A Colorado farm that was traced to a listeria outbreak in cantaloupe last year has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Jensen Farms declined to comment on its filing Friday. Its attorney Jim Markus told The Denver Post the filing should free up millions of dollars in insurance and other funds that could be distributed to victims.

The outbreak was blamed for 32 deaths. It infected 146 people in 28 states. Federal investigators have said old, hard-to-clean equipment at Jensen Farms and pools of dirty water on the floor probably were to blame.

Court documents show the farm had $4.8 million in revenue in the past 12 months. It lists $2.1 million in assets, $2.5 million in liabilities, and $1.6 million in payments outstanding from food distributor Frontera Produce.

The crippled law firm Dewey & Leboeuf LLP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday night and will seek approval to liquidate its business after failing to find a merger partner, marking the biggest collapse of a law firm in U.S. history.

Once one of the largest law firms in the U.S., Dewey has been hit by the loss of the vast majority of its roughly 300 partners to other firms amid concerns about compensation and a heavy debt load.

Dewey had warned employees earlier this month of the possibility the firm may shut down, and a person familiar with the matter had told Reuters that the firm was considering a bankruptcy filing.

"Dewey's failure is rocking the industry in the sense that most firms are saying to themselves, if Dewey could go down, could we?" Kent Zimmermann, a legal consultant at the Zeughauser Group, said in an email Monday night.

Dewey said in a filing it had decided to wind down its business following unsuccessful negotiations with other law firms to strike a deal. It said it would ask about 90 employees to remain on staff to assist in the liquidation, which it expects to be completed in the next few months.

Negative economic conditions, along with the firm's partnership compensation arrangements, created a situation where its cash flow was insufficient to cover capital expenses and full compensation expectations, Dewey said.

Novant Health informed its employees by memo Tuesday that it is laying off 289 employees, including 150 cuts in the health system's Winston-Salem market.

Most of the Triad cuts affect Forsyth Medical Center , Novant Health's flagship campus, and primarily impact nonclinical positions, according to spokeswoman Jeanne Mayer. The Charlotte Business Journal reports that 103 of the jobs being eliminated are at Presbyterian Healthcare in Charlotte.

Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz, Brazil’s second-biggest truck and bus manufacturer by market share, will take 1,500 workers off assembly lines in Brazil for five months to lower production as demand drops.

The employees from the German automaker’s factory in Sao Bernardo do Campo will receive additional training during the period, the Stuttgart-based company said today. Daimler employs about 14,000 workers in Brazil, where it controls 25.5 percent of the truck and bus market, according to data from the country’s dealer association, known as Fenabrave.

Declines in truck and bus sales “created the need to reduce production,” Mercedes said in an e-mailed statement.

Truck and bus sales fell 28 percent in the first two weeks of May from a year earlier, according to Fenabrave. Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega last week announced stimulus measures to help boost vehicle purchases. Mercedes and Volvo AB (VOLVB) planned to halt production temporarily to cope with dropping sales, according to a report in O Estado de S. Paulo.

A Syracuse automotive parts manufacturing plant will lay off more than 400 workers beginning in August.

New Process Gear Inc. filed notice with the state Department of Labor that a total of 406 employees, including salary, union and non-union employees, will be let go beginning Aug. 20.

The company is part of Magna International Inc. , which is shutting down the operation. The notice did not indicate a date for when the plant will be officially closed.

Renesas Electronics Corp. (6723) fell to the lowest level on record after the company was said to be planning to eliminate 10,000 jobs and raise 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) under the latest draft of a restructuring plan.

The world’s biggest maker of automotive microcontrollers presented the proposal last week to its workers’ union and lenders Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc., a person briefed on the matter said May 25. The job cuts would amount to almost a quarter of the company’s 42,800 employees as it seeks to return to profit

Research In Motion Ltd is preparing for a major restructuring beginning in the next couple of weeks that will see it eliminate at least 2,000 jobs worldwide, the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday, citing unnamed sources.

The Canadian newspaper, citing several people close to the company, reported that the next round is layoffs is said to be planned for around June 1 - a day before the BlackBerry smartphone maker's first quarter ends - but some expect the announcement even earlier.

One source close to the company told Reuters the impending layoffs could hit as many as 6,000 people and affect RIM's legal, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources divisions.

"The strategic question is: are you accelerating into a better future or shrinking to a niche operation," said the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the job cuts.

Trip Hawkins, Digital Chocolate (and EA for that matter) founder, is leaving his position as CEO amid company-wide layoffs and studio closures, aiming to take more of an advisory role in the near future. Around 180 employees have been reportedly let go in Russia, San Mateo and India, though the figures have not yet been officially confirmed.

The company’s offices in Mexico, Armenia, Washington and Russia have also reportedly closed their doors. Apparently, Digital Chocolate is just ”narrowing its focus and it made sense to get more streamlined.” Considering last week’s news of the 38 Studios collapse, not exactly an encouraging week for the industry.

More than 100,000 Americans out of work longer than a year in six states and Washington, D.C., are expected to lose their unemployment checks this summer, pushing the total cut off this year to more than 500,000.

Economists say the cutbacks will lower the unemployment rate but hurt consumer spending.

Affected are extended benefits, paid by the federal government, which provide an additional 13 to 20 weeks of payments to those already out of work 60 to 79 weeks. Congress mandated the reductions this year and they join other cuts in place or coming.

Some states have trimmed even initial benefits to less than 26 weeks, and some have limited eligibility. Florida residents must apply online and take a lengthy skills test.

Starting next month, many states will reduce the second phase of benefits, which aids people unemployed for 26 to 79 weeks. That is expected to affect several hundred thousand by year's end.

The portion of the jobless receiving payments recently fell below 50%.

Many states are ending extended benefits, as required by federal law, because their unemployment rates are no longer rising.

From June through August, New York, West Virginia, New Jersey, Nevada, Rhode Island, Idaho and Washington, D.C., will end extended benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project. Those cuts will affect about 116,000 recipients. From January through May, 419,000 Americans in 27 states lost payments.

Despite an improving job market, those out of work the longest struggle most to find jobs.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's faltering Rhode Island video game company laid off its entire staff Thursday.

An email sent by the 38 Studios company to workers and obtained by The Associated Press says they were notified of the "non-voluntary and non-disciplinary" layoffs on Thursday.

38 Studios moved from Massachusetts in 2010 after Rhode Island offered a $75 million loan guarantee officials said would bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars of tax revenue. The company was more than two weeks late this month on a $1.1 million payment to the state economic development agency. State officials said the company wasn't able to make its payroll.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee said the layoffs were an indication of the "grim times" facing the company and the state, which could be responsible for some of 38 Studios' debt should the company collapse.

The company had 300 employees in Providence, Chafee said. It also has an office in Maryland.

Attempts to reach Schilling and company executives on Thursday were unsuccessful.

Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama still accepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from three Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt told The Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”

On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.

http://politicker.com/2012/05/president-obama-wont-be-returning-his-donations-from-bain-capital/

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.

Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/senate-dems-betray-lilly/

The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress.

A U.S. household's median income is $49,445, the Census reports.

The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government's books.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-18/federal-deficit-accounting/55179748/1

A bill that would close an IRS tax credit loophole that allows the IRS to funnel over $4 billion to illegal immigrants is being held up by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, has been vocal in his disdain for the blatant misuse of taxpayer monies:

I’m disappointed that the Majority Leader objected to our effort today to prevent billions in tax credits from being wrongly sent to illegal immigrants claiming they have dependents, many of whom do not live in the US. This should not be a partisan issue: it is wrong for the government to use Americans’ tax dollars to directly subsidize illegality, especially at a time when our nation is spending so much money we don’t have.

The $4 billion wasted on the illegal immigrant tax credit loophole is “roughly the same amount the President proposes to raise annually by instituting the new Warren Buffett Tax,” says Sen. Sessions. The Alabama senator also notes that it's the amount needed to fund the shortfall in the highway bill and nearly all of the student loan bill.

A tattoo of a giant iguana curling up her chest had seemed like a good idea when she was younger.

“We were 18, and we really liked lizards,” says Kaylie, now 26. “It wasn’t a mistake, but at a certain point it didn’t fit with who I was anymore.”

Kaylie (who asked that her last name not be used) got her tattoo while on a celebratory beach trip with friends following high school graduation. Although three of her friends still sport the matching iguanas they chose to symbolize their friendship, Kaylie recently made the decision to have hers removed for an upcoming wedding and to improve her job prospects.

“I was tired of wearing turtle necks to job interviews, and I didn’t like the way the more closed-minded people judged me just because I had a tattoo,” she says.

After spending more than $2,000 on laser treatments to have her ink removed, Kaylie is now tattoo-free on her chest and lower neck. Although she still has more than 10 tattoos elsewhere on her body, she says having one removed is not something she would do again.

“It was painful, and it was way more expensive than the actual tattoo. I’m definitely keeping the others that I have. I like them, and they’re not in such obvious places,” she says.

Almost 200 employees of G&D Integrated will lose their jobs by the end of the summer, according to a notice sent to employees by the company.

Caterpillar Inc. is terminating its contract with the logistics company and sourcing the work elsewhere in central Illinois, G&D CEO Joe O'Neill said Tuesday.

The notice sent to employees of G&D who work at the Caterpillar STRF facility at 2223 W. Altorfer Drive stated that the layoffs are the result of an unforeseen business circumstance. There are currently 189 employees at the facility affected by the contract termination.

"They sourced the work to another provider," O'Neill said. "Cat makes its own decisions about these sorts of things."

Without specifying what company is taking over the work, O'Neill said he expects that it will hire roughly the same amount of people laid off from G&D.

CAE Inc. is making the largest cut to its workforce in nearly three years by trimming 300 jobs as the flight simulator and training company adjusts to the impact of military budget cuts in Europe.

The Montreal-based company announced Wednesday that it is trimming about four per cent of its global workforce of 8,000 despite growing revenues and profits.

Most of the job cuts are in Germany, but 90 employees in Montreal were notified as of Wednesday they would no longer be needed. No engineering positions are affected. Most are general, administrative and support jobs.

The Christus Santa Rosa Health System informed the Texas Workforce Commission on Wednesday that 400 employees in San Antonio will lose their positions between July 31 and Aug. 13.

The layoffs stem from the consolidation of the hospital system's City Centre at 333 N. Santa Rosa St. downtown into its existing Children's Hospital to form a planned stand-alone children's hospital.

About 90 of the 400 affected workers already have secured job transfers to other Christus Santa Rosa hospitals.

All 400 City Centre employees could find positions eventually, a Christus Santa Rosa spokesperson said.

City Centre is a 400-plus bed adult-care hospital.

Some City Centre units will be transferred to other Christus Santa Rosa hospitals, the letter explained.

Driving onto an Interstate highway? Crossing a bridge on the way into work? Taking a tunnel under a river or bay? Get ready to pay.

With Congress unwilling to contemplate an increase in the federal gas tax, motorists are likely to be paying ever more tolls as the government searches for ways to repair and expand the nation's congested highways.

Tolling is less efficient and sometimes can seem less fair than the main alternative, gasoline taxes. It can increase traffic on side roads as motorists seek to evade paying. Some tolling authorities — often quasi-governmental agencies operating outside the public eye — have been plagued by mismanagement. And some public-private partnerships to build toll roads have drowned in debt because of too-rosy revenue predictions.

Tolls are hardly a perfect solution. But to many states and communities, they're the best option available.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/states-looking-tolls-pay-highways-161604357.html

Skyways Express AB and its subsidiary City Airline AB Tuesday canceled all flights with immediate effect and said it will file for bankruptcy during the day as its owner said it could no longer finance the Swedish regional airline.

Faced with no growth in two of its key medical-device markets, Fridley-based Medtronic said it would eliminate about 1,000 jobs, including 250 positions in the Twin Cities.

Most of the local job cuts -- which were first disclosed by the company earlier this month -- are in Medtronic's heart rhythm device unit, which is based in Mounds View and makes pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators.

General Mills Inc. GIS +0.08% said Tuesday it'll eliminate 850 jobs globally in order to cut costs. The Minneapolis-based food company said it'll book $109 million in separation expenses as well as $13 million for the write-down of production equipment. It'll book $94 million in restructuring costs in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, with the remaining costs to be recorded in fiscal 2013. General Mills continues to expect adjusted fiscal 2012 earnings of $2.53 to $2.55 a share, compared to the Wall Street estimate of $2.54 a share in a survey of analysts by FactSet Research.

Hoku Materials has laid off nearly 100 employees at the company's Pocatello plant.

According to a news release provided to the Associated Press: Hoku Corporation announced that as of March 31, 2012, its preliminary estimates of cash, other current assets and current liabilities was approximately $7.7 million, $6.7 million, and $278.8 million, respectively. The current liabilities include approximately $74.4 million of accounts payable at Hoku Materials. Due to the delinquency of unpaid construction obligations, liens have been filed against the Hoku Materials polysilicon plant, and some lien holders have begun foreclosure proceedings in the Idaho courts.

The Company announced that it received an additional loan from China Merchant's Bank, New York Branch., which is secured by a cash collateralized letter of credit drawn by Hoku's parent company, Tianwei New Energy Holdings Co.

The West Union plant of the international company Itron Inc. is cutting 300 jobs in what company officials say is just part of the business cycle.

In a statement, company officials said 112 Itron staff and 189 temporary positions that are filled by Phillips Staffing will be eliminated, with the reductions planned to happen between August 10 and August 24 and between September 14 and September 28.

The plant, which employs about 850 workers, makes high-tech meters, notably "smart meters."

