Monday Business Edition

The move will create a media group that will have a combined base of 117 million visitors a month in the United States, and reach 270 million people globally, AOL said in a statement.

The deal follows efforts by AOL’s chief executive Tim Armstrong to turn around the dial-up Internet access business by trying to turn it into a media and entertainment powerhouse, despite difficulties in attracting investors.

Nasdaq OMX Group said on Saturday that it found “suspicious files” on its U.S. computer servers, but said there was no evidence hackers had accessed or acquired customer information or that its trading platforms were compromised.

The news comes as flows into U.S. equity mutual funds show signs of recovering after years of outflows following the financial crisis and the debilitating experience of the “flash crash” last May that sent U.S. indexes plunging.

The automaker managed by Fiat SpA (FIA.MI) plans to boost its 2011 spending on advertising by 68 percent, two dealers said after a franchise meeting at the National Automotive Dealers Association annual convention at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

A Chrysler spokesman declined to comment on the increased marketing expense.

“I want to pay back the shyster loans,” Sergio Marchionne said at an industry conference, using a derogatory term for an unethical lawyer or politician. “Pay back the loans, get those out and then take (the company) public.”

Marchionne, who is also CEO of Italy’s Fiat SpA (FIA.MI), has said repeatedly that the high interest rates on loans Chrysler owes the U.S. and Canadian governments have been an obstacle in the automaker’s return to profitability.

Echoing comments from White House and Treasury officials, Bernanke said last week that if Congress failed to raise the government’s borrowing limit, it could force the United States into a “catastrophic” default.

He urged lawmakers not to use the debt ceiling as a “bargaining chip” in debates over taxes and spending — which some Republicans have threatened to do. The Treasury Department has said it may breach the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling as early as April 5 unless it is raised.

Treasury said China’s yuan should rise more quickly but said it lacked evidence to label Beijing a manipulator, a designation that could trigger trade action.

“Treasury’s view…is that progress thus far is insufficient and that more rapid progress is needed,” the report said. “Treasury will continue to closely monitor the pace of appreciation of the (yuan) by China.”

The proposal, to be unveiled at a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp board meeting, applies to top executives at financial companies with $50 billion or more in assets such as Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N).

How much of the deferred pay an executive could receive would be tied to the performance of the company based on decisions made by the executive during the period covered.

The new unit creates a seventh major division at the bank reporting directly to Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, an indication that the largest U.S. mortgage servicer is attempting to be more aggressive in resolving its problem mortgage loan portfolio.

Analysts said the move signals major U.S. mortgage lenders have not yet turned the corner on the problem home loans on their books.

With Republicans in Congress threatening to restrain her budget, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said the agency faces severe challenges in doing its existing job and in taking on new duties mandated under 2010’s Dodd-Frank market reform law.

SEC enforcement head Robert Khuzami said budget constraints are hurting the agency, but nevertheless defended its record against critics who say too few Wall Street financiers have been held accountable for the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

“It will be a two-year, precautionary-type agreement,” Basescu said in a public address.

“Under this deal, the IMF and the EU will place at Romania’s disposal five billion euros” to be drawn only in case of emergency, he added.

But consumers and governments should brace themselves for even higher prices, experts warn, as demand in populous emerging economies will put pressure on supplies for years to come.

A “perfect storm” of bad weather, rapid growth in emerging economies — with people eating more higher-value, resource-intense food — and low interest rates has sent prices for a broad range of farm and non-farm commodities climbing often at double-digit rates: from wheat to corn, cotton to rubber, and oil to boot.

The remarkable lack of woman executives in Europe’s biggest economy has sparked a groundswell of protest, with leading news magazine Der Spiegel calling in its current issue for a female quota to redress the imbalance.

“Quotas should be a first-aid measure for a society that has held on to rigid ideas of gender roles for too long,” it wrote in an 11-page cover story entitled “Why Germany Needs A Woman Quota – A Manifesto”.

Under the shade at a workshop in Ghana, young artisans are making them — from mountain racers to cargo bamboo bikes — to suit needs of customers, now as far afield as the United States and Europe.

“The beginning was not easy as people thought it was a joke to make bicycles from bamboo,” Nyampong said as he supervised work at the small factory outside Accra. “Now people are warming towards the bamboo bike.”

The Bank of Spain had asked all 17 of the country’s fragile regional savings banks, which account for about half of all lenders, to supply it with details of their exposure to the collapsed real estate market.

Unsurprisingly, the savings banks held far more risky assets than the main banks, based on a calculation of the figures last week by AFP.

Khaled Serri, head of the exchange, was quoted by the MENA state-run news agency as saying the bourse would remain shut on Sunday and Monday, with anti-government protests continuing on a daily basis since January 25.

