Business

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The frail U.S. economy received fresh setbacks as new U.S. jobless claims scaled a nine-month high last week and Mid-Atlantic manufacturing shrank in August for the first time in more than a year. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy faces difficult times ahead with chronic unemployment and slow manufacturing hurting the pace of recovery, the head of Congress' budget agency said on Thursday. Full Story »

LONDON (AFP) - Europe's main stock markets rose on Thursday, after earlier gains in Asia and overnight on Wall Street, as investors absorbed upbeat economic data, analysts said. Full Story »

ROGERS, Arkansas (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve may need to ramp up its purchases of U.S. Treasury debt if price levels in the U.S. economy continue to show signs of softening, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on Thursday. Full Story »

SAN FRANCISCO - Now that Mark Hurd is out as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's biggest technology company is trying to prove to Wall Street that it can thrive under the sweeping changes he set in motion. Full Story »

GENEVA - The U.S. appealed on Thursday its own victory in a landmark trade ruling against European subsidies for planemaker Airbus, asking the World Trade Organization to toughen its condemnation of the EU's financial meddling in a market worth more than $3 trillion over the next two decades. Full Story »

As the mortgage crisis continues to inundate the market with distressed properties, today's house hunter has no shortage of cheap, foreclosed homes to pick through. But despite all those deals in the previously-owned home market, consumers shouldn't overlook the potential benefits of buying a new home. "New homes usually sell higher per square foot then resale homes," says Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting. "But their selling points, I think, are pretty strong." To help consumers better understand the advantages of new home buying, U.S. ... Full Story »

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is appealing two elements of a World Trade Organization ruling on European government support for Airbus that it otherwise won, U.S. trade officials said on Thursday. Full Story »

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Discount retailer Dollar General Corp. has begun selling beer and wine in some of its stores in the Southeast. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge has put on hold a foreclosure auction for equity in Manhattan's giant Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complexes, a victory for senior lenders owed nearly $3.7 billion after the property's owner defaulted. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Transocean, the company that owned the rig behind the Gulf of Mexico disaster, has accused oil giant BP of hiding key data needed for a probe in a recently published strongly worded letter. Full Story »

LOS ANGELES - Home sales in California showed their largest year-over-year drop last month in more than two years, as the market attempted to weather an increasingly unsteady recovery without the help of federal tax credits, a tracking firm reported Thursday. Full Story »

NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co took a big step toward repaying a controversial taxpayer-funded bailout by declaring plans for a landmark stock offering that represents a critical test for the Obama administration. Full Story »

• Slideshow: General Motors Corp.