Company officials say the cuts will be made because several large smart metering projects in North America are nearly completed, reducing demand for the products.

After waiting months for the go-ahead to say so, Google CEO Larry Page today announced that his company now officially owns Motorola Mobility.

Google announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in August. Upon doing so, the companies had to clear regulatory hurdles to get the deal done. Regulators in both the U.S. and the European Union approved the acquisition back in February, but the companies were forced to wait for China. Over the weekend, China approved the deal, paving the way for Google to close it.

As part of the acquisition, Page announced today that Motorola Mobility chief Sanjay Jha has stepped down from his post. In his place, Google has named "long-time Googler" Dennis Woodside to be the mobile firm's new chief executive.

"I've known Dennis for nearly a decade, and he's been phenomenal at building teams and delivering on some of Google's biggest bets," Page wrote in the blog post. "One of his first jobs at Google was to put on his backpack and build our businesses across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia. More recently he helped increase our revenue in the U.S. from US$10.8 billion to US$17.5 billion in under three years as President of the Americas region."

It has been widely believed that the main reason Google acquired Motorola Mobility was for its patents. The search company and its vendor partners are currently waging legal battles around the world with a host of companies over claims that Android violates patents. Motorola Mobility holds thousands of patents and patent applications that could come in handy for any future legal proceedings.

Obama’s War on Coal has already taken a remarkable toll on coal-fired power plants in America.

Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago.

It’s the result of an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Energy Department signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Republicans also question a decision in February to restructure the loan in such a way that private investors, including an Obama fundraiser, moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default.

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation — headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign, federal election records show.

Administration officials say the restructuring was necessary. Without an infusion of cash, Solyndra would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, they said.

Qantas Airways said on Monday it is eliminating 500 jobs by merging maintenance facilities to save up to A$100 million ($98.4 million) annually, as high fuel costs and weak demand take a toll on airline profits.

Qantas, which is emerging from a costly industrial dispute, said in statement it will stop heavy maintenance in Tullamarine in Melbourne and concentrate on centers in Brisbane and Avalon, resulting in the job cuts. It had, in February, flagged another 500 job cuts for the group.

The latest move will save it A$70 million to A$100 million a year but will result in one-off costs of A$50 million, and takes estimated costs of an overhaul plan for the second half of fiscal 2012 to between A$250 million and A$260 million, it said.

The Ferry-Morse Seed Co. said Monday it will lay off 199 workers throughout the United States, including at its White City operations near Medford.

The company told state officials it will eventually close its plant.

Ferry-Morse, based in Fulton, Ky., is laying off half of its workers nationally after its May 18 sale to Seed Holdings.

The White City location had been the company’s first West Coast plant, opening in June 2009. Ferry-Morse had leased a 100,000-square-foot structure and quickly hired 25 full-time and 75 seasonal workers.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., the publisher of authors from Mark Twain to J.R.R. Tolkien, sought bankruptcy protection to eliminate more than $3 billion in debt.

The company, based in Boston, listed $2.68 billion in assets and $3.53 billion in debt in Chapter 11 documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. More than 20 affiliates also entered bankruptcy, including Broderbund LLC and Classroom Connect Inc.

“The global financial crisis over the past several years has negatively affected” Houghton Mifflin’s financial performance, in a business that “depends largely on state and local funding” for the schoolbook market, said William Bayers, company general counsel, in court papers.

He cited “recession-driven decreases” and “purchase deferrals” by the states and a “lack of anticipated federal stimulus support” for “substantial revenue decline.”

The filing comes as traditional print-book publishing faces growing competition from e-books. Sales of adult paperbacks and hardcover books fell 18 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to the Association of American Publishers. Borders Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, filed for bankruptcy in February 2011.

The 189 layoffs at BioScrip’s 2791 Charter St. facility will begin on June 25 and be complete by Aug. 6, according to a notice the Elmsford, N.Y.-based company filed with the state. Layoffs include 30 patient care consultants, 26 pharmacists and a dozen insurance verification specialists, among others.

Ponzio said that the company is going to “repurpose” its Columbus facility and will employ about 70 workers in its remaining Columbus business once layoffs are finished. The company will continue to run its pharmacy benefits-manager business, which supplies oral drugs in 90-day supplies, and its infusion business out of the Columbus facility.

BioScrip is considering opening a second distribution center in Columbus among other plans, he said.

American Eagle Airlines is cutting management in a move similar to that recently undertaken by sister carrier American Airlines.

The regional carrier has targeted $7 million in annual management and support staff labor savings as part of parent company AMR Corp.’s bankruptcy restructuring. The latest cuts are an attempt to reach a goal of 10% management and support staff cuts, American Eagle CEO Dan Garton says in an internal letter to employees.

Eagle is eliminating up to 100 non-union management and support staff positions, although the exact number remains unclear. Some of the positions currently are unfilled and simply will be eliminated, and Eagle expects attrition to account for some more of the losses, but employees will be cut under this initiative.

As part of the restructuring, the carrier’s safety organization will now report to Chief Operating Officer Fred Cleveland. Ed Criner, who had overseen safety, is retiring.

Dave Brown, VP in charge of airport services, also is stepping down, and job cuts are now being implemented in operations, finance and human resources. Changes in the company’s information technology department are expected to follow.

The 10% reduction target includes a 15% decrease in top management positions, Garton’s letter says. These cuts are beginning now, with further reductions expected soon.

AMR had set a goal of a 20% reduction of management and support staff for its American Airlines division to be completed by the end of the summer.

Renesas Electronics Corp. plans to cut about 6,000 jobs, or about 15% of its workforce, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported in its Tuesday morning edition.

The Japanese firm, which employs about 42,000 people, also plans to raise about Y50 billion in fresh capital, the paper said.

The Yomiuri report said that Renesas aims to smoothly implement the job cuts through measures such as voluntary retirement.

The company's shares fell 10% yesterday in trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after Goldman Sachs downgraded the company's stock rating to Sell.

Traffic congestion dropped 30% last year from 2010 in the USA's 100 largest metropolitan areas, driven largely by higher gas prices and a spotty economic recovery, according to a new study by a Washington-state firm that tracks traffic flows.

That was the largest drop since the nation plunged into recession in December 2007.

Of the 100 most populous metro areas, 70 saw declines in traffic congestion while just 30 had increases, says Jim Bak, co-author of the 2011 U.S. Traffic Scorecard for Kirkland, Wash.-based INRIX.

That was a reversal of what happened in 2010, when 70 had increases in congestion and 30 had declines. Tampa had the biggest increase in congestion, and Minneapolis the biggest drop.

"We're experiencing a stop-and-go economy right now," Bak says. "The data indicate the country may be experiencing the jobless recovery economists warned of during the recession."

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-22/traffic-congestion-down/55120930/1

China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents.

The relationship means the People's Bank of China buys U.S. debt using a different method than any other central bank in the world.

