| Toyota to Shut Factories for 11 Days | Toyota Motor will idle its plants in Japan for 11 days in February and March to reduce output in the face of steeply declining global vehicle sales, the company said Tuesday.
| | New York Times |
| Living Apart for the Paycheck | An uncertain economy leaves more families living in different time zones, depending on video chats and technology like Skype for quality time.
| | New York Times |
| Gunmen in Greece Attack Policemen | A policeman was seriously injured in the latest sign of surging extremism after the police shooting of a teenage boy last month.
| | New York Times |
| GM says China '08 sales up 6 pct but growth slows | | BEIJING -- General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its sales in China rose 6 percent to 1.09 million vehicles in 2008, but growth slowed as consumers held back amid an economic downturn. | | Washington Post | | Toyota to suspend production for 11 days in Japan | | TOKYO -- Toyota is suspending production at all 12 of its Japan plants for 11 days over February and March, a stoppage of unprecedented scale for the nation's top automaker as it grapples with shrinking global demand. | | Washington Post | | Toyota orders 11-day output halt as sales slump | | TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> is to halt production at its Japanese plants for 11 days in February and March as a sharp slide in U.S. sales has left dealers' lots full of unsold cars. | | Washington Post | | Volkswagen shares gain as Porsche gets majority | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Shares in Volkswagen <VOWG.DE> traded higher on Tuesday, pacing European auto stocks, following news late on Monday that Porsche SE <PSHG_p.DE> raised its voting stake in the world's third-largest carmaker to a majority.
 | | Washington Post |
| Editorial -- George W. Bush Becomes the Ocean Conservation President. | | YES, YOU READ that right. A man whose administration doesn't exactly have a green seal of approval from environmentalists will grant monument status today to three vast and breathtaking areas teeming with marine life in the South Pacific. Combined with other designations over the past eight years, including the creation of a 138,000-square-mile marine national monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands two years ago, Mr. Bush has now protected more ocean habitat (333,000 square miles) than any of his predecessors. | | Washington Post | | Editorial -- D.C. Sells Schools, but Shuts Out Charters | | DISTRICT OFFICIALS recently announced that they have 11 former school buildings for sale to developers interested in using the sites for retail, offices or housing. Never mind that at least a dozen charter schools, desperate for new facilities, had hoped to acquire the spaces. Never mind that, by law, the charter schools are supposed to get first dibs. What's clear is that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is being as stingy as the previous administration was in denying public charter schools their rightful access to public facilities. | | Washington Post | | Editorial -- HUD's Modest Step Toward a More Transparent Housing Market | | FOR ALL THE recent troubles in the housing market, homeownership is still a big part of the American dream. But for millions of people, the dream turns momentarily nightmarish when they sit down at closing, take up a pen and nervously start signing a sheaf of complicated documents whose fine print only a seasoned real estate lawyer can comprehend. The cost is not only emotional but financial. Complexity makes it harder for people to compare the true price of competing mortgage products. A 2008 Urban Institute study, sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), found that "complicated loan arrangements raise the total costs to homebuyers," often by hundreds of dollars per transaction. The burden is especially heavy for minorities and those with less education. But the issue affects everyone: During the subprime mortgage boom, unintelligible terms helped to lure many people into loans that they could not afford, and the whole country is now paying for that disaster. | | Washington Post | | Terms of Trade | MANY FORCES helped propel Barack Obama to victory in the presidential election in 2008: the financial crisis, an unpopular war in Iraq, dissatisfaction with President Bush -- not to mention his own considerable merits. But when Americans told pollsters the country was on the wrong track, they were also expressing unease about its long-term economic and social strength -- its capacity to sustain a broad middle class upon which community, country and democracy itself rest. And at the heart of that anxiety is the loss of the good-paying manufacturing jobs that, both in reality and in collective imagination, made America great. Hence Mr. Obama's promise of 5 million new "green" jobs that "pay well and can't be outsourced."
 | | Washington Post |
| U.S. Debt Set to Soar in This Year | | With President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, an unprecedented increase that could test the world's appetite for financi...
 | | Washington Post | | Treasury Maintains Leeway in Auto Aid | | The Treasury Department has given itself wide latitude in aiding U.S. automakers under formal guidelines published yesterday for its bailout of the industry.
