Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Congress Friday swiftly passed a deal to extend the payroll-tax cut through the end of 2012, continue paying unemployment benefits and avoid a steep cut in Medicare doctors’s fee, moving forward from a lengthy fight that had tied up legislators for months.

The House voted 293-132 to pass the measure. The Senate quickly followed with a 60-36 vote.

The move averts a tax increase on millions of Americas and the end of this month.

Under the deal, the tax paid by workers to Social Security will remain at 4.2 percent instead of reverting to 6.2 percent on March 1.

The deal also avoids a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors who serve Medicare patients, and extends through year’s end payment rates for Medicare doctors. The costs will be offset in part by taking $5 billion from a prevention and public health program established under President Obama’s signature and hotly debated health-overhaul bill.

Both parties are claiming victory.

Lawmakers now head out of town for a week-long recess.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – China’s exports fell in January by 0.5 percent compared to a year earlier marking the first decline in two years, data showed Friday

Exports dropped to $149.94 billion while imports dived by 15.3 percent to $122.66 billion.

Despite the declines China’s trade surplus grew to $27.28 billion in January up from $16.52 billion the prior month.

Part of the decline was because many factories cut back production or close their doors for the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, also known as the Spring Festival, which fell in January this year. Workers generally want to travel home to celebrate the holiday with family.

However, analysts say the slowdown is further evidence that China’s economy is taking a hit from continued weakness of demand from the struggling U.S. and eurozone economies.

 

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Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN) – The amount of food that will be consumed on Super Bowl Sunday rivals the biggest Thanksgiving Day feasts.

Americans will down 1.25 billion, or 100 million pounds, of chicken wings, enough to circle the Earth more than twice, the National Chicken Council reports. Game watchers will nosh on 13.2 million pounds of pretzels, 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips and 45.8 million pounds of potato chips, according to Nielsen. The Beer Council says 111 million gallons of beer will be consumed. And, according to stats from Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s, 4.4 million pizza pies will be eaten.

Also edging their way into Super Bowl feasts are more healthier fare. There is a 25 percent increase in carrot eating on Super Bowl Sunday compared to other Sundays. And, 71.4 million pounds of heart-healthy avocados (used for guacamole dip) will also be eaten.

According to a Harris Interactive Survey, 54 percent of fans eat throughout the game instead of snacking at specific times; 12 percent start snacking before the game as a warm-up; and 9 percent start feasting after kickoff.

Thirty-two percent will snacks on dips and spreads; 23 percent will chew on chicken wings; 14 percent will dine on pizza and 14 percent will down salty snacks such as chips, peanuts, pretzels or popcorn, the survey found.

The number one player (past or present) fans would most like top have at their Super Bowl party is Joe Montana, Harris said. Tim Tebow takes the second spot, followed by Tom Brady.

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Mountain View, CA, United States (AHN) – Teens as young as 13 can now log into Google’s social network site Google +, with some enhanced safety features. The move is a bid to attract more users.

The service has until now only been open only to adults. The announcement on Thursday comes just after the internet search giant announced changes to its users privacy policy.

Beginning March 1, the company will follow the activities of users as they move across the firm’s web sites, including its highly popular YouTube, Gmail and main search sites. The company said the changes would apply only to users who are signed into the Google accounts.

Under the new tracking policy, Google said it could track the activities of teens as they surf across the company’s Web site and when using Google +.

The enhanced safety features include warnings when teens are about to make public posts and rigid default privacy settings.

Currently, Google has 90 million users on Google+ compared with Facebook’s 800 million.

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Davos, Switzerland (AHN) – The International Monetary Fund joined 10 other economic bodies in warning of a threat to global economies posed by the austerity drives adopted by many governments around the world.

In an expression of concern over the weakness of global economic activity and rising unemployment, the head of the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization on Friday issued a statement warning about the economic and social risks of government austerity programs.

The leaders said they were issuing a “call to action” aimed at boosting economic growth and fighting protectionism. They said that governments needed to formulate policies to create jobs, reduce inequality and help to green the global economy to protect the Earth’s environments.

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, in a joint statement said that world economies faced “significant and urgent challenges.”

The statement was published ahead of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland next week.

There are increasing concerns that the global economy is headed for another severe recession, in part because of the ongoing eurozone crisis.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Wall Street banking giant JPMorgan reported a steep plunge in its quarterly earnings Friday morning caused by large losses in its investment banking and trading divisions.

