Bank of America Corp. and Barclays Bank PLC are selling their stake in apartment building owner Archstone to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy estate for $1.58 billion.The transaction will give ...

Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data ...

British Prime Minister David Cameron has reaffirmed his belief that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt acted properly in dealing with News Corp.'s bid to take over British Sky Broadcasting.Hunt has been called ...

A top European Central Bank officials says the 17 countries that use the euro need an "urgent overhaul" of their banking and financial system to deal with the debt crisis.Peter Praet says that ...

The 50 highest-paid CEOs for 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of Standard & Poor's 500 companies. The analysis includes companies that had the same CEO for all of 2010 and 2011 and that ...

The 10 highest-paid CEOs for 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of Standard & Poor's 500 companies. The analysis includes companies that had the same CEO for all of 2010 and 2011 and that ...

David Simon of Simon Property received a pay package worth more than $137 million for last year, and the typical CEO took home $9.6 million, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.Here are some ...

In the small world of big CEOs, the perks can be spectacular.Drivers, country club memberships, use of company aircraft — those splashy extras are fairly routine. And so are less-splashy extras, with companies ...

The European Union is challenging Argentina before the World Trade Organization with claims the South American nations stifles imports to protect its own industry.The EU, the world's largest trading bloc, ...

Asian stocks struggled for firm footing Friday as investor nerves were tested by fizzling economic growth in China, but European markets headed higher as traders kept fingers crossed that Greece would ...

Taiwan's government has lowered its economic growth forecast for 2012 to 3 percent from 3.4 percent as demand fades for the island's mainstay electronic exports.Friday's revision came only four weeks after ...

Khamis Neshbahri earned a salary of 700 Singapore dollars ($550) a month when he began cleaning office buildings 11 years ago. His wages haven't budged since then while his cost of living has continued ...

Oil rose above $91 a barrel Friday in Asia as a global stock market rally boosted oil trader confidence.Benchmark oil for July delivery was up 60 cents to $91.26 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time ...

Swiss chemicals maker Syngenta says it is offering $105 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit over one of its herbicides entering water supplies.Syngenta says it is waiting for the U.S. District Court for the ...

Struggling but deserving designers got a chance to show work inspired by the creativity and history of South Africa's most famous township as Soweto's first fashion week opened Thursday.The township on ...

Linda Galayda hauled water and flagged down truck drivers to ask about their hay. She sold calves and young cows and made her son leave their East Texas family ranch for a job in San Antonio.About 200 ...

Spain's market regulator has suspended trading of shares in bailed-out lender Bankia ahead of a board meeting of the bank that is expected to decide on the amount of money it needs from the government.A ...

The Obama administration is sidestepping an election-year confrontation with the hotel industry and other pool owners to give them more time to comply with access rules for the disabled.The rules have ...

A study shows German consumers remain cautiously confident in Europe's largest economy despite uncertainty in the wider 17-nation eurozone.The GfK institute's forward-looking survey released Friday shows ...

Shares of a Hong Kong tycoon's property company tumbled Friday after he insisted he was innocent of bribery and money laundering charges filed by Macau prosecutors over a land deal in the Asian gambling ...

Beer was hip in New York long before hipsters were into craft brews, according to a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society that traces the history of beer all the way back to drunken Colonial times.And ...

The captain and the navigating officer of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef have each been sentenced to seven months in jail.Authorities have described the Oct. 5 grounding of the cargo ship ...

Toyota is looking to emerging markets for growth, targeting 50 percent of its global vehicle sales in such countries by 2015, and rolling out eight compact models over the next few years.But Toyota Motor ...

Asian stock markets struggled for firm footing Friday as investor nerves were tested by fizzling economic growth in China and the lack of a concrete plan to pull Greece back from the brink of bankruptcy.Media ...

Royal Caribbean Cruises is sending what it says will be Asia's two biggest cruise liners to serve China's growing tourism market.The 3,114-passenger Voyager of the Seas is due to arrive in Singapore this ...