The date for “resuming operations of the stock exchange has not been determined yet,” he said, adding that it would depend on developments.

In a report to Congress, the Treasury said that China, eight other countries and the eurozone had not manipulated exchange rates “for purposes of… gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade.”

“Based on the resumption of exchange rate flexibility last June and the acceleration of the pace of real bilateral appreciation over the past few months,” China’s behavior did not qualify under the official definition of manipulation, it said in the long-delayed report.

Tokyo ended 0.46 percent, or 48.52 points, higher at 10,592.04 and Seoul added 0.47 percent, or 9.71 points, to 2,081.74.

Sydney closed 0.12 percent, or 5.8 points, up at 4,868.5 but Hong Kong finished 1.49 percent, or 355.37 points, lower at 23,553.59.

In Rajshahi town, 150 miles (200 kilometres) northwest of Dhaka, hundreds of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activists threw rocks at police and vandalised vehicles, prompting police to react with tear gas and baton charges.

“At least 15 strike supporters were arrested,” deputy commissioner of Rajshahi police Anwarul Morshed Khan told AFP.

The US bank took over EMI on Tuesday after agreeing to slash the music publisher’s debt to £1.2 billion (1.4 billion euros, $1.9 billion) from £3.4 billion.

EMI, whose roster of artists also include Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Norah Jones and Robbie Williams, was bought by private equity firm Terra Firma for £4.2 billion in 2007.

The crowd of mostly young men converged on the town of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh crammed into all forms of transport, many of them travelling hours from states across the deeply impoverished plains of north India.

On offer was the chance of joining the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). A paltry 416 jobs were available as washermen, barbers, water carriers and other lowly positions with a starting salary of 5,200 rupees ($115) a month.

It was also hard to throw a Pepsi can without hitting a car commercial during Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. Automakers took advantage of advertising’s biggest showcase to try to show they’re back after two tough years for the industry.

After avoiding the Super Bowl for two years as it went in and out of a government-led bankruptcy, General Motors came back back with five ads for Chevrolet. In one ad, a seemingly mundane car dealership ad is disrupted when a Camaro suddenly morphs into the Bumblebee character from the “Transformers” movies. Chrysler was expected to push the limits of how long a Super Bowl ad could be with a two-minute commercial featuring rapper Eminem.

The acquisition announced early Monday puts a high-profile exclamation mark on a series of acquisitions and strategic moves engineered by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in an effort to reshape a fallen Internet icon. AOL was once the king of dial-up online access known for its ubiquitous CD-ROMs and “You’ve got mail” greeting in its inboxes.

Perhaps just as important as picking up a news site and ranks as one of the top 10 current events and global news sites, AOL will be adding Huffington Post co-founder and media star Arianna Huffington to its management team as part of the deal.

When homeowners fell behind on their mortgages, the banks flocked to “foreclosure mills” like Stern’s to push foreclosures through the courts on their behalf. To his megabank clients – Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, GMAC, Citibank and Wells Fargo – Stern was the ultimate Repo Man.

At industry gatherings, Stern bragged in his boyish voice of taking mortgages from the “cradle to the grave.” Of the federal government’s disastrous homeowner relief plan, which was supposed to keep people from getting evicted, he quipped: “Fortunately, it’s failing.”

East Coast ports from New York to Miami simply aren’t deep enough to handle such mammoth vessels as the CMA CGM Figaro, which measures 1,100 feet long with space for 8,500 cargo containers a tractor-trailer can haul one at a time. With a major expansion of the Panama Canal projected to be finished by the end of 2014, these gargantuan vessels will be able to sail between Asia and the U.S. East Coast.

The canal expansion is pitting seaports up and down the Atlantic coast in a race to dig deeper harbors capable of handling the so-called post-Panamax ships.

Geoffrey Robertson said at a hearing that his client was fighting extradition because such trials are usually held in secret. A trial behind closed doors would be “a flagrant denial of justice … blatantly unfair, not only by British standards but by European standards and indeed by international standards,” Robertson said.

Rape trials are often held behind closed doors in Sweden to protect the alleged victims.

For 1 1/2 years, individual stocks moved with the broad market with little regard for the prospects of the companies behind them. Would they make big profits? Were they in industries that were shrinking or growing? Was the CEO a bumbling idiot? It didn’t seem to matter.

But now some stocks are zigging while others are sagging, and knowing something about the companies, themselves, is important if you don’t want to lose money.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Tuesday to begin work on a blueprint for transforming a subsidy program called the Universal Service Fund to pay for broadband.