The other central banks, including the Bank of Japan, which has a large appetite for Treasuries, place orders for U.S. debt with major Wall Street banks designated by the government as primary dealers. Those dealers then bid on their behalf at Treasury auctions.

China, which holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, still buys some Treasuries through primary dealers, but since June 2011, that route hasn't been necessary.

The documents viewed by Reuters show the U.S. Treasury Department has given the People's Bank of China a direct computer link to its auction system, which the Chinese first used to buy two-year notes in late June 2011.

China can now participate in auctions without placing bids through primary dealers. If it wants to sell, however, it still has to go through the market.

The change was not announced publicly or in any message to primary dealers.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-usa-treasuries-china-idUSBRE84K11720120521

Facebook shares fell more than 13 percent, falling below its $38 price of its initial public offering, in the social network's second day of trading as a public company.

Meanwhile, the NASDAQ exchange continued to defend itself regarding the IPO's delay on Friday.

The company's shares [FB 33.62 -4.6118 (-12.06%) ] last traded down more than 13 percent. The stock had previously closed 0.6 percent higher on Friday.

Investors and technology industry watchers are closely tracking the Menlo Park, Calif., company's shares. The world's largest social network was one of the most anticipated initial public stock offerings ever, and now serves as a bellwether for other social media companies.

China's Dalian Wanda Group and AMC Entertainment announced Monday a $2.6 billion deal to take over the U.S. theater group, forming the world's largest cinema chain, according to a new release on the deal.

The move is the latest in a raft of deals between U.S. entertainment companies and Chinese firms, linking the world's largest theater market with the world's fastest growing.

"This acquisition will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theatres and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world's two largest movie markets," said Wang Jianlin, chairman and president of Wanda.

Wanda, a private company that previously operated solely in China, generates $16.7 billion in annual revenue from its commercial development and entertainment businesses, the company said. The group owns 86 theaters with 730 screens in China.

"As the film and exhibition business continues its global expansion, the time has never been more opportune to welcome the enthusiastic support of our new owners," said Gerry Lopez, chief executive officer and president of AMC.

AMC operates 346 multiplex theaters, largely in North America, with a total of 5,034 screens. Headquarters of AMC, a privately held company, will remain in the Kansas City area and day-to-day operations, including the process for film programming, will remain unchanged, the release said.

In a deal last February, China agreed to increase the quota of 20 foreign films per year -- most of them from the U.S. -- to add an additional 14 IMAX or 3D films each year, and nearly doubled the cut foreign film companies can take from Chinese box office to 25%.

Robert Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., on Sunday acknowledged design problems with Nasdaq's technology after the exchange operator was widely seen as bungling the landmark listing of shares of Facebook Inc. FB +0.61% on Friday.

Mr. Greifeld said in an interview with reporters that problems with order cancellations interfered with the initial public offering process. Tests Nasdaq had conducted ahead of the highly anticipated offering failed to detect the problems, he said.

"This was not our finest hour," he said, telling reporters Nasdaq's board met Saturday to consider the Facebook offering. Nasdaq plans to make changes to the IPO auction process given the Facebook troubles.

Mr. Greifeld said the exchange is "humbly embarrassed" by the technical problems, but that it remains confident it will continue to gain market share in handling IPOs.

Overall, Mr. Greifeld said, the first day of trading in Facebook stock was "successful." He said that withdrawing the IPO "never came into" consideration.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304019404577416500155524694-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwMDEyNDAyWj.html

French ski brand CoreUPT has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company, which was founded by four-time freeskiing world champion Guerlain Chicherit, has until July 16 to find a new source of capital to sustain its operations.

Failure to find a new investor or other source of capital by July 16 would downgrade CoreUPT's status to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which calls for the liquidation and redistribution of the brand and its assets. "We have two ways [to go]," said CoreUPT General Manager Pierre Gjurasevic, "the first being a capital increase from a new investor, or for the second, a handover of the brand."

"For now they are very bad outcomes," said Gjurasevic. "It's not very comfortable but we work hard and I'm sure we will find a solution in a few weeks." According to Gjurasevic, CoreUPT is already in talks with 10 different potential investors from the United Kingdom, the U.S., Russia and France.

FTS International has announced a total of 127 job cuts at its Shreveport and Longview locations.

FTS International, formerly known as Frac Tech (FTSI – www.ftsi.com), is an onshore oil and natural gas well stimulation services provider.

The reduction in force at FTSI involves 89 employees at its Shreveport operations location and 38 employees at its Longview operations location.

In a statement released Friday afternoon, a company spokesperson said, "Although this reduction in force affected only a tiny percentage of our total workforce of more than 4,000 people, we do regret that current market conditions have resulted in this impact on people and communities in northeast Louisiana and east Texas," FTSI Corporate Communications Director Pam Percival said. "The reality is that the continuing low price of natural gas has caused a slow-down in gas well drilling and completions work in the area of the Haynesville Shale. FTSI has been moving its completions equipment and personnel to work in areas where more wells are being drilled, such as the Eagle Ford Shale in south Texas and the Permian Basin area of west Texas. We will continue to operate in the Haynesville area as long as there is a demand for our services. FTSI is also looking at utilizing workers in other areas to help minimize the effects of this market downturn.

Employment at FTSI's Shreveport operations district now stands at 166, with 115 people employed at FTSI's Longview operations district.

More than 170 employees will be laid off from Kmart stores in Hollywood and Pembroke Pines by the end of the summer as Sears Holding Corp. turns the stores into liquidation centers.

About 80 employees from the Kmart store at 651 S. 60th Ave., Hollywood, and 91 workers from the store at 10501 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines, will face layoffs near the end of July, said a worker adjustment and retraining notification issued on May 18.

The stores will remain open, but operate as liquidation centers, which function similar to outlet stores, said Kimberly Freely, company spokeswoman. The stores will sell only specialty items and last-chance apparel. The hours of the stores will be cut to 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., so the number of staff will drop significantly, Freely said.

Slightly less than 200 positions have been cut from Westinghouse Electric Co. nationwide, primarily at its corporate headquarters in Cranberry Township.

There were about 170 voluntary buyouts and 28 layoffs across the non-technical workforce at the nuclear energy company. The cuts were in human resources, communications, finance, quality and other jobs that support the major business units, said Westinghouse spokesman Scott Shaw.

Shengdatech Inc. (SDTHQ.PK) reported Friday that it has filed a Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization and proposed Disclosure Statement with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada.

The company said that the Bankruptcy Court has set June 25, 2012 as the hearing date on the adequacy of the Disclosure Statement. Assuming the Disclosure Statement is approved on June 25, 2012, the Company is targeting August 30, 2012 for confirmation of the Plan.

Chrysler is recalling nearly 87,000 Jeep Wranglers in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere due to a risk of fires.

The recall affects only Wranglers from the 2010 model year that have automatic transmissions and were built before July 14, 2010.

The recall was announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on its website.

