NPR Audio - Business

Hershey, hoping to expand its overseas presence, has lined up a potential partner, Italian candymaker Ferrero International SA, in a possible bidding war for British candy maker Cadbury PLC. The combination could have the financial firepower to top a $16.4 billion hostile bid by Kraft Foods Inc.

The Web site Recovery.gov says more than 640,000 jobs have been created or saved by the government stimulus. But the head of the board that tracks stimulus spending tells Congress he can't certify that number is "accurate and auditable." A reporter finds that counting the jobs created or saved isn't an easy task.

Prices for MRIs are much cheaper in Japan than in the U.S. The difference in prices provides some insight into why health care costs are so high in the U.S. There's something else at work, too. MRIs are very popular in Japan: Some people get them every year even if they aren't sick.

Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to repurchase about $1.3 billion in soured auction-rate securities from clients. It is one of more than a dozen financial firms that have agreed with regulators to buy back the risky investments, which lost most of their value as the credit crisis worsened.

The world's largest chocolate makers are gearing up for a potential corporate battle to buy Britain's Cadbury, with Hershey and Ferrero saying Wednesday they were considering an offer to rival Kraft's hostile takeover bid.

Construction of new homes plunged last month as builders waited to see whether lawmakers would extend a tax credit for homebuyers. Building permits, an indicator of future housing activity, fell 4 percent. In a separate report, consumer prices edged up 0.3 percent in October as energy and new car prices both advanced.

Jobs will lag the rest of the economy by 12 to 18 months, Vice President Biden tells The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

Throughout the holidays, Google is subsidizing free wireless Internet access at dozens of airports across the country. It offers travelers a break from those pesky fees they usually have to pay to log onto airport WiFi. Google's doing this in part to promote its new browser called Chrome.

Farmers are scrambling to finish the harvest before winter sets in. Rainy conditions have left crops in many parts of the country too wet to be harvested, and fields too soggy to handle heavy farm equipment. The longer plants sit out in the field, the greater the risk that farmers' profits will shrink because of crop damage.

It's been a snowy fall across the West, and that has skiers and ski resorts in the region cheering. The chairlifts typically start moving around Thanksgiving. But this year many ski areas are boasting their earliest ever openings.

British chocolate maker Cadbury is trying to fend off a hostile takeover by the American food company Kraft. Hershey and Ferrero International say they're considering a possible offer for Cadbury too. The move raises the possibility of a takeover battle.

You may not ever take a flight to a place like Hot Springs, Ark. — but you're paying part of the cost for people who do. Under a decades-old government program, federal money is used to subsidize commercial air service for small communities that can't support it on their own.

New Moon, the latest movie in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight vampire saga, is sucking in marketers, who are using the franchise's characters to sell everything from bottled water to late-model luxury cars.

Taiwan and China are enjoying their warmest relations in years, with stronger economic ties that have been welcomed by the business community. As President Obama visits Asia, some Taiwanese warn that their country could pay a price for expanding commerce with China.

The Washington Blade, an influential newspaper that serves Washington, D.C.'s gay community, was shut down Monday when its owner, Window Media LLC, ceased operations. The paper's editor, Kevin Naff, says the staff has met and laid out plans for a new publication.

The Federal Reserve could have paid less to banks that made risky deals with insurance giant AIG, a government watchdog reports. Treasury officials say the Fed was acting to avert a crisis and that it needs better financial regulatory tools.

Bowl & Board succumbed to the recession this fall after 43 years in business. But the end was somewhat anticlimactic. After liquidation specialists swarmed through the store taking inventory, owner Mark Giarrusso prepared for the store's final sale.

The National Security Agency has been working with Microsoft Corp. to help improve security measures for its new Windows 7 operating system, a senior NSA official said on Tuesday.

In the run-up to the financial crisis, the U.S. and China reinforced each other's bad habits. President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, on Tuesday agreed to address the imbalances that helped bring about the financial crisis. But change won't come easily.

