Retailers face chilly holiday season

Faced with the prospect of a $4 billion drop in consumer spending this holiday season, retailers in Michigan and across the country are offering Black Friday promotions before Thanksgiving and touting inexpensive gifts to lure more shoppers. - 11/23/2009

• Retailers ramp up specials

October home sales rise 10.1% from September

Washington -- Home sales far exceeded expectations last month, surging to the highest level in 2 1/2 years as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of an expiring tax credit. - 11/23/2009

Holiday trimmings on your rental car

Travelers have been able to score decent deals on hotel rooms and airfares over the last year. But car rental prices have increased dramatically despite the weak economy. - 11/23/2009

Retailers ramp up specials

Retailers are getting creative in a tough holiday season, vying for cash-strapped customers with tactics that range from dropping prices to accepting food stamps to offering layaway online. - 11/23/2009

• Retailers face chilly holiday season

Rising unemployment taxes could hinder hiring

WASHINGTON -- As if small businesses needed another reason not to hire, consider their latest financial burden: The cost of rising unemployment itself. - 11/23/2009

Late payments on credit cards drop in 3rd quarter

NEW YORK -- For the first time in a decade, more people paid their credit card bills on time in the third quarter this year than in the second quarter. - 11/23/2009

Small Talk: Peter Wilde maintains Townsend's elegance despite dour economy

The Townsend Hotel in Birmingham is a Mobil four-star and AAA four-diamond hotel, as well as a perennial favorite on the Condé Nast list of top hotels. How does such an elegant place keep its cool during an ugly recession? We asked Peter Wilde, the Townsend's longtime managing director. - 11/23/2009

Canadian woman vows fight after benefits cut over Facebook photos

Montreal -- A Canadian woman on sick leave for depression said Monday she would fight an insurance company's decision to cut her benefits after her agent found photos on Facebook of her vacationing, at a bar and at a party. - 11/23/2009

South Koreans to get Apple's iPhone this week

SEOUL, South Korea -- Apple Inc's iPhone is coming to South Korea this week, a local carrier announced Sunday, bringing the iconic communications device to one of the world's most sophisticated mobile phone markets. - 11/23/2009

Crib recall is biggest in U.S. history

Washington -- More than 2.1 million drop-side cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing are being recalled, the biggest crib recall in U.S history, following reports of four infant suffocations. - 11/23/2009

3 ways to give thanks at work

With Thanksgiving this week, it's the season for giving thanks, even in the often thankless Motor City. - 11/23/2009

N'West prepares for WiFi takeoff

Connectivity -- at a cost, of course -- is coming to Northwest Airlines. The move to add in-flight WiFi access to Northwest's fleet by June comes as Delta Air Lines Inc. continues scrubbing the Northwest brand as part of the companies' merger. - 11/21/2009

Michigan firm grows from car ads to movies

Southfield --This summer, after the streets of Detroit wrapped up moonlighting as New Orleans for the murder mystery flick "Little Murder," surreptitious nighttime deliveries were made at a nondescript Southfield office building just off Northwestern Highway. - 11/21/2009

• On the set of 'Little Murder:' How Detroit landed starring film role

Baby Boomers boost tour bus business

Tour bus business is booming as the first wave of baby boomers retire and increasingly choose motor coaches as a means of travel. - 11/21/2009

U-M economists forecast no employment growth until 2011

By the time Michigan begins to pull out of this economic downturn, the state will have lost nearly 1 million jobs. That's the grim assessment in an annual forecast from the University of Michigan's Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics. - 11/21/2009

Business briefs

Detroit -- The chief federal judge in Detroit denied bond Friday to a Chinese citizen accused of stealing up to $32 million worth of Ford Motor Co. engineering plans. On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark A. Randon agreed to release Xiang Dong Yu on a $100,000 bond with an electronic tether. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Cathleen Corken appealed that ruling to Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen, arguing the former Ford product engineer is a flight risk. - 11/21/2009

Bloomfield Hills developer fills retail gap

As shopping centers nationwide grapple with empty storefronts left behind by bankrupt clothing chain Steve & Barry's, a local developer is plugging holes with a new retail concept that's growing in a tough economy. - 11/20/2009