It says debris can get caught between a plate that protects the transmission and the catalytic converter, causing a fire. A catalytic converter is part of the exhaust system and uses heat and precious metals to control pollution.

Chrysler spokesman Eric Mayne says the recall affects about 68,000 Wranglers in the U.S., 6,000 in Canada, 1,500 in Mexico and about 11,000 in other countries.

Chrysler knows of at least 14 complaints of fires caused by the problem with 2010 Wranglers.

The company says it doesn't know of any injuries. It says debris can get trapped when the SUVs are driven off-road or through tall brush.

Ailing law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf is considering a bankruptcy filing as new debtholders take a more aggressive track, shifting away from earlier attempts at an out-of-court liquidation, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The majority of Dewey's partners have quit as a result of concerns about compensation, and $225 million in bank loans and bond debt.

Buyers of distressed debt who have acquired Dewey's debt at a discount on the secondary market are more open to seeing the firm wound down in bankruptcy court rather than out of it, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information was not public.

With the emergence of new creditors, Dewey on Tuesday replaced restructuring adviser Development Specialists Inc. (DSI) with competitor Zolfo Cooper. Joff Mitchell, a senior managing director at Zolfo, is now Dewey's chief restructuring officer, two people familiar with the situation said.

Bill Brandt, chief executive of DSI, confirmed that his firm's involvement in the matter was coming to an end.

"Our firm is transitioning out," Brandt said. "We've been replaced by Zolfo at the insistence of the debt holders. It now becomes a creditor-driven case."

China’s economic growth is being propelled forward by the growing rate of Chinese corporations using pirated software, according to a recent report from the Business Software Alliance.

Published on Tuesday, the report concluded that for every personal computer legitimately sold in China in 2011, there was approximately $8.89 of legal software being used. This is in comparison to the $120 of legal software for every legitimately sold personal computer in the U.S. that year.

Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the Business Software Alliance, told The Daily Caller that the benefits to businesses currently using unlicensed software in China for the productivity of their business far outweighs any cost or penalty businesses face due to the lack of a enforcement.

Businesses in China have a close relationship with the government, and the massive profits gained from using the software allows them to make larger investments.

“The problem in that is that China has not yet utilized transparent, world-class practices in businesses to manage software,” Holleyman told TheDC.

While the U.S. is applying significant pressure on the Chinese government to reform how piracy is enforced, it will continue to fall short due to the the lack of a “sheriff in town” to install and enforce practices that would produce measurable results, Holleyman said.

China is, however, only a part of the growing problem for U.S. software companies. The problem is global, but is particularly symptomatic of emerging economies. The global piracy rate “hovered” at 42 percent, but in 2011, the value of unlicensed software increased from the year before — $58.8 billion in pirated software used across the world — to $63.4 billion.

Silver Legacy will declare chapter-11 bankruptcy.

Silver Legacy officials announced the decision in an open letter to the community Thursday evening.

The letter says the company is voluntarily filing for chapter-11 to restructure its mortgage notes which became due in March.

Company officials are stressing they are not going out of business or closing its doors. They will continue to operate normally throughout the process.

The United States Postal Service announced today it will close 48 mail processing and distribution centers this summer, cutting 13,000 jobs.

The Shallowford Road center was marked for closure earlier this year, but won’t close this summer.

But the life of the center and its more than 250 jobs is likely short. The Postal Service plans to close an additional 92 centers by February 2014, then another 89 by the end of 2014.

When all 229 centers have been closed, about 28,000 post jobs across the country will be eliminated, saving the service $2.1 billion annually.

Published reports say Hewlett-Packard is poised to eliminate up to 30,000 jobs to help offset dwindling demand for personal computers as more people connect to the Internet on smartphones and tablets.

Bloomberg News says HP is mulling 25,000 job cuts. All Things D, a technology blog, estimates the purge will jettison 30,000 jobs. Both reports cited unnamed people familiar with HP's plans.

Hewlett-Packard Co. declined to comment Thursday.

The Palo Alto, California, company ended its last fiscal year with nearly 350,000 employees. Based on that, HP is considering a 7 to 9 percent decrease in its workforce.

Analysts estimate a payroll reduction of that size would save HP more than $1 billion annually.

The job cuts could be announced next Wednesday, when HP is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings.

A study commissioned by Sen. Tom Coburn is casting doubt on whether taxpayers' $18 billion annual investment in federal jobs training programs is paying off.

"The vast majority of money we spend in job training doesn't go to job training, it goes to employ people in those job training federal programs," Coburn told Fox News.

The 2011 Government Accountability Office study he commissioned, which examined programs in fiscal year 2009, found an overlapping and duplicative maze of 47 federal jobs programs run by nine agencies. Some were rife with mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.

The study found:

Some job training participants spent their days sitting on a bus.
Some were trained for jobs that didn't exist.
Others were paid to sit through educational sessions about jobs they already had.
High school students were knowingly exposed to the cancer-causing agent asbestos as part of a job training program.
Funds were misspent to pay a contractor for ghost employees and to purchase video games.
Job training administrators spent federal funds on extravagant meals and bonuses for themselves.
In one state, workforce agency employees took more than 100 gambling trips to casinos mostly during work hours.

Coburn’s criticism comes in the heat of a presidential campaign in which President Obama has made funding job training programs a priority. He showcased one program last month at Lorain County Community College in the key swing state of Ohio.

Staples Inc., the Framingham-based office supply giant, announced today that it has cut 500 jobs worldwide following first-quarter net income dropping 6 percent to $187 million, according to press reports.

About 200 of the cuts were in North America, the remainder in Europe and Australia, reports stated. No information was provided on how many cuts took place in Massachusetts. Staples employs roughly 88,000 worldwide.

“In North America we continue to build momentum in categories beyond office supplies while trends in our international business remain soft,” said Ron Sargent, Staples’ chairman and chief executive officer, in a press release. “Our plans remain on track to grow both sales and earnings during 2012.”

It's no secret that HP is considering layoffs and soon.

Meg Whitman has even publicly hinted at them. Question is, how many employees will be axed?

One source at HP claims the job cuts are going to be massive.

While this is just one source, we know that tension inside the company is running high and so is the rumor mill.

Here's what our source told us:

Layoffs are going to be significant. At least, they'll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She's said that layoffs would NOT be "broad-based" at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn't say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.

Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. We'd guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don't come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don't expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP's total workforce numbers won't reflect all of the cuts.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/source-hp-layoffs-are-going-to-be-huge-2012-5

Hostess Brands Inc. has warned states nationwide that it may close its operations and lay off all employees this summer.

In Connecticut, the company has notified the state that it may lay off all 187 workers and close its five locations by July 6, including 57 employees at the 23 Thompson Road operation in East Windsor.

The filing, known as a WARN or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice, says operations also could end at operations in the Uncasville section of Montville, 36 employees; Norwich, two workers; Cheshire, 42 employees, and Bridgeport, 50 workers.

