a new comment if it decides to go ahead with a deal that did not involve a competition.

The Army plans to retire its fleet of OH-58 Kiowa and Bell TH-67 training helicopters, both of which were manufactured by Bell Helicopters of Textron Inc (NYSE:TXT). The Army plans to place them by transferring existing Lakota helicopters from other uses as well as new units to be produced by Airbus. Airbus will manufacture these units at a facility in Columbus, Missouri, and also makes these units for export customers, such as Thailand.

Currently, the Army uses the Lakota for noncombat missions, like reconnaissance or transport mission. The Lakota is a type of the EC-145 helicopter that is usually used to transfer supplies and workers to offshore gas and oil platforms.

Both Bell and AgustaWestland have stated that the EC-145, which features twin engines, will cost more to operate and purchase than the helicopters they make.

On the other hand, the Army has stated that it is cheaper overall to get rid of whole fleet types. It will cut costs by using the same type of helicopter for both operations and training.

The Justice Department is currently reviewing the complaint filed by Finmeccanica, but did not issue any other comment.

Mr. Fields has only held the position of chief executive officer of the company for three months. Yesterday, he said to investors that the second largest auto maker in the United States predicts that its sales will report pretax profits of about $6 billion this year, which is about $1.5 billion less than its estimates in July.

The main factors for this downgrade for estimates of profits are the warranty and recall costs, the loss in the South American market, and a decline in sales in Russia. The company lost about $1 billion in costs for warranty and recalls. In the South American market, the company saw a loss that is $900 million more than its forecast for the year. In Russia, sales have declined by $300 million. The company saw that its unit volumes and pricing were better than usual, which helped buffer some of the short comings.

At the market close on Monday yesterday, the car maker’s stock price closed at $15.11 after falling 7.5 percent. This is the lowest price close that the company has experienced since March, and the stock continued to drop in after hours trading.

According to Brain Johnson, an analyst for Barclays, the biggest shock was the drop in margin forecast for Ford’s North American market. Even though the car manufacturer previously predicted high numbers for the 2015 model of the F-150 pickup trucks, Ford’s estimations for the rest of the year suggest that the operating margins for North America are between the range of 8 and 9 percent, which is lower by 11 percent from last quarter.

Ford now expects its markets in Europe to lose $1.2 billion in pretax revenue in 2014, and predicts that the loss will continue into 2015, but at a lower rate. Ford does not expect its car demand in Europe to bounce back to the sales levels before the recession anymore, even by 2020.

According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the company is also facing challenges regarding quality issues of its vehicles, and has recalled more than 3.9 million vehicles in the United States so far this year.

Mr. Fields took over the position of chief executive officer from former head Alan Mulally in July of this year. According to Mr. Fields, the company’s lackluster outlook for the short term will not bring down his early days in the company. He says that that company is expecting coming gains in sales, and that the company is looking at reality and handling it in a proactive way.

The forecast was not entirely negative. The auto manufacturer set new goals yesterday for the end of the decade across all of its business operations, such as nearly a 50 percent growth in global deliveries, and margins that hit the double digits for its luxury brand, Lincoln. According to Ford, it plans to deliver 9.4 million vehicles by 2020, up from estimates of 6.2 million.

The chief financial officer Bob Shanks said that the Lincoln brand is going to be run on a long term business strategy, and is not expected to produce profits until later in the decade.

The company also said that it would invest $2.5 billion in the brand and add two additional vehicles by the end of the ten years. Lincoln’s expansion is set mainly on Asia, where Ford said it may invest in additional manufacturing facilities.

Ford will start to sell Lincoln vehicles in China starting in October. The MKC, a new small crossover is already performing well in the United States. The company has already put in $5 billion in building factories in China over the course of the last few years.

In North America, the company is predicting sales to grow to 3.4 million by 500,000 vehicles by the end of the decade.

The company also said to investors that its profit margins would be lower than it had previously predicted, due to the increased costs to meet fuel economy standards across the world. The auto maker suggested that the expenses that come with incorporating hybrid systems or reducing the weight of the vehicles could not be completely covered by higher pricing, mostly due to the fact that fuel prices are still too low.

According to Raj Nair, the head of product development of Ford, the market demand for fuel economy does not match up with the regulatory demand for fuel economy. Ford also disclosed that it would product its next generation of Super Duty vehicles from aluminum, like the light duty F-150 pickup trucks that will hit the market later this year.

It was not initially clear what had happened between when the talks were first starting to get under way and today. It is still possible that negotiations would start up again. The two companies could also end up striking a deal besides an outright buyout, such as a content partnership.

The shares of DreamWorks jumped up on the news of the initial report, going up by 26 percent yesterday. This valued the market capitalization of the company at more than $2 billion. However, right after the news of the talks slowing down hit the public, the company’s shares dropped by more than 8 percent from the closing price of Monday. The discussions between Softbank and DreamWorks followed two months after the Japanese based company gave up on a bid for T-Mobile (NYSE:TMUS).

DreamWorks is led by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a former Hollywood executive. Under his leadership DreamWorks has produced animation hits such as “Shrek” and “Madagascar”. However, the studio’s most recent productions, namely “Turbo” and “Rise of the Guardians” showed disappointing performances at the box office, dragging down the stock price of the company.

The possibility of a takeover gave DreamWorks its most notable increase in stock price since its stock price fell following the release of disappointing results for its second quarter in July. The studio company, located in Glendale, Calfornia, saw a loss of $15.4 million on $122.3 million in revenue during its second quarter.