The details the agency works out could have profound consequences not just for residents of rural areas who are still stuck with dial-up connections or painfully slow broadband speeds. Many rural phone companies – including both landline and wireless carriers – rely heavily on Universal Service funding and could lose some of this money. New FCC rules could also pave the way for cable companies to begin collecting from the program.

Many farmers had been pushing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve the use of genetically modified alfalfa. Monsanto developed the seed to resist the weedkiller Roundup, allowing farmers to use the two together to save time and labor on weeding. Supporters also say the use of the genetically modified seeds lets farmers grow more alfalfa on each acre and helps keep food prices low.

Opponents, many of them organic farmers, say widespread planting of genetically modified alfalfa will result in pollen from those plants contaminating organic and traditional crops, destroying their value. While alfalfa is mostly used as hay for cattle, some consumers don’t want to eat foods, such as milk or beef, from animals that have consumed genetically modified plants.

Known for his pugilistic style, Donohue wasted no time. Come on over, he said.

When Sperling crossed Lafayette Square, the park that separates the White House from the business lobby’s headquarters, Donohue welcomed him with characteristic bluntness:

But to actual New York commuters, such talk rings hollow these days.

Mechanical breakdowns, stranded trains, rising fares and the governor’s plans to cut another $100 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget have left travelers fuming. An onslaught of snowstorms has exposed the rail system’s weaknesses, shorting out electric motors and snapping electric lines. On Monday the Metro-North commuter line will cut service on its popular New Haven line because half of its trains are in the shop.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., calls it the “$64,000 question,” and then promptly answers it.

“People will be supportive of almost any decreases in spending as long as they believe they’re done in an open, equitable and fair manner,” said Price, a member of the party leadership.

But hulking battle tanks on the streets and nervous citizen watch groups manning barricades at night were vivid reminders that the crisis was far from over, with thousands of protesters still demanding the ouster of the president.

“It’s much better than yesterday or the day before, ordinary people are back out walking around and look, we even have a traffic jam,” said Ahmed Mohammed, 65, the owner of a men’s clothing store on Arab League St., a major commercial thoroughfare in the upscale commercial district of Mohandiseen.

Dollar stores beckon, their small size ideal for quick shopping. Target offers 5 percent off if you pay with its store-branded card. Costco tempts with high-end, brand-name food and designer clothes at competitive prices.

Bernadette Clark used to visit Wal-Mart here twice a week. Now it’s twice a month. She got fed up last year when Wal-Mart stopped stocking some of her favorite brands and she couldn’t count on low prices.

Duke, 61, took the helm of Wal-Mart two years ago, when the retailer’s strong performance made it the outlier during the Great Recession. As the economy slowly recovered, however, times got tough for Wal-Mart. Customers who were hurting financially spent less. Others fled to competitors offering better convenience, prices and products. Wal-Mart had taken an effort to declutter its stores too far and had strayed from its ‘everyday low prices’ ethos.

Now, Duke is in the middle of a tough fight to reverse weak sales at Wal-Mart’s flagship U.S. business.

But the opposition leaders held firm to a demand the government rejects: that President Hosni Mubarak step down immediately. And the source of the opposition’s sudden power – the youthful protesters filling Cairo’s main square – said they weren’t even represented at the talks and won’t negotiate until Mubarak is gone.

“None of those who attended represent us,” said Khaled Abdul-Hamid, one leader of a new coalition representing at least five youth movements that organized the 13-day-old protests. “We are determined to press on until our number one demand is met” – the ouster of Mubarak.

Ashot Egiazaryan (pronounced Ah-shawt Yeh-gee-ah-zar-ee-AHN) says he is considering seeking asylum in the U.S. But after suing a Russian billionaire and several former business partners – including a close friend of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s former mayor – he said he doesn’t feel safe even in this country.

“I do think it’s possible than an assassination attempt can be mounted against me here,” he said flanked by lawyers in a conference room a few blocks the White House. The interview with The Associated Press was his first with Western media and came a few weeks after one of his relatives was gunned down in the Russian city of Astrakhan on Dec. 7, an attack he claims is connected with his suit.

The intrusions did not affect Nasdaq’s stock trading systems and no customer data was compromised, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said. Nasdaq is the largest electronic securities trading market in the U.S., with more than 2,800 listed companies.

A federal official told The Associated Press that the hackers broke into the service repeatedly over more than a year. Investigators are trying to identify the hackers, the official said. The motive is unknown. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the inquiry by the FBI and Secret Service is continuing.

It’s the opposite of the company’s stance just two years ago when GM got rid of about 1,700 dealers across the U.S. as it headed into bankruptcy protection.