Hostess, the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Court protection from creditors in January. It sent the WARN notices last week to all states where it has operations, employing 18,500 workers, company spokesman Erik Halvorson said.

The notices were “to alert employees that a sale or wind down of the company is possible,” he said.

J.C. Penney Co Inc (JCP) shares plunged nearly 20 percent on Wednesday, their worst decline ever, wiping away $1.43 billion in market value a day after the retailer shocked Wall Street with a much worse-than-expected drop in sales and by scrapping its dividend.

A number of leading Wall Street firms also lowered their price targets on the company.

Penney shares closed down $6.57 at $26.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. The decline was the worst percentage decline since the company listed its shares on the exchange in 1929, according to Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The move pushed the stock well below the $30.11 closing price on June 13, the day before it named Apple Inc (AAPL) retail store head Ron Johnson as chief executive.

The NBC Investigative Unit has raised questions about two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million dollars distributed to the University of California San Francisco. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone's sexual history.

This is part of our ongoing series of investigations by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who got federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant.

The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government's decision to spend nearly $1.5 million dollars of taxpayer money, money that came here to California. Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million dollars. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.

"If you honestly report on your sexual activity and number of partners?" Scott Amey with asked with a sigh. "That's a good one."

Amey is the general council for POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington D.C. nonpartisan non-profit government watchdog group. During our interview with an NBC crew he tried to explain why the government used that many tax dollars to improve self reports about high risk sexual behavior.

"I don't think most tax payers would think that would be a justified spending of stimulus money to conduct a sex study over fixing bridges and roads that are crumbling every day," Amey added.

Read more: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Stimulus-Grants-Fund-Erectile-Dysfunction-And-Sexual-Habits-Studies-151195105.html

Political leaders in Athens were due to discuss an emergency government Wednesday to deal with a possible run on banks as it emerged Greeks withdrew almost $900 million in a single day, fearing their country could crash out of the euro currency by the end of the week.

An interim government would take the country through to new elections on June 17, triggered by the collapse on Tuesday of talks to form a coalition between winners of the inconclusive May 6 election.

Greeks are withdrawing euros from banks, apparently afraid of the prospect of rapid devaluation if the country leaves the European single currency and returns to the drachma.

W.V.S.V. Holdings LLC, which owns more than 10,000 acres in Arizona it valued at more than $120 million, sought bankruptcy protection in federal court, according to a court filing.

W.V.S.V. listed assets of $120 million against debt of $57.4 million in Chapter 11 documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix.

Assets of the Tempe, Arizona-based company consist of three tracts of vacant land in Buckeye, Arizona, planned for “future development,” court papers show.

The case is In re W.V.S.V. Holdings LLC, 12-10598, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona (Phoenix).

T-Mobile is informing employees of "a series of organizational changes," a spokeswoman said.

A net loss of about 900 jobs will result. But even more jobs are likely affected by the changes, which include layoffs and shifts to outsource more work.

These layoffs are a major blow to the largest remaining wireless company in the Seattle area after a series of mergers over the last two decades.

The industry took off after McCaw Cellular established the first national cell network in the 1980s. It was sold to AT&T in 1994, and the cluster spawned other carriers that became T-Mobile.

Sony DADC Americas, which announced earlier this year that it would close its CD distribution center in Fishers, says it plans about 226 layoffs from the plant beginning in July.

Sony has said the distribution center will close by September. The distribution work done in Fishers for the big three CD makers — EMI Music, Universal Music and Sony -- will be moved to Anderson Merchandisers, which operates a distribution plant in Franklin.

In the required notification to the state Department of Workforce Development, dated May 11, Sony officials said the layoffs would begin around July 15.

Three things are apparent from President Obama's annual financial disclosure statement, released today:

He is a wealthy man, with assets of as much as $10 million.

He has a hefty stake in JP Morgan Chase, the megabank that just made a bad $2 billion bet. Obama has an account worth between $500,000 and $1 million.

Despite the nation's $15.6 trillion debt, he is a believer in government paper. More than half his assets are in Treasury bills and notes.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/05/obama-worth-as-much-as-10-million/1#.T7LkP7X3uM8

Stocks faded in the final hour of trading Tuesday to finish lower after a transcript from the Greek meeting showed deposits leaving the nation's banking system and after the Greece's leaders failed to agree on a coalition government.

The S&P 500 closed at 3-month lows, while the Dow logged its ninth loss in the last 10 sessions. Major averages are on pace for their biggest monthly losses since last September.

According to a transcript, Greek depositors recently withdrew 700 million euros from the nation's local banks, said President Karolos Papoulias, though the exact timing of the transfer was unclear.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47428134

Former president Bill Clinton told attendees at the Peter G. Peterson Fiscal Summit in Washington, D.C., today that President Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on the rich will not be enough to close the deficit and that middle-class taxes may also have to be raised.

“This is just me now, I’m not speaking for the White House—I think you could tax me at 100 percent and you wouldn’t balance the budget,” Clinton said, according to Politico’s account. “We are all going to have to contribute to this, and if middle class people’s wages were going up again, and we had some growth to the economy, I don’t think they would object to going back to tax rates when I was president.”

Clinton’s comments are sure to provoke a response from Republicans who argue that President Obama may increase taxes for all or even propose a value-added tax in a more flexible second term.

President Obama has said he wants to raise taxes only on the incomes, capital gains, and dividends of the wealthy. However, observers such as Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist have pointed out that similar promises by Democrats to limit tax increases have not been kept.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/bubbas-hot-mic-moment/

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) has been considered America’s fastest growing sport, quickly becoming a national phenomenon. But a new economic study shows even NASCAR’s powerful engines haven’t been able to keep up with the Obama-era economy.
NASCAR

The study, from the pro-market think tank Public Notice and Race Fans 4 Freedom, finds that the economic downturn of the last several years has directly affected how NASCAR fans watch and enjoy their sport. Since 2009, race attendance per year has fallen below 4 million people, and the number has been declining severely as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed. The cost of attending—with higher gas prices, less disposable income, and diminished financial security—has increased.

According to the study, the value of the sport, too, is threatened by the poor economy, with the stock prices of racing team companies plummeting in the last five years and sponsors pulling back on funding cars. “The days of $25 million sponsorship deals appears to be over for the time being, sending teams scrambling for support,” the study reads. The result is a less competitive field with fewer racers.

“At the end of the day, these numbers really hit NASCAR fans’ quality of life,” says Liz Dyar, the founder of Race Fans 4 Freedom. Dyar adds that with nearly 75 million fans across the country, the NASCAR nation is a “great snapshot” of the country as a whole—and that with plenty of those fans in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, their views on the economy could impact the election.

Read more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamas-economy-wrecking-nascar_644485.html

Tad Walgreen dressed in a suit and boasted to his Cisco Systems interviewer about his leadership qualities and passion for international business. But he's not sure any of it made an impact.

