For most property investors, the U.K. is a country with one city.

Mexico’s attempt to solve the country’s housing shortage by constructing millions of new homes far from city centers has crippled the nation’s homebuilders and fueled record foreclosures.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- West Texas Intermediate declined for the first time in five days as the dollar advanced against the currencies of U.S. trading partners.

The stock market turned higher Tuesday as investors banked on continued policy support from the Federal Reserve. Two big retailers also topped Wall Street expectations for the most recent quarter.

Republican politicians and activists can barely contain their glee at the simultaneous eruption of three major controversies about the Obama administration.

Leading senators working on immigration legislation reached a compromise Tuesday on the details of an expanded high-tech visa program, officials said as the Senate Judiciary Committee neared completion of its work on the measure.

Markets were choppy Tuesday as investors remained cautious in the run-up to a much-anticipated statement from U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the constitutional limits on prayers during legislative sessions, accepting an appeal from a New York town that starts most council meetings with a Christian invocation.

U.S. stock futures are down in light trading ahead of an appearance this week by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke before Congress.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Gold declined, following its first gain in eight sessions, as speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve may taper its bond-buying plan curbed demand for the metal as a protection of wealth.

A Senate panel says Apple Inc. is avoiding billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by shifting profits to foreign affiliates and is prepared to question the company's chief executive Tuesday about the “loopholes.”

Best Buy Co. on Tuesday reported a loss in its fiscal first quarter as it sold its stake in Best Buy Europe and works on a turnaround plan that includes cutting costs and closing some stores.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Home Depot Inc., the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, posted first-quarter profit that topped analysts’ estimates and raised its forecast for earnings this year as the housing rebound boosts renovation spending.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- SkyWest Inc., a provider of regional flights to carriers including United Airlines, agreed to buy more than $4 billion of Embraer SA jets as new pilot contracts allow commuter operators to fly bigger planes.

An Internet entrepreneur and former Wall Street derivatives analyst contends central Idaho's Sun Valley resort and the Twitter Inc. social media site heisted his handle.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- A northern California-based advocacy group called the NorCal Tea Party Patriots sued the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for allegedly breaching its federal privacy rights and the rights of like-minded organizations.

Eminem's song publisher is suing Facebook and an ad agency, saying they copied music from one of the rapper's songs.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN sports television division fired several hundred workers today as part of a companywide cost-cutting effort.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Nintendo Co. won its second appeals court ruling this month in patent-infringement cases lodged against its Wii video-gaming system.

Tesla Motors fell more than 5 percent in early trading Tuesday, a brief decline amid huge gains this month after the electric car maker posted its first quarterly profit.

Specialty drugmaker Biogen Idec said Tuesday it submitted a new injectable multiple sclerosis drug to the Food and Drug Administration for U.S. market approval.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- The yen weakened against the dollar, halting its biggest gain in three weeks, after Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari backed away from weekend comments that prompted the currency to rally.

AutoZone's third-quarter net income rose 7 percent, as acquisition costs fell and sales improved.

U.K.-based mobile telecoms company Vodafone has reported a 1.9 increase in annual profits despite a slowdown in much of its European operations.

a development that could boost the wider eurozone as it struggles to get out of recession.

Wireless equipment maker Ericsson AB says it will close down its telecom cable manufacturing operation and cut around 350 jobs in Sweden.

Hershey is looking to expand in China by tapping into the country's taste for “milk candy.”

Sprint Nextel Corp. has raised its buyout offer for the stake in Clearwire it does not already own by 14 percent.

His latest legislative achievements put him in the vanguard of his party's liberal base. He's been a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama. And he's ramping up his travel to help fellow Democrats around the country.

The decade-old law that transformed the battle against HIV and AIDS in developing countries is at a crossroads. The dream of future generations freed from epidemic is running up against an era of economic recovery and harsh budget cuts.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO JPMorgan Chase, told shareholders Tuesday that last year's $6 billion trading loss had been expensive and “extremely embarrassing,” but he also asked shareholders not to fixate on the issue.

Physicist Ernest Moniz has been sworn in as the nation's new energy secretary.

The boardwalks are back, and so are most of the beaches, even if some are a little thinner this year.

A rare and tiny island fox is on the verge of making a comeback from near-extinction in the Channel Islands, a rugged and wind-swept chain off Southern California, officials said Monday.

The man who led the Internal Revenue Service when it was giving extra scrutiny to tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status told Congress on Tuesday that he knew little about what was happening while he was still commissioner.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire John Malone is the largest private landowner in the U.S. Now, he’s expanding his reach to the land of his forefathers.

Police have arrested four people after a second night of escalating riots in a Stockholm suburb, during which some 200 youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze in anger over the police shooting death of an elderly man.

Search and rescue crews worked through the night after a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 51 people were killed, including at least 20 children, and those numbers were expected to climb, officials said Tuesday.

A coordinated Taliban assault on checkpoints in southern Afghanistan killed four police before a counterattack drove the insurgents back, Afghan officials said Tuesday. Also, at least 10 other police died in two attacks in the country's west.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse and burial at sea were properly classified by U.S. officials and can be withheld from the public, a federal appeals court ruled.

Gov. Tom Corbett will learn within the next few weeks whether his federal lawsuit against the NCAA over the penalties handed down against Penn State will be allowed to continue, following a nearly two-hour hearing Monday in Harrisburg.