 | | Washington Post | | '08: Our Date With Disaster | | When did 2008 begin? Was it Oct. 14, when the federal government spent the first dollar of taxpayer money to buy into private banks, effectively changing the principles of the U.S. economy? Was it Sept. 21, when Treasury secretary Hank M. Paulson Jr. gave Congress a three-page plea for $700 billi...
 | | Washington Post |
| Putin Orders Reduction in Gas Sent to Europe Through Ukraine | | MOSCOW, Jan. 5 -- Russia said Monday that it is sharply reducing the amount of natural gas it ships to Europe through Ukraine, deepening its fuel embargo of the former Soviet republic as supply disruptions spread to other countries and a top Ukrainian official warned of "catastrophe" for the...
 | | Washington Post | | Self-Styled 9/11 Planner On Trial in Tunisia Blast | | PARIS, Jan. 5 -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-styled mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, went on trial in Paris on Monday on charges he helped organize a truck-bomb attack on an ancient Tunisian synagogue seven months later in which 21 people were killed.
 | | Washington Post | | Russian Gas Embargo on Ukraine Is Felt In E. Europe | | MOSCOW, Jan. 3 -- The impact of Russia's natural gas embargo against Ukraine spread to several Eastern European countries Saturday, as a senior Ukrainian official warned of serious fuel disruptions across the continent in as little as 10 days if Russia refused to resume shipments.
 | | Washington Post |
| DEAL FOR 1540 B'WAY | | DEUTSCHE Bank has given up on trying to sell two big office towers formerly owned by Harry and Billy Macklowe as a package and instead plans to unload just one of them for the time being. Sources said a deal is looming to sell the office portion... | | New York Post | | WHY YOU SHOULD KEEP A WARY EYE ON US TREASURIES | | THIS year you should worry about bonds. You say you don't own any. Well, that doesn't really matter because if the bond market is in a bubble - like I think it is - and it bursts, then the whole economy is going to suffer even greater pain... | | New York Post | | GOODY'S CHAIN IS CLOSING | | The New Year is poised to claim its first big victim in retail. Goody's Family Clothing - a 55-year-old retailer that operates 287 discount stores across the Southeast - is going out of business for good, sources told The Post. Following a... | | New York Post | | PERELMAN HOPES TO RE-OPEN MORGAN CASE | | Financier Ronald Perelman asked a Florida court to reopen an almost $1.6 billion case against Morgan Stanley over the sale of Coleman Co. to one of the investment bank's clients. Perelman, who controls cosmetics maker Revlon Inc., wants the state... | | New York Post |
| PIGGY SKIPS POKEY TIME ONCE AGAIN | | EVEN The Piggy looked shocked when he walked out of the courtroom a free man. Bernie Madoff arrived in Manhattan federal court yesterday with an indentation marking the spot where his wedding ring usually resides. It was clear that he believed... | | New York Post | | 'I'M SORRY, JETT' | | John Travolta, his eyes filled with tears, bade his son an emotional farewell at a Bahamian hospital, hugging the teen's lifeless body and telling him, "I'm sorry, Jett," according to a witness to the heart-wrenching scene. Tarino Lightbourn, the... | | New York Post | | MILKY WAY'S NEW STARDOM | | WASHINGTON -For decades, astronomers thought the Milky Way was weaker than Andromeda. Not anymore. The Milky Way galaxy is larger and spinning faster than was thought. Scientists mapped the Milky Way and found that it's 15 percent larger than... | | New York Post | | BLAGO'S PICK: LET ME SERVE | | CHICAGO - Defiant and upbeat, Illinois US Senate appointee Roland Burris said yesterday that upon arriving in Washington, he plans to tell Democratic leaders: "I'm here to take my seat." But Burris faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill, where... | | New York Post |
| RESOLVE MEETS REALITY | | NEW Year's resolutions are heady things. They invite goals that would sweep away bad habits the instant midnight strikes. Yet while "out with the old, in with the new" is a catchy phrase, it can invite overreaching goals that end up being... | | New York Post | | HELPFUL HINTS | | Here are some tips that made my weight loss, if not easy, at least less difficult. - K.S. 1. Prepare to win. Make sure you are stocked up on healthy foods. When there's "nothing to eat," that's when people turn to quick, easy, junky alternatives... | | New York Post | | THE RADICAL NEW WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT | | A year ago, like millions of other Americans, I made a resolution to lose weight. I was porked out and tipping the begging-for-mercy scales at more than 200 pounds - and I'm only 5-foot-7. Today, I am 40 pounds lighter! How I did it is really quite... | | New York Post | | BY THE BOOKS | | IF you absolutley have to have a fad diet, here is the latest crop of diet books: n "The 9-Inch Diet," by Alex Bogusky with Chuck Porter The claim: Your dinnerware is making you fat. Statistics show that from 1950 to today, our plates have grown 3... | | New York Post |
