Falling mortgage rates fueled by the Fed are having only a limited impact on the economy, said Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley Monday.

MONEY-Sprint-Softbank-Purchase

Sprint Nextel on Monday said that it has agreed to sell a majority of the company to Japanese tech giant SoftBank.

MONEY-Retail-Sales

Higher gas prices and strong car and electronics sales combined to lift retail sales in September, the government reported Monday.

MONEY-sprint-softbank-purchase

Sprint Nextel said Monday that it has agreed to sell a 70% stake to Japan's SoftBank for $20.1 billion, completing a deal that has been reported in the works for several days.

MONEY-brazil

Brazil may not be growing the way it once was, but there are still opportunities to be had in Latin America's largest economy.

MONEY-chile-pinera-economy-business

Sebastián Piñera is a man on a mission. The Chilean President wants to transform his homeland into a developed nation by 2020.

murdoch-tweet-scumbags

When Rupert Murdoch fired off a tweet Saturday about some "scumbag celebrities" he didn't mean "any particular people," the Newscorp boss later tweeted. "I never referred to any particular people, just some 'dodgy' self promoting celebrities," he said, adding the words: "Repeat apology for language."

FEATURES AND COMMENTARY

TECH-space-jump-tech

As high-tech reality TV goes, it's hard to top Sunday's riveting leap from the stratosphere by Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner.

ENT-Rolling-Stones-Announce-Concert-Dates

The Rolling Stones are celebrating their 50th anniversary year in the best way fans could hope for - by returning to the stage. The group announced Monday that they're set to play four arena shows in coming weeks: two in London and two in Newark, New Jersey.

Freedom-bonded-labor

In parts of South Asia, a typical debt bondage arrangement involves a person receiving food and shelter as credit in exchange for slave-like labor exploitation. The upper classes of Nepal, for instance, see such an arrangement as completely justified because the alternative for a low-caste girl would be worse -- destitution in her village or trafficking to India for forced prostitution.

FEA-presidential-fashion

During tomorrow evening's presidential debate, the flashbulb-wielding peanut gallery will express more curiosity about health care reform and foreign policy than about who designed Mitt Romney's ensemble. But while what each candidate is wearing certainly isn't ballot-worthy, neither campaign seems to be taking any chances -- even with something as small as an American flag lapel pin.

COMMENTARY-rogers-debate-dodges

When politicians dodge questions, they send an implicit signal that they believe that their answer to the actual question could negatively affect how voters view them. These are exactly the questions we need them to answer.

MED-HPV-Vaccine

There's been a lot of controversy over the HPV vaccine. Because Gardasil is designed to protect young people against human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted disease, some people believe the inoculation gives teens the go-ahead to have sex.

MED-Kids-Sleep

Sleepy school children make crabby classmates, while students who get plenty of sleep are better behaved, according to a new study published this week in the journal Pediatrics.

ENT-Journey-Real-Housewives

Journey's Neal Schon and fromer reality TV star Michaele Salahi are engaged.

COMMENTARY-beckham-child-stunting

Imagine opening your daily newspaper and reading a story about a young child whose body and brain has been damaged forever because he or she didn't get the right nutrition to develop properly. I'm sure you would be outraged. But this is the reality for some 170 million stunted children around the world, according to UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).

COMMENTARY-pakistan-malala-brown-education

News that a 14-year-old Pakistani girl was gunned down by the Taliban simply because she wanted to go to school has sparked a wave of protests and condemnation across the world. As she fights for her life in hospital, Malala Yousafzai is being adopted as every child's sister and every parent's daughter.