The US stock markets rose more than 3 percent in late morning trading today after hearing the latest U.S. economic data on unemployment claims. The government reported that weekly initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level in four months
Canada's crime rate fell to its lowest in almost 40 years, Statistics Canada reported on Thursday, extending a positive two-decade trend.
Good news for the Monarch butterflies and their wintering grounds in central Mexico: The clearing of forests used by the butterflies has dropped to just over one acre's worth of trees, compared to the hundreds of acres lost annually in the past.
President Obama issued a directive for U.S. development policy that called for social and political reforms as a prerequisite for foreign assistance, along with more investment from the private sector. Just one year into the project, U.S. government executives at a Washington conference reported on genuine progress.
The world economy is gaining strength as global private sector activity hit a one-year high in February, building on the gains of previous months. Momentum is growing in both service and manufacturing industries, with strong improvement in the United States leading the way, according to a new report by JPMorgan.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim will spearhead a project to rescue the Pacific port of Acapulco, a once glamorous haunt of Hollywood stars that has lately become mired in violent crime. Slim, the world's richest man will be the president of a council that will pool funding for new hotel developments.
General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed. Strong sales in the United States and China helped the automaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion set during the pickup and SUV boom of 1997. GM said 47,500 blue-collar workers in the United States will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March.
The unemployment rate fell for the fifth straight month after a surge of January hiring, a promising shift in the nation's outlook for job growth. The Labor Department says employers added 243,000 jobs in January, the most in nine months
American consumers spent enough in December to lift sales to a record level for 2011. It marked the largest annual increase in consumer spending in more than a decade.
Today marks a milestone in the fight against polio as India marks one year since the last recorded case of new polio infection there. This success is the result of decades of work by Rotary International along with its partners, as well as the tens of millions of dollars donated to the cause by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Nestlé has become the first major candy manufacturer in the UK to remove all artificial ingredients from its entire candy product line. The company has replaced artificial colors, flavors and preservatives with natural alternatives in all 79 candy products sold there.
Two-thirds of Americans are optimistic that they will be better off financially next year than they are now, according to a new poll. Also, fewer Americans are experiencing daily worry or stress, and their emotional heath, self-measured by how much they remember smiling, laughing and enjoyment of recent days, is now higher than it has been in any month since tracking began in January 2008.