JPMorgan is the nation’s largest bank by assets.

Bank officials reported that it earned $3.7 billion, or 90 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2011, down by 23 percent from $4.8 billion, or $1.12 per share, during the same quarter a year earlier.

The news caused shares of JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) stock to fall by 3 percent in early trading.

Nevertheless, for the entire year of 2011, profit rose by 9 percent to $18.98 billion, compared with $17.37 billion for 2010.

Net income from investment banking fell by 52 percent to $726 million during the quarter. That drop includes a $567 million loss caused by a narrowing of the spreads between interest rates on certain assets.

However, JPMorgan said that without those debit valuation adjustments the investment banking division would have earned $1.1 billion.

Net income from its asset management business fell by 40 percent to $302 million in the fourth quarter.

However, there was brighter news in JPMorgan’s real estate division portfolio. That lost only $11 million in the fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $823 million a year earlier.

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Wolfsburg, Germany (AHN) – Volkswagen AG announced it had record sales of 5.1 million cars and sport-utility vehicles worldwide in 2011.

Sales were up worldwide by 13.1 percent in 2011 from 2010, company officials said.

Volkswagen is Europe’s largest carmaker.

Although much of its growth came from gains in China, India, Russia and the United States, its two largest markets were Europe and China. The Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker sold 1.72 million vehicles in each of those markets.

However, company officials said they expected challenges in the market environment for 2012.

VW officials credited new versions of some models, such as the Passat, Jetta and Beetle for helping to boost sales in “difficult market conditions.”

The only region that didn’t record strong growth was South America, where sales increased by only 2.2 percent.

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Hoffman Estates, IL, United States (AHN) – Sears Holdings has released a list of 79 Sears and Kmart stores it will close nationwide because of the company’s poor sales over the critical holiday period.

The company did not give an estimate of job losses because it said that employment numbers varied by store.

The first list of stores to close are located in every region of the country. But Florida in the Southeast led the list with 11 stores closing followed by Midwest states Michigan and Ohio with six each.

Alabama, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Virginia are losing three stores each, while Georgia, Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and Wisconsin will lose two each, and Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania and South Carolina will each lose one store. In North Carolina, four stores will close.

Sears (SHLD, Fortune 500) is one of the nation’s largest retailers. The company did not announce the closing dates for the stores.

Chief Executive Officer Lou D’Ambrosio announced the store closings and outlined other actions in a statement.

“Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model. These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home,” D’Ambrosio said.

He said the company would also reduce its peak inventory and fixed costs as well as focus on improving profit margins.

Same-store sales were down by 5.2 percent in the eight weeks leading to Christmas Day compared to a year earlier.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – It’s the economy that keeps Americans up at night, on edge and worried, revealed a new CNN/ORC International poll released Friday.

Some 70 percent said that things are not going well in the United States, with just three out of 10 saying things are okay, putting the state of the economy as the top worry and the most pressing issue heading into the new year.

More than half of those surveyed, or 57 percent, said the economy is the most important issue facing the country at present, and half named unemployment as the most important issue facing the economy. The deficit came in a very distant second with 16 percent.

Even as the payroll tax extension bill looms, only 7 percent of Americans named taxes as the most important economic issue in the United States.

The CNN poll of 1.085 American adults was conducted by ORC International via phone between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Fixed mortgage rates in the United States fell back to historic lows over the past week, with the 30-year loan dropping back to the record 3.94 percent.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported in its weekly survey of mortgage rates for the week ending Dec. 15 that the average rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell below its all-time low of 3.26 percent in October, and the average rate on a 30-year fixed matched its all-time low of 3.94 percent.

Helping mortgage rates continue their run of historic low rates was the announcement from the Federal Reserve this week that the housing market is still ailing. The Fed also left rates unchanged and hinted they would remain low for an extended period.

The 30-year fixed mortgage was down from 3.99 percent from the prior week, and 4.83 percent from the same period a year ago. Rates on the 15-year fixed averaged 3.21 percent, down from 3.27 percent a week earlier and 4.17 percent a year ago.

Despite the record low mortgage rates, 2011 is shaping up to be the worst for home sales in 14 years. Sales of previously owned homes are just a hair above last year, which were the worst in 13 years. New home sales are likely to close out 2011 as the worst year on record dating back some 50 years.

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