The Rollins College international business student interviewed for a sales position last fall in front of the indifferent eye of his computer's Web camera. The second part of the interview process, a two-minute video he had to upload to YouTube, also left him feeling "uncomfortable."

"It's definitely not for me," said Walgreen, 23, who did not get the job. "Not only did it seem a bit theatrical, which is not my forte, but I couldn't see the interviewer's reaction. I didn't like that."

More employers are turning to video résumés and interviews on Skype, YouTube and similar videoconferencing services to gauge a candidate. They say the high-tech approach can save them money and help sort through scores of candidates more quickly.

Read more: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-05-14/business/os-skype-youtube-interviews-20120514_1_interviews-employers-candidates

Colgan Air has notified the Texas Workforce Commission that it plans to lay off 174 employees at its facility in Houston July 1, but its Albany maintenance base could operate as late as Dec. 1. That's when Colgan expects to end flying the Q400 turboprops that are maintained here.

Colgan, a unit of Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines Corp., employs about 50 people at the Albany International Airport.

Pinnacle filed for Chapter 11 reorganization April 1 and plans to return its Q400 turboprops that are maintained in Albany to creditors after it concludes flying them by Dec. 1.

FirstMerit Corp. is eliminating 338 positions and closing eight Northeast Ohio branches as part of a concerted effort to save money.

The positions are being cut as the Akron-based bank is eliminating all assistant branch manager jobs, increasing teller flexibility, eliminating redundant regional leadership posts and combining retail call support centers.

The moves were outlined by FirstMerit Chairman and CEO Paul Greig at an investor conference in London early Tuesday.

Home Depot reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales as a warm winter prompted many homeowners to take up renovation projects earlier than usual this year, sending shares of the world's largest home improvement chain down more than 4 percent.

Joshua Mandelman made $454,000 in a single year as a student-loan debt collector -- more than twice the pay of the U.S. secretary of education.

His boss, Richard Boyle, chief executive officer of Educational Credit Management Corp., received $1.1 million in 2010, including commuting expenses from his ranch in New Mexico. Five other managers each took home more than $400,000.

ECMC, a Minnesota nonprofit group, owes its success to an 18-year-old agreement with the U.S. government. The company charges fees to borrowers and earns commissions from taxpayers -- totaling as much as 31 percent -- when it collects on defaulted student loans. Those rich rewards, which are approved by Congress, are sparking criticism that ECMC and similar collection agencies are reaping a bonanza from former students' pain.

Gov. Jerry Brown released a plan to close California's rapidly growing deficit by switching state offices to a four-day week, slashing welfare benefits and healthcare for the poor and relying on a variety of short-term fixes — all in the hopes that voters will give the state some breathing room by raising taxes in November.

The governor, who unveiled his revised budget proposal in the Capitol on Monday, is facing a nearly $16-billion budget gap, far larger than the $9.2 billion he predicted in January. He warned that the deficit could grow significantly if voters reject his proposed ballot measure to raise the state sales tax and income levies on the wealthy.

That would trigger additional cuts, including reductions in public education equivalent to lopping three weeks off the school year, he said.

"I'm linking these serious budget reductions … with a plea to the voters: Please increase taxes temporarily," Brown said at a morning news conference.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-budget-20120515,0,1532582.story

Realizing that Obama's reelection is in serious jeopardy, the President's campaign today released a two-minute ad slamming Mitt Romney for layoffs made at a company controlled by Bain Capital. The ad is built around interviews with former steelworkers at GST Steel, a mill in Kansas City, who were laid off as the company collapsed in the wake of a downturn in the steel market. The ad is certainly gripping and emotional. It is also, however, completely wrong.

The company was shut down in 2001. Romney left Bain in 1999, long before the plant closing, to run Winter Olympics. Two years is an eternity in the business world. Blaming Romney for decisions made two years after the left the company is at best disingenuous.

However, there was a political power-player serving as a director of Bain at the time of the company's bankruptcy and layoffs--Jonathan Lavine. Lavine joined Bain in 1993. He is currently Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer. He is also a major bundler for Barack Obama, raising between $100-200k for the his reelection. While we don't know the specific role Lavine had in decisions regarding the bankrupt company, he certainly had more influence than someone who had left Bain two years before.

Perhaps Obama should use some of Lavine's donations to help the steelworkers featured in his ad.

If you thought the half-billion-dollar, stimulus-funded Solyndra solar company bust was a taxpayer nightmare, just wait. If you thought the botched Fast and Furious border gun-smuggling surveillance operation was a national security nightmare, hold on. Right on the heels of those two blood-boilers comes yet another alleged pay-for-play racket from the most ethical administration ever.

Welcome to LightSquared. It's a toxic mix of venture socialism (to borrow GOP Sen. Jim DeMint's apt phrase), campaign finance influence-peddling and perilous corner-cutting all rolled into one.

The current "fix" LightSquared proposes to address the interference problems is a costly, conceptual pipe dream that could require massive retrofitting of millions of handheld GPS devices. GPS expert Eric Gakstatter scoffs: "I've been pretty open-minded about LightSquared proposing a solution, but this really insults our intelligence. (A)s we've seen previously with LightSquared, it's not about finding a practical solution for the GPS user community; it's all about selling an idea to the FCC. The problem is that the FCC doesn't have to live with LightSquared's half-baked 'solution'; we do."

So, what's greasing LightSquared's skids? Hint: It used to be known as "Skyterra." In 2005, Obama put $50,000 into the speculative firm -- raising eyebrows even among his water-carriers at The New York Times. The paper noted that Skyterra's principal backers at the time of the investment included four Obama "friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees."

One of those pals who urged him to buy stock in Skyterra was George Haywood, a major Skyterra investor and campaign donor who chipped in nearly $50,000 to Obama's campaigns and to his political action committee along with his wife.

Coincidentally, Obama bought his Skyterra stock the very same day the FCC "ruled in favor of the company's effort to create a nationwide wireless network by combining satellites and land-based communications systems." The Times reported that immediately after that morning ruling, "Tejas Securities, a regional brokerage in Texas that handled investment banking for Skyterra, issued a research report speculating that Skyterra stock could triple in value."

Coincidentally, Tejas and its chairman, John J. Gorman, were also major backers of Obama -- flying him in a private plane for political rallies and pitching in more than $150,000 for his campaign coffers since 2004. Obama sold his stock at a loss in November 2005, but his political relationship with the company was cemented. In 2009, shady billionaire hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone -- whose firm Harbinger Capital Partners is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for market manipulation abuses -- acquired Skyterra.

Coincidentally, Falcone, his wife and LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja have contributed nearly $100,000 between them to the Democratic Party during critical White House meeting periods and negotiations over LightSquared's regulatory fate.

Oh, and coincidentally, there's $6 billion earmarked for a "public safety broadband corporation" buried in the Obama jobs proposal just as LightSquared pushes into that market, too.

