Good economic news has been hard to come by lately, but not all is doom and gloom in America these days. The end of summer ushered in a few signs of progress in some of the unlikeliest corners of the economy. They are no guarantee that the good times are around the corner, but they do provide a helpful reminder that this slow recovery is exactly that: a recovery.

Sharing ideas and office space in the tech field are as common as sharing APIs, but the collaborative spirit runs especially deep at San Francisco's 795 Folsom Road.

U.S. stocks were poised to slip Tuesday, as optimism from the previous week faded and renewed worries about European banks and the global economy weighed on investors.

There's a liquid drug that women can get injected into a layer of muscle -- three separate times over a six-month period -- that can protect them from a kind of cancer. From a scientific perspective, that's amazing. In terms of public health, it's a breakthrough.

Peter Orszag, who recently stepped down as President Obama's budget director, called for a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts in an article he wrote in the New York Times on Tuesday.

When 18-year-old Robert White decided to jumpstart his retirement plan, he invested his life savings of $25,000 into an aggressive mutual fund.

Billionaire investor George Soros will donate $100 million to Human Rights Watch, the organization announced Tuesday.

South Korean automaker Kia Motors, on the heels of a global recall of more than 100,000 vehicles, said Tuesday it has named a new vice chairman to replace Chung Sung-eun, who had resigned.

British-based Barclays PLC announced Tuesday that American-born executive Robert E. Diamond Jr. will replace John Varley as chief executive officer of the global banking company next year.

Mark Hurd, who abruptly resigned last month as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, has landed at another big tech company.

In 1982, General Motors closed its manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif. The location, far from Detroit auto suppliers, was considered among the worst-performing assembly lines in the company's system. Roger Smith had become GM's chairman the year before Fremont was closed, and he had begun to think of ways to reorganize the car company. He knew there was a problem; he just wasn't sure what it was, exactly, or how to fix it.

The government has bailed out Wall Street firms, giant banks, creditors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- and is trying to bail out people who've defaulted or are about to default on their mortgages. But let's say you're a hardworking family that has done nothing wrong except buy a home when the housing bubble was at its peak a few years ago. Your mortgage is now way underwater, but you're still making payments because you want to stay in your home -- and you're actually honorable. You're paying for everyone else's bailout, but because you have no equity in your house, you can't refinance to take advantage of the ultra-low mortgage rates that Uncle Sam's bailout strategy has produced. To use the technical term, you're being screwed.

Stocks started September with a bang as investors cheered a rare dose of good economic news but investors may need to buckle in for the coming week: It's a holiday-shortened week with little on the docket to set the tone.

World markets rallied Monday, with Asian stocks logging their fourth straight session of gains.

A new national poll released Sunday indicates that eight in 10 Americans say that the economy is in poor shape, and the number that say conditions are very poor is on the upswing after steady declines through the spring.

President Obama is pledging to propose a new package of job-boosting ideas next week -- just don't call it stimulus.

Stocks closed near session highs Friday, with the Dow erasing its losses for the year, as investors welcomed a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market.

U.S. companies modestly added jobs in August, easing concerns that the nation might slip back into a recession. The latest jobs report released by the Labor Department today is better than expected. Employment in the private sector rose by 67,000 payrolls, after a revised 107,000 increase in July that was more than originally estimated. The report immediately sent stocks rallying, despite the fact that overall employment dropped and the unemployment rate climbed to 9.6% from 9.5%, as more people actively searched for jobs.

As better-than-expected economic data boosted investor morale this week, the greenback lost some of its luster, falling against a basket of currencies.

It's not yet clear what Burger King's new owner, the Brazilian-backed private equity firm 3G Capital, has in mind for the troubled No. 2 fast-food chain. But a total strategic revamp is in order.