The Supreme Court ruled Monday that JPMorgan Chase & Co under an old federal regulation did not have to provide written notice before raising credit card interest rates to account holders who defaulted on a payment. Get the full story »
Abbott’s Acculink stent trial met goals, FDA says
Abbott Laboratories’ RX Acculink carotid stent appears to work as well as surgery in opening clogged neck arteries in patients who are not at high risk for complications from the surgical procedure, U.S. health regulatory staff concluded.
The device is already approved for patients who need to have their neck arteries opened up, but would face greater risk of side effects if they underwent a procedure to scrape off built-up fatty deposits that can cause strokes. Get the full story »
U.S. Postal Service to close 2,000 post offices
With red ink showing no sign of stopping, the U.S. Postal Service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year.
In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000 — half of the nation’s existing post offices — that are operating at a deficit, and lobbying Congress to allow it to change the law so it can close the most unprofitable among them. The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons that don’t include profitability. Get the full story »
Toyota tops ‘10 global auto sales despite recalls
Toyota sold 8.42 million vehicles globally in 2010, remaining the world’s top automaker for the third year straight despite recall woes in the key North American market.
General Motors also released a new tally Monday for its global 2010 sales, at 8.39 million vehicles, slightly fewer than Toyota’s number, but a dramatic 12 percent rebound from 7.48 million vehicles the year before. Get the full story »
Firms with hiring plans highest in a decade
Industry economists say the U.S. economic recovery is gaining strength, with more firms expressing positive hiring plans than in over a decade.
A new survey from the National Association for Business Economics finds that economists are more hopeful about overall economic growth, the job market and demand for companies’ products and services by many measures than they have been since the start of the Great Recession. Get the full story »
Penney exiting catalog, closing some stores
J.C. Penney Co. is closing some stores, outlets and call center locations and continuing to work on an exit from its catalog business in an effort to streamline operations and boost profits. Locally, the J.C. Penney at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee is slated for closure.
The department store operator also said Monday that Vornado Realty Trust Chairman Steven Roth and activist investor William Ackman will become board members. Penney’s enacted a “poison pill” in October after both Ackman and Vornado took large stakes in the company. Get the full story »
Jan. 24 at 5:30 a.m.
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Filed under: The day ahead in business
Local earnings: McDonald’s Corp.
Other major earnings: American Express Co., Amgen Inc., CSX Corp., Halliburton Co., McClatchy Co., Texas Instruments Inc.
Naperville Bank buying post office building
From TribLocal | Naperville Bank and Trust has its eyes on the historic downtown Naperville post office building, and the plan is moving forward after a contract was agreed upon Thursday.
Chicago adding natural gas taxis
One of a dozen Yellow Cabs in Chicago that will run on compressed natural gas. (Yellow Cab)
Starting in March, if you stick out your hand to hail a cab in Chicago, the taxi you get might not run on gasoline.
That’s because Taxi Medallion Management, which operates Yellow Cabs in Chicago, is introducing 12 Ford Transit Connect taxi cabs into its fleet that run on compressed natural gas -– a fuel that emits 30 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions that traditional gasoline but requires special pumping stations. Get the full story »
Big U.S. states spurn bankruptcy bill
Some of the biggest U.S. states with the worst budget deficits on Friday rejected any federal help in the form of a bill that would allow them to file for bankruptcy — something they now are barred from.
Legislation that would allow U.S. states to file for bankruptcy will likely be introduced in Congress within the next month, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives who remains a powerful figure in the Republican party, told Reuters on Friday. Get the full story »
Google: We’re working on bad search results
If you have been frustrated lately by search results on Google, you’re not alone, and Google knows it.
There’s been a drumbeat of criticism of Google’s search results coming out of Silicon Valley — and now the Internet giant has responded, saying it has heard “the feedback from the Web loud and clear” and believes it “can and should do better.”
In particular, the company is talking about stopping “content farms,” which provide low-quality, often unreliable and sometimes plagiarized information on a certain topic, just to get traffic from search. Get the full story »