A flood of people came forward in the last days before an amnesty program expired Oct. 15. The total far surpasses the number of people who disclose offshore accounts in a typical year — about 100 — and comes amid a broad U.S. crackdown on international tax evasion.

The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows. For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, up 58 percent from a year ago.

The Internal Revenue Service says more than 14,700 taxpayers fessed up and disclosed they had tried to hide money in offshore bank accounts during its recent amnesty program

Industrial production edged up a smaller-than-expected 0.1 percent in October but output at factories — the single biggest slice of industrial output — declined. Meanwhile, wholesale prices rose 0.3 percent last month, showing a weak economy is keeping inflation pressures largely in check.

Officials at the Federal Reserve have stepped up consumer protection efforts. They proposed new rules that would ban many of the fees that eat into the value of gift cards. It's estimated that more than 95 percent of Americans have received or purchased gift cards. One rule would ban card issuers from levying fees on cards that aren't used within a certain amount of time.

The basketball legend has a new business venture. The Los Angeles Times reports that Magic Johnson Enterprises is teaming up with Los Angeles money manager TCW Group to lend to mid-sized firms. Johnson's company and TCW plan to lend to medium-sized companies, using money from big investors.

As DVD sales decline, Hollywood studios are looking for ways to get movies straight to consumers' living rooms. This has some industry insiders worried that Hollywood is jeopardizing its most valuable asset: the theatrical release date. The movie industry is looking to change the way it distributes content.

Apple growers in New England are looking to hard cider as a way to beat dropping prices and foreign competition. The fermented cider was the drink of choice for the nation's founding fathers. One New Hampshire orchard is out to turn the region into the Napa Valley of hard cider.

A Sioux tribe based in Lower Brule, S.D., just bought the Westrock Group, making the company the first fully Native American-owned investment firm. As a tribal business Westrock will gain access to a new pool of money and it won't have to pay federal income tax.

Paul Allen, who founded the software giant with Bill Gates, has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The 56-year-old Allen is a prolific investor in real estate, technology companies and sports teams. He owns football's Seattle Seahawks and basketball's Portland Trail Blazers.

A group of executives from more than a dozen auto, transportation and energy companies launched a new coalition Monday to urge the federal government to make a major investment in electric transportation. Their goal is to bring 100 million electric cars to the road by 2030.

Automaker General Motors announced Monday it lost $1.2 billion since emerging from bankruptcy protection. The company also said it will begin repaying $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans with a $1.2 billion payment in December.

The nation's largest publisher of newspapers serving the gay and lesbian community has shut down. The move affects the Washington Blade, Houston Voice and several other publications.

A new musical in London has an unusual storyline: The collapse in 2001 of the Houston-based energy company Enron. The play centers on former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and his efforts to make Enron a global corporate titan. It all plays out as a sort of Faust meets Citizen Kane.

Retailers have been rolling out aggressive TV and online advertisements in an early effort to woo consumers. But economists expect consumers to spend about the same amount as they did last year, during one of the worst holiday retail seasons on record.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says it's likely the economy will continue to slowly grow in 2010. But he says constrained bank lending and a weak job market "likely will prevent the expansion from being as robust as we would hope."

An analysis for the AARP found that prices on brand-name drugs rose 9 percent in the last year, an amount estimated to add about $10 billion in costs.

Coshocton County, Ohio, offered residents free wireless Internet access in the block surrounding the courthouse. But that free WiFi was shut down last week after a single user illegally downloaded a movie. Sony Pictures notified the county's Internet provider, which then sent a note to the county. Coshocton's free WiFi has been restored — apparently after the county received assurances from Sony that no action would be taken.

General Motors' latest earnings report shows the automaker lost $1.2 billion from the time it left bankruptcy protection through Sept. 30. The loss is smaller than in previous quarters. GM also said it will begin repaying $6.7 billion in government loans next month. That's several years earlier than the previous plan.

Retail sales rose 1.4 percent in October, which was more than expected but largely driven higher by auto sales. But consumer spending remains under pressure, raising questions about the durability of the recovery.