Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, and consumer confidence approached a five-year high as the biggest part of the economy benefits from improving job and housing markets.

Employees assemble food containers to packaged on a production line at the Newell Rubbermaid Inc. factory in Mogadore, Ohio, U.S.. U.S. manufacturing slowed for a second straight month in May as weak overseas demand and government belt-tightening ...

Abercrombie & Fitch's two-hour meeting this week with critics of its no-large-sizes strategy, and of CEO Mike Jeffries' 2006 remarks that it only courts �attractive, cool� kids, prompted a mea culpa from the chain, and a vow to �take concrete steps to demonstrate ...

The House approved a Republican proposal Thursday to allow interest rates on federal student loans to rise or fall from year to year with the government's cost of borrowing, ending a system in which rates are fixed by law.

French judges in Paris have been questioning IMF chief Christine Lagarde over a controversial payout made to a tycoon when she was finance minister.