Wells Fargo customers alleged that the bank changed the way it treated withdrawals so that transactions with the highest dollar amount posted first.

Wells Fargo asked a federal appeals court to throw out a judge’s order to pay California customers $203 million for manipulating debit-card transactions to boost overdraft fees.

Wells Fargo said customers can’t sue under California law over how the bank deals with debit-card transactions because its practices are regulated by federal laws that allow Wells Fargo to determine its own methods for calculating fees.

The judgment should be reversed because the lawsuit claims are “preempted by federal banking law,” Robert Long, a lawyer for Wells Fargo, said at a hearing Tuesday before a three-judge panel of the U.S.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge says prosecutors at an insider trading trial can play for jurors the only recording of a phone conversation between a former Goldman Sachs board member and a hedge fund founder.

Federal Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan made an earlier tentative ruling permanent Wednesday afternoon at a final conference before the trial of Rajat Gupta starts Monday.

Gupta was a board member at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble before he was accused of giving tips in 2008 to a billionaire hedge-fund trading friend. His lawyer says he gave no inside information and expects to be exonerated at trial.

The judge left room to later limit how each side uses the 24-minute phone recording from July 2008 as they make their arguments to jurors.

The 2012 National Study of Employers, released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), found that U.S. employers are offering employees more options for managing when and where they work. T

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Larry Page says the Java programs in the Android operating system are covered by the doctrine of fair use.

A jury Monday gave both sides reason to hope in a federal trial that pits two of the country’s biggest tech titans in a public battle over copyright uses that could ultimately impact what consumers pay for Android smart phones and other devices.

After almost a week of deliberation, a 12-person jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco agreed with Oracle that Google had infringed on the overall structure and sequence of copyrights related to the Java programming language. But jurors deadlocked on whether the Java interfaces that Google used in building its Android operating system constituted a fair use of Oracle’s code. Fair uses are protected under copyright law.

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Lets familiarize ourselves along with the form plus the kind of information it entails. The Uniform Commercial Code requires only three pieces of information:

Name and address of the debtors The creditors name and address; and The collaterals general description

With proper publication (such as in a newspaper), the factor puts itself first in line for the collateral or property and establishes a lien on that property.

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The deal follows an initial purchase of 20 vehicles from the company, and Craig Moran, market area fleet manager, said it was the largest single sale of fleet vehicles Mercedes-Benz of York has ever handled

Neil O’Connor, sales director at Autohorn, based at York Railway Station, said the business had been steadily expanding and had grown from having just eight rental cars when it started 16 years ago, to about 750 today, providing 225,000 days of car hire every year

He said its fleet has grown by about 300 vehicles in the last two years, during which the company has appointed a professional sales and marketing team to actively continue the expansion of the firm, having previously grown the business by reputation

Mr O’Connor said the business, which has doubled its workforce over the last four years to 81 full-time staff, spends £35 million on cars each year, 90 per cent of which is in Yorkshire

“We are genuinely passionate about trading locally wherever possible

“All our suppliers from stationery and water coolers to the vehicles themselves, if we can find a Yorkshire company, that’s who we will go with,” he said

Craig Moran is part of a new fleet sales team at Mercedes-Benz of York, which is focusing on building local relationships

He said: “It’s given us a fantastic platform to move forward with further fleet deals in the area and gives us good exposure with a lot of business people hiring cars from Autohorn”

Autohorn has secured asset finance from Santander corporate banking to support its expansion

Andrew Russell, relationship director at Santander corporate banking, said: “Autohorn is one of the leading operators in this sector with a UK-wide footprint operating from its York-based head office”

THE Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, visited The Max Design And Print Company to see the production of the Diocese of York’s magazine

Dr Sentamu met employees from The Max and was given a guided tour of the Dunnington printing business by operations director Tony Brown

The Archbishop oversaw the production of the latest edition of the Diocese of York magazine, “The River”, which is printed by The Max

He was accompanied by the Bishop of Selby, the Rt Revd Martin Wallace, on the official visit to the company, which is now owned by York-based Costcutter Supermarkets Group

Dr Sentamu said: “It was fascinating to visit The Max and see the printing presses at work, and so good to meet the staff The Max have printed magazines, yearbooks and leaflets for the Diocese of York for many years, and this was a great opportunity to thank the staff of The Max for all their help and hard work”

Mr Brown said: “It was an honour to welcome the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Selby to The Max The timing of their visit was perfect as they got to see their own magazine being printed They both made a special effort to meet all the staff and I know that they appreciated them taking time to visit our company”

Home prices fell in January for a fifth straight month in most major U.S. cities, as modest sales increases have yet to boost prices.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday showed that prices dropped in January from December in 16 of 19 cities tracked.

