Business Highlights
Ramon Fonseca, a co-founder of the firm, said Monday that his country's success in establishing itself as an offshore banking giant has bred jealousy from first-world rivals at a time of increasing competition and scrutiny of the industry in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. plans to build a new $1.6 billion auto assembly plant in Mexico, creating about 2,800 jobs and shifting small-car production from the U.S. at a time when moving jobs south of the border has become a major issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
[...] the United Auto Workers union has said Ford plans to shift production of the Focus compact and C-Max small gas-electric hybrid from suburban Detroit to Mexico, where the cars can be made at lower cost and more profitably.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — PayPal said Tuesday that it was scrapping a $3.6-million, 400-job expansion in North Carolina, the biggest tangible economic backlash so far to a new state law that restricts protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
PayPal's announcement came days after Lionsgate decided to move the filming for the pilot episode of a comedy series to Canada.
Two of Asia's biggest social media players, Kakao Talk and Line, are growing by making mobile messaging apps an integral part of the lives of young Asians who prefer to communicate more privately instead of shouting out in virtual arenas and risking troubles with trolls — or disclosing aspects of their lives to their parents they'd rather not share.
Even South Korean government officials prefer Kakao chat rooms for communicating with colleagues as opposed to email.
In Japan, where Line users outnumber those on Facebook or Twitter, people buy cute digital stickers to link to messages and use the app to search for music and jobs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit rose in February to the highest level in six months as the growth in imports outpaced a modest rise in exports.
The sandwich chain says its new menu boards with calorie counts are already rolling out around the country and should be up in all 27,000 of its U.S. stores by April 11.
The decision to forge ahead comes as restaurant chains have awaited the Food and Drug Administration's final guidance and enforcement of a rule requiring food sellers with 20 or more locations to post the information.
Heating oil fell 1 cent to $1.075 a gallon, wholesale gasoline was unchanged at $1.378 a gallon and natural gas fell 4 cents to $1.954 per thousand cubic feet.