GM has been losing dealers on the coasts, especially in California, for two decades due to slow sales as people bought more foreign brands. Company officials say GM’s poor products also played a significant role.

Farmers in Connecticut alone have lost at least 136 barns, greenhouses, sheds and other structures as snow measured in feet, not inches, accumulated while January passed without a thaw.

“We’ve had other challenges,” said Joe Greenbacker, a partner at Brookfield Farm in Durham, where a fabric-covered “hoop house” caved in and killed a calf. “But this is the most snow I can remember on the ground and the biggest problem with roof issues I can remember.”

Ten products including fish, shrimp, oysters, crab cakes, and packaged Cajun dishes such as jambalaya and shrimp etouffee are being promoted at 72 base commissaries along the East Coast, said Milt Ackerman, president of Military Solutions Inc., which is supplying seafood to the businesses.

Gulf seafood sales fell sharply after BP PLC’s Gulf well blew out in April, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the sea. Consumers have long feared that fish, oysters and other products could be tainted by oil and chemicals used to fight the spill, even though extensive testing has indicated the food is safe. The perception has lingered – along with the poor sales.

Egypt’s natural gas company said the fire was caused by a gas leak. However, a local security official said an explosive device was detonated inside the terminal, and the regional governor, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, said he suspected sabotage.

The blast and fire at the gas terminal in the Sinai town of El-Arish did not cause casualties. The explosion sent a pillar of flames leaping into the sky, but was a safe distance from the nearest homes, said Mabrouk.

The big worry is that popular uprisings and revolution will spread to Egypt’s rich autocratic neighbors who control much of the world’s oil supply.

How far will anti-government movements go? Will oil supplies be disrupted? Will the U.S. see its influence in the region decline and that of Iran and other fundamental Islamic regimes surge?

Germany, a pioneer in many renewable energy initiatives, is also at the forefront of creating environment-friendly toys aimed at making kids think about where energy comes from and how much of it they can use, raising awareness through play.

A panoply of high-tech green toys are on display at this year’s Nuremberg toy fair, which runs through Sunday. Among them, hydroelectric-powered toy cars, and doll houses with wind turbines and rainwater catchers.

The Treasury Department noted that China last June said it would begin allowing its currency to rise against the dollar. The agency said the pace of revaluation has been too slow since and more rapid appreciation is needed.

Treasury’s finding came in a report it must submit to Congress every six months determining whether other countries are manipulating their currencies. American manufacturers have been pushing for China to be cited. That could result in penalty tariffs being imposed on Chinese imports.

Losing $105,000 gambling at the scene of the crime in Las Vegas, but cashing out nearly $209,000 and apparently hoping the casino wouldn’t notice.

The deceptively simple burglary lit up the Internet – appealing to anyone who’s ever had fantasies about pulling off a major score against a casino giant. But police say Anthony Carleo’s shoddy plan after stealing $1.5 million in chips unfolded like a badly played poker hand.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy described a “pact for competitiveness” that would bring the bloc closer together and reinforce confidence in the shared currency, but they held off on concrete economic proposals that could provoke political resistance. Government officials previously indicated such measures might include calls for putting debt limits in national constitutions, raising retirement ages to match increased life expectancy, and getting countries to set up orderly ways to handle bank failures.

The Franco-German proposals “will be about improving competitiveness and at the same time making it clear that we have the political will to grow together,” Merkel told journalists Friday as she arrived at the summit of European Union leaders.

By contrast, many other countries that supply oil are not stable, secure or friendly to U.S. interests, Harper said at a White House news conference following a meeting with President Barack Obama.

Harper did not name any other country, but pipeline supporters have singled out countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iran as places where the United States faces security threats and instability. Canada’s environment minister has used the term “ethical oil” to describe his country’s crude supplies, saying Canada respects human rights, workers’ rights and environmental responsibility.

Officials said the power failures began in the early morning and quickly spread across eight states in the vast region. An estimate by energy companies indicated at least 13 million people were affected.

In some areas, the power was only out for a few minutes, in other areas a few hours.

The world’s biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display glass predicts the global appetite for flat-panel LCD TVs, computers and mobile devices will drive up industry volume to around 5 billion square feet in 2014 from 3.1 billion square feet now.

Demand for LCD glass in 2011 will run between 3.6 billion and 3.8 billion square feet, it said.

In a letter to claims czar Kenneth Feinberg obtained by The Associated Press, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli alluded to the fact that only roughly $3.5 billion of the fund has been spent. Any money not spent goes back to BP.

Perrelli also said that Feinberg needs to be more transparent, and that his Gulf Coast Claims Facility should take a second look at the emergency advance payments the fund paid to victims to determine if the process was fair.