Oil slipped to near $90 a barrel Friday in Asia amid signs of sharply slowing economic growth in Europe and China.Benchmark oil for July delivery was down 33 cents to $90.33 a barrel at midday Singapore ...

Nearly 22 million TV viewers seems like a lot — but for an "American Idol" season-ender, it's a new low.The crowd that tuned in Wednesday night when bluesy guitar man Phillip Phillips won the ...

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group's $2.5 billion bid to take its Hong Kong-listed unit private was cleared Friday by minority shareholders, easing the way for CEO Jack Ma to gain more control over ...

The Times-Picayune, one of the nation's oldest newspapers, will no longer offer print editions seven days a week and instead plans to offer three printed issues a week starting in the fall. The change ...

Alibaba.com shareholders have approved a $2.3 billion privatization bid by the Chinese e-commerce firm's parent.Shareholders voted in favor Friday of an offer by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to buy back ...

A federal judge says auto dealers who use consumers' bad credit histories to charge them more interest on car loans must tell buyers they have negative information on their credit report, even if the loan ...

New Jersey will defy a federal ban and let people bet on the outcomes of football, basketball and other games this fall, Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday.Speaking at a news conference highlighting efforts ...

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan's latest New Yorker magazine story is being serialized on Twitter.Egan's spy thriller, "Black Box," is being tweeted through The New Yorker Fiction ...

Broadcasters Fox, NBC and CBS sued Dish Network Corp. on Thursday over a service that offers commercial-free TV.Dish, the nation's second-largest satellite TV provider, filed a suit of its own seeking ...

The chief executive officer of the world's biggest copper company is stepping down.Chile's state-owned Codelco says Diego Hernandez cited personal reasons for a resignation that takes effect June 1. He ...

Nearly 22 million TV viewers seems like a lot — but for an "American Idol" season-ender, it's a new low.The crowd that tuned in Wednesday night when bluesy guitar man Phillip Phillips won the ...

Flames, explosions, sophisticated soundtracks, slapstick comedy with harmonizing hillbillies.What started as a typical municipal dispute over public transportation ended up getting a heavy dose of Hollywood.When ...

Google's Internet search engine receives more complaints about websites believed to be infringing on Microsoft's copyrights than it does about material produced by entertainment companies pushing for tougher ...

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's faltering video game company, which received a $75 million loan guarantee to move to Rhode Island in 2010, laid off its entire staff on Thursday.An email ...

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy estate has reached a deal to acquire a bigger stake in apartment-building owner Archstone for $1.58 billion, according to a published report.The deal calls for ...

An undersea fiber-optic cable that was laid last year between Venezuela and Cuba is working, a Venezuelan government official said Thursday.The cable was rolled out starting in Venezuela and reached eastern ...

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (CHAY'-fee) says he'll continue efforts to salvage former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's faltering video game company and protect his state's investment.The 38 ...

Sony's debuting "Men in Black 3," starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin, is expected to vaporize "The Avengers'" nearly month-long supremacy at the top of the domestic ...

There are smoke-free bars, smoke-free parks, even smoke-free college campuses. But a smoke-free country?New Zealand's government on Thursday squeezed smokers more than ever by announcing a 40 percent hike ...

VERY PROFITABLE: January through March was the most profitable first quarter for U.S. banks in nearly five years, and the number of troubled banks fell for the fourth straight quarter.LINGERING CAUTION: ...

European leaders insist they want to keep Greece in the eurozone, but are putting off any agreement on how they hope to accomplish that. Greece says it, too, wants to stay in the eurozone, but until after ...

A tiny Canadian company announced Thursday it had raised enough money to start producing oil from Utah's tar sands for a first-of-its kind project in the U.S.U.S. Oil Sands Inc. said it raised $11 million ...

The president of the Vatican bank has effectively been ousted after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers for having leaked documents and failed to do his job at a critical time ...