Business News

NEWBERRY, S.C. - With gasoline climbing toward $4 a gallon, police officers around the country are losing the right to take their patrol cars home and are being forced to double up in cruisers and walk the beat more.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Home prices fell a record 1.7 percent in the first quarter and the number of workers on jobless benefit rolls held at a four-year high, underscoring the economy's woes, data on Thursday showed.

DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. is cutting North American production of pickups and SUVs as car buyers eyeing record gas prices turn toward more fuel-efficient models. The automaker says it no longer expects to return to profitability by 2009 and didn't rule out layoffs and plant closures.

WASHINGTON - Congress says that getting stuck in airports and on runways cost the nation $41 billion last year in lost productivity and extra operating expenses.

WASHINGTON - The number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level in a month.

NEW YORK - Wall Street rebounded moderately Thursday after two sessions of steep declines brought by the surging price of oil.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were mostly flat on Thursday as the price of oil weighed on sentiment as it hit another record high before retreating, offsetting gains by financial company shares.

LONDON (AFP) - Blue chips closed lower after a seesaw day for the FTSE 100, and as investors' overlooked a rally on Wall Street, while London Stock Exchange ended as the biggest faller following poorly received full year numbers.

LONDON (AFP) - Stock markets around the world mostly slid on Thursday, weighed down by record-high oil prices that stoke inflation and bite into earnings, analysts said.

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto Stock Exchange's main index clung to some of its early gains on Thursday morning but activity was volatile as the buyout of BCE seemed in jeopardy and oil prices dropped sharply, while financial shares bounced back from a three-session decline.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Children's Place Retail Stores Inc reported a greater-than-expected rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, helped by an increase in sales, sending its shares up almost 15 percent.

NEW YORK - Barnes & Noble Inc. appears to be getting more serious about buying chief rival Borders Group Inc., confirming Thursday that it put together a management team to study the "feasibility" of a combination.

MINNEAPOLIS - Hormel Foods said second-quarter profits rose 14 percent, helped by falling pork prices and strong Spam sales.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc reported a wider quarterly loss on Thursday, hurt by a charge, and the bookseller cut its forecast for full-year sales at existing stores, citing the difficult retail environment.

PARIS - Air France-KLM said Thursday it expects the coming year to be "challenging" amid sharply higher oil prices and a sluggish global economy which contributed to a net loss in its fiscal fourth quarter.

NEWBERRY, S.C. - With gasoline climbing toward $4 a gallon, police officers around the country are losing the right to take their patrol cars home and are being forced to double up in cruisers and walk the beat more.

CHICAGO (AFP) - Ford Motor Company on Thursday said it is cutting production of large trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) as soaring pump prices drive demand for more fuel-efficient cars.

WASHINGTON - Wholesale inflation slowed in April following a big jump in March but the improvement is likely to be temporary as consumers are battered in coming months by price hikes for gasoline, food and a host of other items.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (Reuters) - A free hotline for patients to report serious medical side effects should be mentioned in television commercials and also needs to be more widely promoted on pill bottles and pharmacy packaging, U.S. health experts said on Friday.

LONDON - British telecommunications company Cable & Wireless PLC said it was considering splitting its business units after it posted a 5.7 percent drop in annual profit on Thursday.

Oil prices reached nosebleed territory on May 21, moving above $133 per barrel in New York trading -- on the same day that Federal Reserve officials expressed growing concern about inflation. Here's a roundup of what policymakers, economists, and strategists had to say about oil, inflation, growth, and interest rates on May 21, as compiled by BusinessWeek.com, S&P MarketScope, and Action Economics:

The U.S. government is so eager to jump-start the economy with its stimulus package that the Treasury Dept. is even mailing rebate checks to the recently deceased. George Paquin, a financial planner in Chelmsford, Mass., is certain that one former client, who died last year, would have deposited the check in his bank account. But his daughter and executor will probably spend it on furnishings for her new home. Dead or alive, a customer with a rebate check would be a welcome sight at many retailers. ...

It's been one patch of bad road after another for John Bucksbaum, a hard-riding amateur cyclist who tests his mettle in the Alps. At General Growth Properties , the Chicago real estate trust he runs, Bucksbaum is struggling against stiff headwinds in retailing and housing. What's more, the credit crunch is jacking up the cost of refinancing billions of dollars of debt coming due over the next 18 months. To top it off, General Growth has been socked with punitive damages for the roughshod way it fought a rival shopping-center developer.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock market will likely start the week on a hesitant note with Wall Street facing the first Federal Reserve interest-rate decision in many months not knowing that a cut is likely guaranteed.

WASHINGTON - A home-price index considered to be the most comprehensive reading of the U.S. market posted the sharpest quarterly decline in its 17-year history, and analysts say housing has yet to bottom out.

NEW YORK - Americans getting an early start on the Memorial Day weekend found that gasoline prices again sprinted to a new record high overnight, reaching a national average above $3.83 a gallon. Some analysts predict gas will break past $4 as early as next week.

DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. is cutting North American production of pickups and SUVs as car buyers eyeing record gas prices turn toward more fuel-efficient models. The automaker says it no longer expects to return to profitability by 2009 and didn't rule out layoffs and plant closures.

WASHINGTON - The number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level in a month.

CHICAGO - McDonald's french fries are now trans-fat-free in all its restaurants in the United States and Canada, the fast-food restaurant chain said Thursday.