Stock analyst at B. Riley, Erik Wold, said that the Japanese company is likely interested in DreamWorks because the company has a much lower valuation than other content creators, but also holds a valuable collection of content and character franchise. Additionally, the Japanese telecommunications firm could be searching for new methods to obtain content from DreamWorks’s YouTube company, AwesomenessTV, which is oriented towards youths and a younger demographic.

DreamWorks Animation purchased AwesomenessTV back in May of 2013 for an initial price of $33 million. This purchase is one of multiple recent acquisitions as a part of a plan to diversify the company’s business and expand its operations into online content, television, and consumer products. The Hollywood studio typically releases two or three films in a year, a system that forces the company to produce a consistent stream of well-performing hits to maintain its stock price where it is.

The news follows almost two months after SoftBank gave up on a bid for T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS). A deal with DreamWorks Animation could give the Japanese conglomerate’s Sprint Corp (NYSE:S) business another way to challenge top mobile carriers in the United States, such as AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ).

Instead of directly expanded the company’s telecommunications network, Masayoshi Son, the chief executive officer of SoftBank, now seems to be focusing his efforts on acquiring content creators, namely videogame studios. These videogame creators have the ability to create products that can attract potential mobile subscribers.

Earlier last month, Mr. Son decided to drop the bid for T-Mobile, the fourth biggest cellular operator in the United States, and combining it with Sprint, the third largest mobile carrier in the country. This was due to the opposition from the government, who had raised antitrust concerns.

The Japanese company is in the right position to purchase other firms mostly due to the recent influx of funds from the initial public offering of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), a Chinese Internet retail company. SoftBank owns 32 percent of the Chinese internet company.

Those familiar with the discussions between SoftBank and DreamWorks refused to give away a possible price for the studio company. Currently, DreamWorks Animation has a market values of about $2 billion. The discussions are still in early stages, and could possibly lead to an investment or a distribution partnership rather than an outright purchase.

DreamWorks Animation has been struggling for along time as a somewhat small, publically traded Hollywood studio. Being absorbed by a conglomerate such as SoftBank could protect the studio from pressure from investors. The animation studio’s shares have generally risen or fallen based on the financial performance of individual movies, and a recent trend of disappointing movie performances have caused the company’s stock price to fall by almost 50 percent since 2010.

The company has released some of the best performing hits in the history of animation, such as “Shrek” and the “Madagascar” films. However, its latest releases, like “Rise of the Guardians” have been significantly less successful.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executive officer of DreamWorks, has been pushing a business plan to reduce his company’s dependence on the two or three films that it produces each year. The plan calls for the studio to expand into online video, consumer products, and television. But considering the company’s relatively small size, it would be almost impossible to create a global infrastructure that could successfully compete with the consumer products, television networks, and theme parks of huge firms like Walt Disney Co (NASDAQ:DIS).

The company also faces competitors from smaller rivals, like Blue Sky Studios Inc, the makers of “Ice Age”, and Illumination Entertainment, the producer of “Despicable Me”. These studios have had very close success at the box office with DreamWorks, and often with movies that cost significantly less than those of DreamWorks. Such pressures have pushed Mr. Katzenberg to cut back on his studio’s costs.

If the animation studio were to sign a deal with Softbank, they could easily enter the fast growing market in Asia. Two years ago, the company partnered with multiple Chinese investment companies to build a studio in China to produce action and animated films for global audiences.

Even through DreamWorks is small in size, it carries a high profile because it’s leader, Mr. Katzenberg, founded the much larger DreamWorks SKG studio with David Geffen, a former music executive, and Steven Spielberg, a movie director. 2004 was when the animation studio spun off from the larger parent company.

DreamWorks Animation posted a net loss of $15.4 million and revenues of $122.3 million for the second quarter.

Mr. Son is the first well-known Japanese investor to go after a Hollywood company in 25 years, back when Japanese electronic firms were acquiring studio assets.

Mr. Son stated that the wants to grow SoftBank into the largest company in the world, and that he plans to grow its market value to 200 trillion yen, or the equivalent of $2 trillion by 2040. Currently, the company is valued at 10 trillion yen.

With the initial public offering of Alibaba, SoftBank’s stake in Alibaba has grown from $20 million to about $71 billion in just 14 years.

SoftBank already has a total of over 1,300 companies as possible investment deals. The company’s main targets are media, internet, and content firms in the United States. Since SoftBank already has a network infrastructure in place, it would benefit most from content businesses.

In the past few months, SoftBank has been linked to a myriad of potential companies, including Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO), Vodafone Group (LON:VOD), and Line Corp. Softbank already holds a stake in Yahoo Japan Corp.

As for digital content, SoftBank is expanding its business in that area by hiring Nikesh Arora, one of the key forces behind the growth of the search advertising department of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL). It was Mr. Arora who pushed forward the talks between SoftBank and DreamWorks Animation.

Last month, SoftBank gained control of Supercell Oy, a mobile game firm based in Finland that produced games like “Clash of Clans.” SoftBank also holds a controlling stake in GunHo Online Entertainment Inc, a Japanese company that created “Puzze & Dragons.” Investments like these have propelled SoftBank to the ranks of the top-grossing provider of mobile game applications for smartphones in all the world.

However, efforts by media and telecom companies that brought distribution and content under the same category often do not live up to expectations. Vivdendi SA from France sold its Hollywood assets in 2004 to General Electric Co (NYSE:GE), having held onto them for only 4 years.