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Billionaire Warren Buffett donated stock in his company worth $41.6 million to eight unnamed charities during the second half of 2011.

Buffett revealed the donations Wednesday in a year-end update on his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock holdings.

Buffett gave away 521,292 Class B shares of Berkshire stock between July and the end of December. These gifts are in addition to Buffett’s annual gifts to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the four Buffett family foundations that are slated to eventually receive most of Buffett’s fortune need a personal loan with bad credit.

The new stock donations included one sizeable gift of 394,737 shares worth roughly $31.5 million.

Buffett has said he plans to eventually donate all of his 350,000 Class A and 26.2 million Class B shares of Berkshire stock worth about $44 billion to charities.

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Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said slower inflation gives policy makers room to increase bond purchases to aid the U.K. economy and guard against a

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The new man at the top of struggling Research In Motion Ltd. says his priority is to reinvigorate marketing and restore growth in the U.S., adding that he has no intention of allowing the iconic BlackBerry maker to be broken apart and sold in pieces.

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Microsoft and IBM drove the Dow Jones industrial average up after the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts had expected.

The Dow rose 97 points Friday to close at 12,720. That’s a gain of 0.8 percent.

The S&P 500 index inched up 1 point to 1,315.

An earnings miss by Google caused its stock to plunge 8 percent, pulling down the Nasdaq. The Nasdaq fell 2 to 2,786.

All three major indexes still ended the week with gains of 2 percent or more. The S&P 500 has closed higher on 11 of the past 13 days and is now up 4.6 percent for the year.

Roughly four stocks rose for every three that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was below average at 3.9 billion shares.

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U.S. stock futures are mixed, portending a cautious opening as Greece holds another round of debt-reduction with its creditors.

Dow futures are down 3 points at 12,584. The broader S&P 500 futures are down 2 points to 1,308.

The Nasdaq composite is up 5 points to 2,430. The tech-heavy index is getting a boost from solid earnings at IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. Intel’s earnings were hurt less than feared by flooding in Thailand that shut many plants that make computer hard drives.

Later, investors will look to a trade group’s reports on the number of previously occupied homes sold in December.

Asian stock markets rose amid signs the U.S. economy is picking up steam. But European markets mostly fell as nervous traders awaited results of Greece’s negotiations.

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Almost all U.S. metropolitan areas will see job growth in 2012, but for many areas it will still take years for employment to return to pre-recession levels, according to a report released on Wednesday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

All but three U.S. metro areas will have job gains this year, led by expected growth of 3 percent in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, according to the forecast, which was conducted by IHS Global Insight for the mayors’ group ahead of its annual meeting in Washington this week.

Employment will likely shrink the most in Carson City, Nevada, falling by 1.1 percent. It will also drop in Odessa, Texas, by 0.1 percent, and in Midland, Texas, by 0.2 percent, IHS forecast.

Health services, trade, transportation, utilities and business services will provide the biggest jobs boost, the report found.

“By the end of this year, the report forecasts that almost every one of our 363 metro economies will see job gains, and the nation will have gained back 48 percent of its lost jobs,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is also president of the Conference of Mayors. “But despite this progress, one thing remains clear: the recovery is slow and it’s uneven.”

In 2011, employment declined in 125 metro areas.

The housing bust put many in the construction industry out of work, and it was followed by a recession that caused thousands of layoffs. In 2011, local and state governments, crunched by revenue drops, slashed their payrolls, primarily in education.

The national unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 35 straight months; it peaked in October 2009 at 10 percent.

Recently, though, it has been edging down, falling to 8 payday loan no faxing.5 percent in December, and cities hope that soon they will return to the employment highs reached before the recession began in late 2007.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department reported that unemployment rates were lower in November than a year earlier in 351 of the 372 metropolitan areas it surveyed, and 259 metropolitan areas said nonfarm payroll employment had increased.

