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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 […]

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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 […]

One of the first Canadian digital-era laws was the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act, a model law created by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in the late 1990s. The ULCC brings together officials from federal, provincial, and territorial governments to work on model laws that can be implemented in a similar manner across all Canadian […]

A U.S.-backed plan to forge a Pacific free trade bloc got a big boost Sunday when leaders of Canada and Mexico joined Japan in expressing support for a deal that has received a cool reception from China, the region’s rising power.
The news was a coup for President Barack Obama, who made progress on the pact […]

The Occupy Wall Street protests are hitting a nerve.
A dearth of jobs, overwhelming student loans and soaring health-care costs are just three major issues protesters have targeted. And regardless of politics, economic data suggests they’re not alone in their frustrations.
It may be why the protests have spread to other cities _ including Boston, Cincinnati, Seattle […]

Stocks are closing higher for the third day in a row on hopes that European leaders are moving closer to a plan to contain that region’s debt crisis.
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would do whatever it could to help Greece. Greece’s finance minister also said that country would receive the next round of […]

ST. LOUIS - The first international cargo flight from China landed at Lambert International Airport today.
The China cargo Boeing 777 landed at 3:50 p.m. Local leaders said they hoped it would be the first of many cargo flights from China at the airport.
Helping attract a cargo hub at Lambert is one of the issues being […]

The leaders of France and Germany are pushing all 17 nations that use the euro to enshrine balanced budgets in their constitutions and want greater collective governance of the eurozone.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel want a “true European economic government” that would consist of the heads of state and […]

As students troop off to college this fall, parents with children of all ages have their heads spinning from a volatile investment year of troubling world and national events.
That makes it the perfect time for them to get their heads on straight. Early, regular investment in their children’s future, made just like a car or […]

Clayton-based Spellman Brady & Co. provided the furniture and signs for the recent renovation of Anheuser-Busch Hall at Fontbonne University.
The three-story, 44,000 square-foot building houses three departments