| NO ONE'S LAUGHING AMID ALL THESE DOUBTS | | YESTERDAY, the Can vassing Board presid ing over the recount in Minnesota's Senate election declared Democrat Al Franken the winner over incumbent Norm Coleman - by 225 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. Despite Franken's career as a comedian... | | New York Post | | NO 'FAIR' FIGHT WITH TERROR | | "If you're in your apartment, and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on your door, screaming, 'I am going to come through this door and kill you,' do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or with all... | | New York Post | | TOUGH TIMES FOR EL LOCO | | Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez fashions himself as many things: statesman, revolutionary and sworn enemy of American "imperialism," to name a few. But how about as Santa Claus? That's what former congressman and Kennedy scion Joseph Kennedy... | | New York Post | | TRULY SICKENING FRAUD | | It's not often that you hear about hospi tals scamming the public, but The Post's Carl Campanile yesterday re ported at least seven in New York that have been accused of doing just that. To the tune of more than $50 million in lost Medicaid... | | New York Post |
| Bret Stephens: An Endgame for Israel | | Maybe this column would get a better reception if it were titled, "No Endgame for Israel." Because the quantity of commentary claiming that Israel cannot possibly achieve any kind of successful outcome in Gaza is already approaching presurge levels of Iraq defeatism.
 | | Wall Street Journal |
| Stimulus Would Expand Tax Credit | | Obama met with lawmakers to begin selling his stimulus plan as his advisers offered more details, including a proposal to expand the child tax credit for poor families. | | Wall Street Journal | | China Urges Real-Estate Developers to Cut Prices | | China said Tuesday it will expand public housing and urged real-estate developers to cut prices, as it tries to boost construction and housing sales to avert bigger job losses and support the weakening economy. | | Wall Street Journal | | South Korea Unveils Jobs Program | | South Korea unveiled a job-creation program worth $32.7 billion, adding to a fiscal stimulus package announced early last month and focused chiefly on tax cuts. | | Wall Street Journal |
| Russian Gas Supplies Tighten Further | | Russian gas supplies to a swathe of Europe were all but cut off as temperatures plummeted across the region, raising the stakes in a pricing dispute between Moscow and Ukraine.
 | | Wall Street Journal | | Europe Turns Higher, Led by Drug Makers | | European shares wiped out early losses, with pharmaceutical companies and retailers leading the gains. London's FTSE turned higher, rising 0.8%.
 | | Wall Street Journal | | German Leaders Agree to Stimulus | | Germany's ruling coalition agreed to the broad outlines of a fiscal-stimulus program valued at as much as $69 billion this year and next.
 | | Wall Street Journal |
| Apple's Jobs Under Treatment to Gain Weight | | Steve Jobs disclosed that a "hormone imbalance" has been causing him to lose weight. The health of the Apple CEO has been a major concern among investors over the past year.
 | | Wall Street Journal | | The Switch to Digital TV Hits a Snag | | The demand for cheap digital-TV converter boxes is exceeding expectations. But amid higher demand, the government is running out of money to subsidize the purchase of the converters.
 | | Wall Street Journal | | Ad Shops Eye Web Space | | Madison Avenue took a back seat as technology companies created the tools to buy advertising space online. Now, major ad holding companies are developing their own systems.
 | | Wall Street Journal | | Logitech Abandons 2009 Targets | | Logitech withdrew its financial targets for fiscal 2009 and said it would slash jobs, citing the deepening global recession.
 | | Wall Street Journal |
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