Category: Business

Homeowners appear to have learned the lesson of the Great Recession about not taking on too much debt. There is some concern that Corporate America didn't get the message.   For much of the past decade, companies have borrowed at super-low interest rates and used…

After two weeks of bruising negotiations, officials from almost 200 countries agreed Saturday on universal, transparent rules that will govern efforts to cut emissions and curb global warming. Fierce disagreements on two other climate issues were kicked down the road for a year to help…

Stocks staggered to eight-month lows Friday after weak economic data from China and Europe set off more worries about the global economy. Mounting tensions in Europe over Britain's impeding departure from the European Union also darkened traders' moods. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped as…

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said the country's economy was in "bad shape," the governor of a northwestern state told reporters Friday after a meeting with governors from across the country.  Buhari will seek a second term in an election to be held in February in which the economy is likely…

The federal budget deficit surged to a record for the month of November of $204.9 billion, but a big part of the increase reflected a calendar quirk.    In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Thursday that the deficit for November was $66.4…

A gauge of world equities was little changed after giving up early gains on Thursday, continuing a pattern seen for the past several sessions, while the euro eased after the European Central Bank formally ended its bond purchasing scheme. In the United States, the S&P…

Wall Street stocks finished higher on Wednesday due to improved hopes for the US-China trade talks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6 percent at 24,527.27. The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.5 percent to 2,651.07, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.0 percent to…

Wood consumption — including logging and the production of charcoal — is a leading cause of forest degradation in Africa. In some of Kenya's coastal regions, recurring droughts have made the problem even worse.  Now, farmers in those regions are planting trees, putting their once-barren land…

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged Wednesday with tampering with the final audit report into a defunct state investment fund, adding to a long list of corruption allegations against him since his ouster in May elections. Najib was charged along with Arul Kanda…

Cash-strapped Avianca Brasil, the country's fourth-largest airline, on Tuesday sought bankruptcy protection from creditors but reassured passengers that flights will continue. "Due to resistance from the lessors (of their aircraft) to reaching a friendly settlement, we have filed seeking protection from creditors, to protect clients…

Mining companies have invested at least $5 billion towards gold exploration in West Africa in the last decade but significant reserves are under-exploited, mineral industry experts said on Tuesday. Delegates at the Ecomof mining and petroleum forum in the Ivory Coast commercial capital Abidjan were…

EU economics affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici on Tuesday said Brussels will keep close watch over France's new spending plans, a day after President Emmanuel Macron unveiled new measures to quell violent protests. "The European Commission will closely monitor the impact of the announcements made by…

Taiwan is reinforcing its five-year-old ban on network equipment produced by Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp. amid security concerns. Officials sought over the weekend to reassure lawmakers and the public that such measures have been effective and the threat to the communications sector…

Walt Disney Studios is again ending the year on a high note, posting more than $7 billion in global box office earnings, thanks to hits such as "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War." "This is only the second time in history any studio has surpassed…

Environment ministers from nearly 200 countries are arriving in the Polish city of Katowice to join haggling over ways to advance the 2015 Paris accord to curb climate change. National leaders have stayed away from this year’s climate change conference largely because it is devoted…

General Motors is fighting to retain a valuable tax credit for electric vehicles as the nation's largest automaker contends with the political fallout triggered by its plans to shutter several U.S. factories and shed thousands of workers. Preserving the $7,500 tax incentive for buyers is…

Stocks around the world are falling Monday morning, and U.S. indexes gave up modest early gains and turned lower, hurt by sharp drops for energy and financial companies. The British pound is dropping after the U.K. prime minister postponed a vote on its departure from…

Despite repeated calls by U.S. President Donald Trump for oil production to remain steady, the Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Russia and its allies, announced Friday they would cut their pumping of crude to reduce oil flows onto the global market…

The International Monetary Fund says it has approved a three-year loan of about $3.7 billion for Angola, which seeks to diversify its economy and curb corruption after a new president took office last year. The IMF said Friday that the loan aims to help the…

China’s export growth slowed in November as global demand weakened, adding to pressure on Beijing ahead of trade talks with Washington. Exports rose 5.4 percent from a year ago to $227.4 billion, a marked decline from the previous month’s 12.6 percent increase, customs data showed…

Wall Street capped a turbulent week of trading Friday with the biggest weekly loss since March as traders fret over rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and signals of slower economic growth.  The latest wave of selling erased more than 550 points from the…

 The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Friday it made a final determination that American producers were being harmed by imports of common alloy aluminum sheet products from China, a finding that locks in duties on the products. The ITC determination means that duties ranging…

U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday, erasing an early gain, as the market closed in on its third weekly decline in four weeks. Losses in technology and health care stocks outweighed gains elsewhere in the market. Energy companies led the gainers as crude oil prices rose…

U.S. employers added just 155,000 jobs in November, a slowdown from recent months but enough to suggest that the economy is expanding at a solid pace despite sharp gyrations in the stock market. The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate remained 3.7 percent, nearly…

U.S. stocks clawed most of their way back from a deep slide Thursday that at one point had wiped out the market's gains for the year.    An early plunge briefly knocked more than 700 points off the Dow Jones industrial average as the arrest…

The US trade deficit hit a 10-year high in October as Americans used a stronger dollar to snap up record imports, the government reported Thursday. The result showed the trade gap has continued to swell despite the punitive tariffs imposed this year on allies and…

OPEC countries were gathered Thursday to find a way to support the falling price of oil, with analysts predicting the cartel and key ally Russia would agree to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day. Crude prices have been falling since October…

OPEC and Russia moved closer on Wednesday to agreeing cuts in oil production from next year despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to reduce the price of crude. OPEC meets on Thursday in Vienna, followed by talks with allies such as Russia on Friday.…