Business and Finance news

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he sees some reason for optimism in Europe, while acknowledging that 2012 is set to be a challenging year.

A day after taking over the job as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray defended his role and says he’ll work to win Congress over.
"The appointment is valid, I’m now the director of the bureau," said Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general. "The important thing for us is that […]

The majority owner of the Maple Leafs says it rejected

British police say they knew that Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid had hacked into the phone of murdered British teenager Milly Dowler nine years before the scandal exploded.
The chief constable of southern England’s Surrey Police says his force knew as far back as April 2002 that someone linked to the News of the […]

The protesters at the heart of the Occupy Wall Street movement were planning a day of rest Sunday, a day after rallies across the globe drew thousands who marched and chanted and, in some cases, grew violent.
In New York City, the group that insists on being leaderless had nothing on its agenda save its nightly […]

Travelers across the nation waited for flights to resume in and out of East Coast airports that were closed by Tropical Storm Irene this weekend.
Irene was downgraded from a hurricane Sunday as winds ebbed around the time that the storm pushed into New York, the nation’s busiest air-traffic region.
Federal officials said airports reopened around Washington, […]

Fitch Ratings said Tuesday that it would keep its rating on long-term U.S. debt at the highest grade, AAA, and said the outlook remained stable. But it warned that it could lower the outlook to negative if Congress failed to trim future deficits.
Fitch’s rating was the best given by the three major credit rating agencies. […]

Better.
The job market beat expectations, and the stock market managed a modest gain _ not great, but good enough after a turbulent week.
The nation added 117,000 jobs in July, the government said Friday _ far from what happens in a healthy economy, and only good for a reduction of one notch in the unemployment rate, […]

President Hugo Chavez said Friday that Venezuela’s oil production quota within OPEC should increase now that its proven crude reserves have grown.
Chavez said in a televised speech that oil production quotas will need to be revised.
“The more reserves you have, the higher the quota you have,” Chavez said.
Earlier this month, OPEC recognized Venezuela as the […]

Enterprise Financial Services Corp. posted a record profit in the second quarter, boosted by growth in commercial and industrial loans and higher net interest income.
Enterprise’s $9.9 million profit, or 52 cents a share, in the second quarter that ended June 30 is up from a profit of $737,000 in the second quarter of 2010, or 1 cent […]