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PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Kraft Foods (KFT.N) may raise its offer for Cadbury Plc (CBRY.L) or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.
"The Kraft team is figuring out the next move," the source said.
Kraft made a $16.8 billion hostile offer to […]

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BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) — China should keep home prices from long time “abnormal increases” and divert profits made from home price hikes to the public through taxation, a senior property official said here Friday.
Dong Zuoji, director of land planning department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said home prices would continue to […]

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In the latest of the great newspaper wars of London, two lions of Fleet Street, Rupert Murdoch and Jonathan Harmsworth (the fourth Viscount Rothermere), have been outflanked by a former Soviet K.G.B. officer, Aleksandr Lebedev.
London Lite, a free newspaper published by Mr. Harmsworth’s Daily Mail & General Trust, signaled its intention last week to shut […]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected last week, after falling in five of the last six weeks, as employers remained reluctant to hire even with the economy showing signs of recovery.
The Labor Department saidThursday that new jobless claims rose to a […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Friday, with the Dow slipping below the 10,000 mark as industrial companies' weak results overshadowed robust earnings from tech heavy-weights.
The energy and materials sectors suffered as a stronger U.S. dollar hit commodity prices, while an analyst's comments on a major railroad stock hurt the transportation sector.
[…]

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Shares on Wall Street began the day trading higher Wednesday as third-quarter earnings reports once again set the tone for the market.
Investors continue to look for clues about consumers’ habits and the economy’s health.
Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo & Company and US Bancorp all reported better results for the third quarter. However, the three financial firms […]

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(Reuters) – Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on track to pay employees about $140 billion in total compensation and benefits this year, the Wall Street Journal said, citing an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through the end of the year.
The paper said employees at […]

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WASHINGTON — Fissures are developing among policy makers at the Federal Reserve as they debate how and when to start raising the benchmark interest rate from its current level just above zero.
With Fed officials forecasting that unemployment will average 9.8 percent in 2010, nobody appears to be arguing that monetary policy should be tightened anytime […]

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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Gold received a lukewarm reception a day after racing to a record high, with consumers in Asia more likely to be cashing in than panic buying.
Profit taking — read selling — replaced gold purchases that in New York and across Europe on Tuesday had swept spot bullion through the March 2008 […]

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LAW enforcement policy in the United States rests implicitly on the “rational actor” model of traditional economics, which holds that people take only those actions whose benefits exceed their costs.
This model says that crime will be deterred if the expected punishment is strong enough — a prediction that has not been borne out in […]

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The nation’s drive toward computerized medical records is getting a push from big hospitals, which hope not only to improve patient care but to gain an edge on competitors.
And an effort to be announced on Monday by a big New York regional hospital group may be the most ambitious effort of this type yet […]

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MOSCOW — Just a few years after compelling foreign oil companies to renegotiate their contracts in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has invited executives from some of the largest such companies to discuss new work on Siberian natural gas fields.
Executives from Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and other companies met with Mr. Putin in […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of FedEx Corp (FDX.N) rose 4.5 percent to $75.90 in premarket trading on Friday, after the company said its first-quarter earnings would exceed guidance.
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica)

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President Barack Obama (file photo)U.S. President Barack Obama has announced new initiatives designed to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement. In his weekly national radio and Internet address, Mr. Obama noted the “painful toll” the global economic downturn has had on “retirement security.”He said the government will make it easier for small […]

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PARIS — The European Central Bank upgraded its growth outlook for the euro zone on Thursday, but sought to temper optimism by warning that the nascent economic recovery would be patchy.
In another note of caution, the central bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, also refused to specify when the bank might begin unwinding the extraordinary steps […]

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WASHINGTON – A federal court in Newark, N.J. has rejected Schering-Plough Corp.’s request for a $473 million tax refund related to the drugmaker’s efforts to avoid paying taxes on $690 million in overseas profits it brought back to the U.S. from offshore subsidiaries.
Income generated overseas that is reinvested into a company’s international operations is generally […]

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Filed at 9:24 p.m. ET
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s factory output rose for the fifth straight month in July as manufacturers gained confidence in the country’s nascent recovery.
Industrial production in the world’s second largest economy climbed 1.9 percent from the previous month and “continues to show an upward movement,” the Ministry of Economy, Trade and […]

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As it did for most of the week, Wall Street spent Thursday searching for direction.
The main indexes spent Thursday morning in the red but climbed into positive territory after an afternoon rebound in oil prices and the energy sector.
Encouraging pieces of economic data on employment and gross domestic product failed to impress investors, as they […]

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JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet warned policy-makers from around the world on Saturday not to forget the lessons of the devastating financial crisis now that the worst has passed.
"Now that we see some signs confirming that the real economy is starting to get out of the period of […]

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Wall Street rose on Thursday, even as signs of continuing weakness in the job market sapped some of the momentum from big gains in overseas trading.
Financial shares led the way higher on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 70.89 points, or 0.76 percent, to close at 9,350.05, and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock […]

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