“At this time only 26 metro areas have completely recovered jobs lost in the recession. By the end of 2012, another 26 will have, and an additional 99 will have recouped over one-half of their losses,” IHS forecast.

“But for almost 80 metros, full recovery is over five years away. The recovery is very uneven across U.S. regions, with the southeastern and southwestern metros, who were most affected by the housing bubble, looking ahead to years of recovery.”

The wide range of recovery was apparent in 2011. While a third of the U.S. metropolitan areas registered job growth above the national average of 1.3 percent, 241 fell below that mark.

The IHS forecast found growing disparities in wealth could especially threaten cities, where most Americans live and work.

“Income decline and increasing inequality is an important issue for metro areas, as the trend in median income decline has not been experienced evenly,” it said. “From 2009 to 2010, metro area households experienced a 2.2 percent decline in median household income while households in rural areas did not experience a statistically significant decline.”

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NEW YORK • The nation’s largest retail trade group expects a solid 3.4 percent increase in sales this year, below last year’s 4.7 percent increase as job woes weigh on shoppers.

Sales should reach $2.53 trillion this year, up from last year’s $2.45 trillion, boosted in part by higher prices across all goods, according to a report Monday from the National Retail Federation.

The 3.4 percent bump would still outpace the 10-year annual average increase of almost 3.1 percent and would mark a third consecutive year of recovery for consumer spending. Sales slumped 3.5 percent in 2009 with the nation still deep in recession no fax needed payday loans.

However, sales remain well below the 5.5 percent or more that the country would typically see in better economic times.

“The forecast is a reflection of the economic conditions. Things have gotten modestly better, but we still have a long way to go,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the retail group, based in Washington.

Consumer confidence, while rising, is still below what would be considered healthy.

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People infuriated by what they call a discriminatory ban on photography by one of Italian fashion label Dolce & Gabbana’s Hong Kong outlets have protested outside the store.

Several dozen people gathered outside the shop Sunday afternoon. They yelled for the company to apologize after news reports earlier this month said sales staff were preventing Hong Kong people _ but not mainland Chinese _ from taking photos of the shop windows from the sidewalk.

It’s at least the third protest in a week. An earlier rally last Sunday drew hundreds easy payday loans.

Dolce & Gabbana said in a statement last week that it “has not taken part in any action aiming at offending the Hong Kong public.”

The protest highlights simmering resentment among local residents over the growing influence that wealthy Chinese have over the city.

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WASHINGTON • Fixed mortgage rates fell once again to a record low, offering a great opportunity for those who can afford to buy or refinance homes. But few are able to take advantage of the historic rates.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.89 percent. That’s below the previous record of 3.91 percent reached three weeks ago.

Records for mortgage rates date back to the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 3.16 percent. That’s down from a record 3.21 percent three weeks ago.

Mortgage rates are lower because they track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 2 percent. They could fall even lower this year if the Fed launches another round of bond purchases, as some economists expect.

Average fixed mortgage rates hovered around 4 percent at the end of 2011. Yet many Americans either can’t take advantage of the rates or have already done so.

High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don’t want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.

Mortgage applications have fallen slightly on a seasonally adjusted basis over the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said that until hiring picked up and unemployment dropped significantly, the impact of lower mortgage rates would remain muted free credit report and score.

Previously occupied homes are selling just slightly ahead of 2010’s dismal pace. New-home sales in 2011 are likely to have the worst year on records going back half a century.

Builders hope that the low rates could boost sales next year. Low mortgage rates were cited as a key reason the National Association of Home Builders survey of builder sentiment rose in December to its highest level in more than a year.

But so far, they have had little impact on the depressed housing market.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week. The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for the 30-year loan fell to 0.7 from 0.8; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.

For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate declined to 2.82 percent from 2.86 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan fell to 2.76 percent from 2.80 percent.

The average fee on the five-year adjustable loan rose was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the one-year adjustable-rate loan was unchanged at 0.6.

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China stands to be the biggest beneficiary of U.S. and European plans for sanctions on Iran

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