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WASHINGTON – The White House readied its last-ditch effort to salvage health care legislation Sunday while the Senate’s Republican leader warned Democrats against the go-it-alone approach.

The White House was expected to post a version of President Barack Obama’s plan for overhauling health care on its Web site on Monday, ahead of his critical and daring summit at Blair House on Thursday. The plan, which was likely to be opposed by the GOP, was expected to require most Americans to carry health insurance coverage, with federal subsidies to help many afford the premiums.

Hewing close to a stalled Senate bill, it would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more. The expected price tag is around $1 trillion over 10 years.

The conference at the White House guest residence is to be televised live on C-SPAN and perhaps on cable news networks. It represents a gamble by the administration that Obama can save his embattled overhaul through persuasion , a risky and unusual step.

It was forced on the administration by the Senate special election victory of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown in January. He captured the seat long held by Democrat Edward M. Kennedy, who died last year. Brown’s victory reduced the Democrats’ majority in the Senate to 59 votes, one shy of the number needed to knock down Republican delaying tactics.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday he would participate, but that Obama and congressional Democrats would be wrong to push the bills they wrote in the House and Senate.

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BUENA PARK, Calif. — Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The New York Times

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

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NEW YORK — Americans are paying more for gasoline than they did last year as the holidays approached — billions of dollars that could go to books, clothes and Barbie dolls instead being spent at the pump.

Gas averaged nearly $2.70 a gallon Friday, the highest of the year — adding bad news to an already fragile economy and making it even less likely that people will spend their way out of the recession.

From last November to January, the average price was $1.86. Even if prices average $2.50 per gallon during the same period this year, Americans will pay an extra $26.6 billion for gas, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service.

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TeleTech Holding Co., an international call center operator, logged third-quarter profits even with 2008 despite a year-over-year revenue drop of 19 percent.

The Englewood-based company (NASDAQ: TTEC) on Wednesday reported earning $21.5 million, or 32 cents per share, on revenue of $281.5 million for the quarter that ended Sept 30. That compares to the third-quarter profit in 2008 of $21.1 million, or 29 cents per share, on $349.1 million in revenue.

TeleTech reported cutting its third-quarter expenses by $68.4 million, or 21 percent, from the year-ago period.

TeleTech employs about 500 people at its headquarters and once had more than 63,000 employees in centers across 18 countries. The company spent $815,000 on workforce reductions in the third quarter, and its total number of employees isn’t clear.

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WASHINGTON–First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose in the latest week after back-to-back declines, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The number of initial claims in the week ending Oct. 17 rose 11,000 to 531,000. It’s the highest level since the week ended Sept. 26.

Claims had fallen 34,000 in the prior two weeks. Most economists had expected an up-tick in claims. Claims in the previous week were revised to a decrease of 11,000 to 520,000 compared with the initial estimate of a decrease of 10,000 to 514,000.

The four-week average of initial claims inched lower by 750 to 532,250. This is the lowest level since mid-January. Meanwhile, the number of Americans receiving state jobless benefits fell 98,000 to 5.92 million in the week ending Oct 10.

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Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, has said that it is suing its US rival Apple for infringing patents on mobile phone technology for the iPhone.

Nokia said it had not been compensated for its technology, and accused Apple of "trying to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation".

The ten alleged patent infringements involve wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption.

Apple’s shares dipped after news of the action broke.

The breaches applied to all models of the iPhone since its launch in 2007, Nokia added.

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The number of new houses being built in the US edged up in September, but by less than expected, raising concerns about the strength of the US recovery.

Housing starts rose by 0.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 590,000 homes, compared with a revised figure of 587,000 in August.

But the rate was still down by 28.2% on the 822,000 homes started in September 2008, the Commerce Department said.

Analysts had expected a rate of more than 600,000 housing starts.

"It doesn’t bode too well. We really want to see an uptick here, as obviously housing is so important," said Dan Cook at IG Markets.

"If we can get more starts, we’re putting more people to work and that would be very positive, and unfortunately we just didn’t see that today."

New applications for building permits, considered a good sign of future activity, fell by 1.2% in September.

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BRUSSELS – The world’s biggest brewer AB InBev said Thursday it has agreed to sell its Central European operations to CVC Capital Partners in a transaction which could exceed $3 billion.

Under the agreement announced Thursday, AB InBev will sell the brewing and distribution rights of brands like Stella Artois, Beck’s and Leffe in nine countries in order to pay off debt.

The Belgian-based brewer has been shedding assets to help pay for the $52 billion takeover of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch that formed the company last year.

Under Thursday’s terms, the private equity firm acquires the operations for $2.23 billion with another $800 million contingent on the return on investment.

AB InBev CEO Carlos Brito said the move will enable the company "to exceed our stated commitment to achieve $7 billion in divestitures, while better focusing our resources toward our core markets."

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NetShelter adds to ad sales Google rolls out new display ad market IBM takes on Google Apps with LotusLive iNotes Yahoo Inc. informed users of the Xoopit email plugin that it will no longer be usable for Google Inc.’s Gmail. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) acquired Xoopit in July to get the plugin that lets users visually scan email by contents instead of subject lines. Until now it has been available for use with both Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

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The G20 group of leading and emerging economies is to take on a new role as a permanent body co-ordinating the world economy, a White House statement said.

It will take on the role previously carried out by the developed powerhouses of the G8 group.

The G20 is meeting in the US city of Pittsburgh for a two-day summit.

EU officials also announced a deal to shift the balance of voting in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) towards growing nations such as China.

But there will be no formal announcement that the G20 will replace the G8 until 2011, said the BBC’s economics editor Stephanie Flanders.

"The leaders would have liked formally to announce the handover today in Pittsburgh, but the Canadians – who are chairing the G8 next year – kicked up such a fuss that they had to fudge it," she said.

There will now be a G20 meeting on the sidelines of Canada’s G8 Summit next June, where most of the economic business of the day will be discussed. But, formally at least, the economic side of the G8 will live on another year.

Read more on news.bbc.co.uk

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