The steepest declines were in San Francisco, Atlanta and Portland. Prices increased in Miami, Phoenix and Washington. Price information for Charlotte was delayed and therefore not included in the report.

The declines partly reflect typical offseason sales. The month-over-month data are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

Still, prices fell in 17 of the 20 cities in January compared to the same month in 2011. That suggests the housing market remains weak, despite the best winter for home sales in five years and a stronger job market.

“Despite some positive economic signs, home prices continued to drop,” said David M.

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Check out our coverage, including how to make your startup sticky and tips from VCs on what it takes to get their attention.

Sleeping on the job might once have been frowned upon. These days, however, many companies recognize the value of workplace napping for its benefits to employees. Research shows that employees who are allowed to take a “power nap” tend to be productive, more sharply focused with improved memory.

They also have better morale.

Companies can provide spaces to nap, special napping equipment and designated nap times. Give employees the chance to get a little shut-eye. Zappos, for instance, offers a nap lounge for its employees with comfortable chairs, couches, low lighting and a relaxed atmosphere.

“Power naps are very rejuvenating,” says Shannon Roy, who is the “happiness hippie” for Zappos. “Yo

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MINNEAPOLIS — Best Buy Co. said it plans to close 50 U.S. big box stores and open 100 small mobile locations in the U.S. in fiscal 2013 and cut $800 million in costs by fiscal 2015. The news came Thursday as the biggest U.S. specialty electronics retailer posted a fiscal fourth quarter loss partly due to restructuring charges.

Despite the loss, Best Buy’s adjusted results for the quarter topped Wall Street’s expectations. But the company’s full year revenue guidance fell slightly short of analysts’ expectations, sending its stock down 6 percent.

Best Buy, which has 1,450 locations nationwide and 2,900 globally, is focusing on closing some of its hulking stores to concentrate on smaller Best Buy Mobile outlets because of two emerging trends.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years is headed for a House vote. But it’s likely to be rejected by Republicans opposed to higher taxes and Democrats opposed to curbs on Medicare and Social Security benefits.

The proposal is modeled after a much-praised plan by the co-chairmen of President Barack Obama’s 2010 deficit-reduction commission.

It calls for $1.2 trillion in tax increases over the coming decade, curbs on rapidly growing federal health care programs, new cuts to agency budgets and cuts to other programs like farm subsidies and federal employee pensions.

The plan comes to a vote as one of several alternatives to a budget-slashing Republican plan.

Visitors gather at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets, a popular tourist destination.

Is San Francisco golden?

The city’s tourism industry says yes.

The number of people who visited San Francisco last year was up 3 percent from 2010, according to the San Francisco Travel Association. More than 16 million people came to the city in 2011 and spent $8.5 billion, an almost $1 billion increase from the previous year.

The trade association is scheduled to share that information today at its seventh annual Northern California Visitor Industry Outlook & Marketing Conference, “San Francisco Is Golden – How Do We Really Stack Up?” at the Marriott Marquis.

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Networking is an effective means of business development.

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An editorial in last week’s Sunday New York Times, called What Happened to Obama? got me thinking.  The article, by Drew Westen, talks about Obama’s failure to ‘tell us a story.’  The author describes his disappointment when he listened to the president’s inauguration speech back in Jan. 2009, disappointing because there was no story told to give context and meaning to the financial calamity people were experiencing:

Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed

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Budget in India always tries to encourage the women by giving tax exemptions and other benefits. The tax exemption limits have generally been higher than that for men or senior citizens. The allocations for women welfare and child healthcare has been comparable with other developing countries but there has always been room for more innovative schemes.

Budget 2011 tried to include several programmes to benefit women even though the allocation for the women’s programmes didn’t change for years. The “gender budget”, a provision within the budget was earmarked to benefit the women but this remained pegged at 6% in 2011-12 budget. The women in India had great expectations from the 2012 budget in terms of tax exemption and other gender specific budget provisions this year. It is d

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