WASHINGTON (AP) -- The total
number of people on the unemployment insurance rolls dropped for the first time
since early January, the government said Thursday, while new claims for
benefits rose slightly.
The report shows that job
losses are easing after companies made deep cuts earlier this year. But nearly
half of recipients at the end of last month had exhausted the 26 weeks of
benefits provided under the regular state program without finding work,
according to Labor Department data. That's a record and compared with about 36
percent in December 2007, when the recession began.
Senate questions Obama's
financial oversight plan
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President
Barack Obama's plan to increase oversight of banks and other financial
institutions met with skepticism on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where senators
sharply questioned whether it was enough to prevent another economic meltdown.
The lack of a ringing
endorsement suggests the proposal was headed for a rewrite by a Congress
sensitive to voter frustration with the government's handling of the economy.
In testimony before the
panel, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the proposal as the
nation's best shot. Lawmakers mostly agreed that change was needed to
streamline federal regulation and fill in oversight gaps believed to have
contributed to the housing and credit crisis.
Financial, health care
stocks pull market higher
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks
closed mostly higher but off their best levels Thursday following three
straight days of losses. Investors piled back into financial and health care
companies and moved out of industries like technology that had been leading the
market.
Several upbeat economic
reports encouraged investors after a slide earlier this week that dragged the
benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index down 3.8 percent.
The Dow Jones industrials
rose 58.42, or 0.7 percent, to 8,555.60. The Dow had been up 98 points. The
S&P 500 index rose 7.66, or 0.8 percent, to 918.37, while the Nasdaq
composite index slipped 0.34, or less than 0.1 percent, to 1,807.72. With
trading light as the summer slowdown begins, analysts say more volume is needed
in order to move the market significantly in any one direction.
Judge orders Scrushy to pay
$2.9B to shareholders
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- A
state judge on Thursday ordered former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to pay
nearly $2.9 billion to shareholders who sued over a massive accounting fraud
that nearly sent the rehabilitation chain into bankruptcy.
Circuit Judge Allwin E.
Horn, who heard the case without a jury, ruled in favor of HealthSouth
shareholders who filed a lawsuit claiming Scrushy was involved in years of
overstating the company's earnings and assets to make it appear the company was
meeting Wall Street forecasts.
Horn wrote in his ruling that
Scrushy "knew of and participated in" the faked reports filed with
regulators from 1996 to 2002. He said the HealthSouth founder also
"consciously and willfully" violated his financial responsibilities
as CEO.
Oil industry cranks up
lobbying effort
HOUSTON (AP) -- Oil and gas
companies have accelerated their spending on lobbying faster than any other
industry, training their gusher of profits on Washington to fight new taxes on
drilling and slow efforts to move the nation off fossil fuels.
The industry spent $44.5
million lobbying Congress and federal agencies in the first three months of
this year, on pace to shatter last year's record. Only the drug industry spent
more.
Last year's total of $129
million was up 73 percent from two years earlier. That's a faster clip than any
other major industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive
Politics.
Discover 2Q profit slips,
gain boosts results
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) --
Discover Financial Services said Thursday it managed to remain profitable
during its fiscal second quarter, thanks to a payment from a lawsuit
settlement.
Without the gain from the
lawsuit settlement, the credit card lender would have had a loss due to rising
defaults and delinquencies. Nearly all lenders are seeing more customers stop
making their monthly payments as the economy falters and unemployment surges.
In the United States,
Discover said its sales volume fell 4 percent compared with a year ago,
reflecting lower gas prices and a general decline in consumer spending. The
Riverwoods, Ill.-based company also declared a dividend of 2 cents a share.
High court rules in favor of
ex-Enron executive
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a former Enron Corp. executive in a ruling
that makes it unlikely he can be tried a second time on charges related to
financial fraud at the one-time energy giant.
The court, in a 6-3 vote,
threw out an appeals court ruling that would have allowed a retrial of F. Scott
Yeager, a former executive at Enron's failed broadband venture, on charges for
which a jury could not reach a verdict at his first trial.
But Justice John Paul
Stevens, writing for the majority, did not completely shut the door to another
trial.
Yeager sold Enron stock for
more than $54 million before the company began a downward spiral that ended in
bankruptcy in 2001.
Former RBS boss agrees to
halve pension
LONDON (AP) -- The Royal
Bank of Scotland PLC said Thursday that its former chief executive Fred Goodwin
has agreed to halve his annual pension after outrage at the size of the payout
and threats by the government to take legal action.
The decision, which RBS said
was voluntary, means that Goodwin -- who was blamed for aggressively expanding
the bank before the government was forced to step in to rescue it -- will
collect 342,500 pounds ($555,470) each year.
He had been granted a
700,000-pound annual pension when he left RBS in October after the government
bailout despite leading the bank to pile on debt, causing its near collapse,
partial nationalization and record losses.
HLTH and WebMD to merge in
all-stock deal
NEW YORK (AP) -- HLTH Corp.
said Thursday it will complete its merger into health Web-site operator WebMD
Health Corp. in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.2 billion.
The companies had agreed to
combine in a $2.31 billion cash and stock deal in February 2008, but canceled
the deal in October due to financial market turmoil. The companies did not want
WebMD to be burdened with HLTH's debt. They said the combination will improve
efficiency and add liquidity for WebMD shares.
J.M. Smucker 4Q profit
soars, tops view
NEW YORK (AP) -- J.M.
Smucker Co. said Thursday its fiscal fourth-quarter profit more than doubled,
helped by consumers' desire to eat at home and the company's acquisition of the
Folgers coffee brand last year.
The maker of jams, jellies
and Jif peanut butter reported an adjusted profit that easily beat Wall
Street's forecast, and the company raised its earnings guidance for 2010.
The company said the
addition of Folgers helped boost sales and profit. While the food company
inherited Folgers' existing customers, the brand has also seen new business
from budget-conscious shoppers who are forgoing their gourmet brews for
lower-cost coffee during the recession.
By The Associated Press
The Dow Jones industrials
rose 58.42, or 0.7 percent, to 8,555.60.
The S&P 500 index rose
7.66, or 0.8 percent, to 918.37, while the Nasdaq composite index slipped 0.34,
or less than 0.1 percent, to 1,807.72.
Benchmark crude for July
delivery rose 34 cents to settle at $71.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile
Exchange. In London, Brent prices added 21 cents to settle at $71.06 a barrel
on the ICE Futures exchange.
In other Nymex trading,
gasoline for July delivery fell less than a penny to settle at $2.0295 a gallon
and heating oil dropped 2.6 cents to $1.837.