Latest Business Wires

Beyond the noisy town hall meetings, Tea Party protests and sky-is-falling speeches characterizing much of the health care debate is a less visible, but no less intense push to broaden the face of the immigration reform movement.

Thousands of drivers on the nation's roads don't carry auto insurance, despite laws in all but two states requiring it. Critics of President Barack Obama's health overhaul plan ask: What are the chances scofflaws will treat a requirement to carry health insurance any differently?

Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills — causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment.

President Barack Obama and a top House Republican acknowledged in holiday messages the economic struggles facing Americans but offered starkly different recipes for relief.

Protesting peach farmers are blocking a major highway in northern Greece to press for higher subsidies.

While the U.S. Senate considers a climate bill aiming to dramatically slash air pollution linked to global warming, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Republican leaders in the state that leads the nation in greenhouse gas production are watching closely — and objecting loudly.

When Lori Fowlkes first saw robotic Zhu Zhu Pets toy hamsters in September, she remembers her kids started jumping up and down and saying "Please! Please! Can we buy them?"

DHL Express said Thursday it plans to shift its European headquarters from Belgium to Germany and the Czech Republic with the loss of up to 788 jobs in Brussels.

British bookstore chain Borders U.K. has filed for a form of bankruptcy protection and is now looking for buyers for its stores, the administrators appointed to run the company said Thursday.

Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger's luxury estate in Connecticut has sold for $20 million, about $8 million below its original asking price.

Is the world drowning its sorrows in cheap wine?

The Spanish-Argentine petroleum company Repsol says it plans to invest $1.5 billion to develop reserves and boost production in Bolivia.

Belgium's Flanders region said Thursday that a euro500 million ($754 million) loan for General Motors Co. is "not on the table" until it has more details on the future of the company's Antwerp plant.

RedPrairie Holding Inc., a business software provider, said Thursday it filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

News reports in Italy say investigators are scrutinizing millions of euros worth of Vatican bank transactions to see if they violated money laundering regulations.

Defense lawyers are alleging misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors in the case against one of five Blackwater security guards accused in the killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

Next month's Copenhagen summit needs to make significant progress toward a new climate-change deal, a leading reinsurer said Thursday, arguing that global warming already is costing billions of dollars per year.

An Italian Senate committee has decided to keep the RU-486 abortion pill off the market while its safety is evaluated.

Japan's biggest news agency Kyodo News and Mainichi Newspaper Co., the country's third-largest general newspaper, said Thursday they agreed to form a comprehensive media and business tie-up beginning in April.

Nokia Siemens Networks will operate Zain's mobile networks in East Africa in a major, five-year deal, the two companies said Thursday.