Today's Top Stories: $8.5 Billion Settlement for Bank of America Subprime Investors On its Way

The news, trends and attitudes that are impacting your business and your entrepreneurial efforts on Wednesday, June 29.

Top story: Bank of America is on the cusp of finalizing an $8.5 billion settlement for investors who bought subprime mortgage securities before the financial crisis. The money will go to more than 20 investors who held $100 billion in home loans from the bank. The settlement will effectively wipe out the bank's earnings from the first quarter of the year, but would set a standard for other banks to follow. “It’s about time the industry resolves issues from the financial crisis and focuses more on righting their companies and improving the economy. This is the most significant step since the financial crisis that helps do that,” Crédit Agricole analyst Michael Mayo told the New York Times. The settlement could be finalized as early as today. (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC)

Conversation starters:

Virginia best for business: Virginia topped the CNBC Top States for For Business survey once again, pushing Texas out of joint first place. Not even increases in the state's tax burden, substantially lifting the cost of doing business, could hold it back. Other top states included Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia. (CNBC)

Riots in Greece over austerity measures: There was violence in the streets of Greece ahead of the Parliamentary vote on the EU-imposed austerity measures today (expected soon). The country has to reduce the deficit from 15 percent to three percent of the GDP within four years, or it will not receive further loans from Europe. (CNNMoney)

Lagarde new IMF head: French finance minister Christine Lagarde has been named the new head of the International Monetary Fund, taking over from disgraced former boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Lagarde is known for blazing a trail in a male-dominated role and for her media savvy. (ABC News)

The Cayman Island on the Great Plains: 2710 Thomes Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming, a small brick house, is the registered address of more than 2,000 companies. Many of the companies registered there are "shell" companies, which hide assets, and have become something of an industry for the loosely-regulated state. (Reuters)

Final Federal debit charges out today: The Federal Reserve will today issue its final plan for regulating the amount banks can charge retailers for the use of debit cards. In December, the Fed proposed capping fees per transaction at 12 cents, a substantial cut from the average charge. It's unlikely the proposal will be changed considerably when released today. (Reuters)

Campbell Soup retreats from Russia: Just four years after it entered the market, the iconic soup brand is making a hasty exit, creating 50 redundancies. Despite hiring anthropologists to observe Russian soup-making and eating habits for two years, convincing the country to buy canned soup instead of making it from scratch proved a hard sell. (Wall Street Journal)

Android and iOS have security gaps: A new report from security company Symantec shows both Android and Apple's iOS mobile platforms have major security gaps. In particular, the lack of inspection for Android apps has led to more malware specific to the platform. (Business Journals)

The Back Nine Business Bites:

1. There's $1 billion just sitting around in the Federal Reserve, but nobody wants it.
2. What's this NFC thing all about?
3. Want to buy the Dodgers? They're probably worth about a billion or so.
4. Speaking of buying stuff, MySpace might end up being sold for as much as $30 million.
5. Google launches a competitor to Facebook. Let's hope it's better than Wave.
6. The airplane of the future doesn't even need fuel.
7. Still-radioactive wreckage from Fukushima could be washing up in California any time now.
8. Not content to own every other single social media platform, Lady Gaga is now on Tumblr.
9. Anyone else creeped out by Newsweek's cover this week? It's not just us, right?

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Get more business intelligence from Portfolio.com :

• An Unholy Alliance: A potential alliance with Saudi Arabian Airlines is leading to a headache for Delta, which finds in a tawdry PR battle over visas, religion, and partnerships.
• Hotz Hacks Into Corporate Rank: George Hotz, 21, aka GeoHot, channeled his hacking notoriety into a career by scoring a job at Facebook and now he might help sink one of Sony’s top guns.
• Game for a Public Play: As rumors circulate that Zynga may file for an IPO as early as today, analysts want to see how another social-media-based company fares with investors.

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Nicola Kean is an assistant editor for Portfolio.com.