It's all just one strange quirk of timing, Team Obama shrugs. Except, as we all should know by now: There are no coincidences in Chicago on the Potomac. Just an endless avalanche of quids, quos and taxpayer woes.

Read the whole story here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46338

Unable to reach a deal with its lenders, upstart wireless carrier LightSquared filed for bankruptcy Monday.

The move has been widely expected, since the company's options for appeasing its creditors were running out. LightSquared's lenders claim that it has been in default on its debt since its $9 billion partnership with Sprint Nextel dissolved in March.

LightSquared's principal backer, hedge fund Harbinger Capital Management, had already twice staved off bankruptcy by receiving short-term waivers from its creditors. The last such deal, struck two weeks ago, was reached after Harbinger founder Philip Falcone agreed to leave LightSquared's board in the near future.

But the lenders continued trying to wrestle control of the company away from Falcone and Harbinger, and an agreement that would have granted another waiver extension could not be reached before a Monday deadline.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection documents were filed in New York's Southern District Court in New York.

In total the ratings agency has downgraded 26 banks.

The outlook is negative.

Here are the three reasons for the downgrade:

1.) Increasingly adverse operating conditions, with Italy's economy back in recession and government austerity reducing near-term economic demand;

2.) Mounting asset-quality challenges and weakened net profits, as problem loans and loan-loss provisions are rising; and

3.) Restricted access to market funding which, if persistent, will exert added pressure on banks to reduce assets, posing risks to their franchises and earnings.

First-class travel. Six-figure salaries for half the 132 officers and staffers. Plenty of plum jobs for family members.

Life is good at the top of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers.

The union, with its headquarters in Kansas City, Kan., represents about 59,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada who make and repair boilers, fit pipes and work on ships and power plants. The recession has hit their trade hard, reducing union membership.

At the same time, the president’s salary has surged 67 percent in the past six years, not counting a recent raise. Add in travel and some other expenses, and Newton B. Jones received more than $600,000 last year, putting him at the absolute top of the presidents of the dozen biggest unions in the country.

Many relatives of union officers also ride the payroll.

Totaling the pay to just the families of Jones and two other executives, the union and its affiliates gave them more than $2 million in annual salary, according to the most recent financial reports filed by the organizations.

“This is one of the more egregious examples of money flowing like crazy that I’ve ever seen,” said Nathan Mehrens, a former U.S. Labor Department lawyer and now general counsel for Americans for Limited Government, a conservative watchdog group.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/13/148607/hefty-salaries-perks-for-union.html

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law.

The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included — the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts.

Over four years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority would need as many as 120 permits, mostly from a tangle of government regulatory agencies not known to rush their business. It would need to acquire about 1,100 parcels of land, many from powerful agriculture interests that have already threatened to sue. And it would need to assemble five teams of contractors with giant workforces positioned from Fresno to Bakersfield, moving millions of tons of gravel, steel rail and heavy equipment across the valley.

Even if the authority avoids any delays, its ability to complete the first construction section on time will require a breakneck pace of activity.

"It is a very aggressive plan," said Manuel Garcia, associate director at the Construction Industry Institute affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin. "It does appear that it will be a challenge."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullet-risks-20120514,0,4603595.story

After more than a week of controversy, it looks like Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson will step down from his position.

According to AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, multiple sources say that the company will cite "personal reasons" for Thompson's departure.

However, it's also likely that the former PayPal president is quitting the company because of a resume discrepancy brought to light late last week by hedge fund Third Point, a Yahoo investor whose founder and CEO Daniel Loeb wrote that Thompson had "embellished his academic credentials."

In a letter addressed to the Yahoo board on May 3, Loeb pointed out that Thompson's CV said he earned an accounting and computer science degree from Stonehill College, when in fact he had obtained only an accounting degree. Yahoo initially said the inconsistency was an "inadvertent error," Reuters reported. The Yahoo board said it would investigate the matter, and Thompson issued an apology to employees.

Ally Financial Inc.'s mortgage division known as ResCap is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The government-owned lender had been weighing a bankruptcy filing for Residential Capital LLC for some time, as the division has been burdened by old, souring loans.

Ally, which was formerly the financing arm of General Motors Co., says it is also exploring strategic options for all of its international operations, which includes auto finance, insurance and banking and deposit operations in Canada, Mexico, Europe, the U.K. and South America.

The company also said Monday that it has paid about $5.5 billion to the Treasury Department and, with its new announcements, expects to return at least another third of the investment. Ally received government rescue packages worth more than $16 billion.

Detroit-based Ally anticipates taking an approximately $1.3 billion charge in the second quarter related to the ResCap filing.

California's budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion — much larger than had been predicted just months ago — and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.

The Democratic governor said the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections have not come in as high as expected and the economy isn't growing as fast as hoped for. The deficit has also risen because lawsuits and federal requirements have blocked billions of dollars in state cuts.

"This means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year," Brown said in an online video. "But we can't fill this hole with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools. That's why I'm bypassing the gridlock and asking you, the people of California, to approve a plan that avoids cuts to schools and public safety."

Brown did not release details of the newly calculated deficit Saturday, but he is expected to lay out a revised spending plan Monday. The new plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 hinges in large part on voters approving higher taxes.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-13/california-16-billion-shortfall/54927448/1

U.S. lawmakers have been unusually silent about federal regulators' decision to allow a Chinese bank to take over 13 bank branches in New York and California, suggesting that they think American banks have much to gain.

Members of both parties usually relish the chance to bash China on everything from government subsidies to the yuan's exchange rate. Yet Wednesday's decision by the Federal Reserve to certify a Chinese bank acquisition for the first time was met by near-universal silence.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/asia-pacific/227035-lawmakers-largely-silent-on-chinese-takeover-of-us-bank-branches

Putting pressure on Congress to approve parts of his latest economic stimulus plan, President Obama urged Americans Saturday to push lawmakers to approve his multibillion-dollar “to-do list” for creating jobs.

“Each of the ideas on this list will help create jobs and build a stronger economy right now,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address. “Let’s push Congress to do the right thing. Let’s keep moving this country forward together.”

The president’s list includes an expanded program to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, a proposal to give small businesses tax breaks for hiring more workers, a program that would help veterans find jobs, and an extension of tax credits for clean-energy companies.

He lobbied for the refinancing plan Friday in a speech in Reno, Nev. – a state that ranks second in the nation in mortgage foreclosures.

All told, the proposals on the president’s list could cost up to $34.7 billion: They are part of a more comprehensive $447 billion jobs package that Congress mostly has resisted.

Mr. Obama didn’t discuss in his address the cost of his proposals or how to pay for them. The refinancing plan, for example, would likely include a fee charged to homeowners.

The president often uses his weekly address to sum up major actions he took during the week, but Mr. Obama made no mention Saturday of the biggest headline he generated – his announcement that he now supports same-sex marriage.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/12/obama-pushes-billion-dollar-stimulus-plan/