Business Highlights
BRUSSELS (AP) — Crucial talks between Greece and its creditors to keep the country solvent and within the euro got bogged down again Wednesday amid differences over what kind of reforms the country should make in exchange for loans.
The administration was seeking the "fast track" as it works to complete a round of trade negotiations involving 12 nations along both sides of the Pacific Ocean, including Japan.
NEW YORK (AP) — The owner of Stop & Shop and Giant will tie up with the parent company of Food Lion, creating a $29 billion grocer that will be in a stronger position to compete with Wal-Mart and other discount retailers.
The deal, which would create the fourth largest grocer in the U.S., is the latest in a series of buyouts and mergers that has major players bulking up to carve out market share in an industry that has grown intensely competitive.
The economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2 percent from January through March, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
The 81-year-old bank is a little-known federal agency created during the Depression that makes and guarantees loans to help overseas buyers purchase U.S. products, from airplanes to bridges to baby clothes.
Over the past year it's also become a surprising test of GOP purity, as tea party-backed lawmakers and outside conservative groups have denounced the bank as crony capitalism and vowed to get rid of it, pressuring fellow Republicans to go along.
NEW YORK (AP) — Ikea's U.S division is raising the minimum wage for the second year in a row as the Swedish ready-to-assemble furniture chain looks to improve its relations with workers and reduce worker turnover.
Under the program, customers who finance their vehicles through Ford Motor Credit will be able to rent their vehicle to pre-screened drivers for short-term use, helping to defray some monthly vehicle ownership costs.
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