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News In Brief

PODCAST: Debt talks stall, NFL owners and players reach deal

Daryl Paranada Jul 25, 2011

Here are today’s top headlines from the Marketplace Morning Report and from around the web.

The cost of insuring U.S. Treasuries rose to their highest levels since February 2010 on Monday, as lawmakers remained at a stalemate over how to cut the deficit and increase the debt ceiling.

European markets are down slightly. After Moody’s took Greece’s credit rating down. Again. To just above default status.

Kimberly-Clark said 2011 earnings could come in toward the low end of its forecast, even as it topped Wall Street’s second-quarter expectations, as the maker of Kleenex tissues deals with higher prices for oil-based materials.

We just got word, NFL owners and players have reached a deal to end the football league lockout. It includes a salary cap of $120 million for players.

British police have been asked to investigate whether News Corporation’s James Murdoch gave false testimony last week before Parliament. The latest in a phone-hacking scandal that has investors selling a lot of News Corp. stock.

Citigroup is unveiling a new credit card today that’s being marketed as plain-vanilla and fee-free. The so-called “Simplicity Card” has no late fees and a single interest rate for all purchases… It’s also got a pretty steep interest rate: 17 percent. And no rewards and requires a really high credit score to qualify. Hey, it’s a credit card… You didn’t think there wouldn’t be a catch, did you?

The Internet is hurting newspapers… Without it, people are hurting. A new consumer research study says 53 percent of people who went Internet-free
for 24 hours said they were lonely. And 40 percent described themselves as upset. Apparently there’s some personal pain involved, too. One participant said it was like having his hand chopped off.

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