At Thursday’s Senate hearing, from left, Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors; Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Automobile Workers; Alan Mulally, the chief of Ford Motor; and Robert Nardelli, the chief executive of Chrysler.

“Steps that stabilize the housing market will help stabilize the economy as well,” the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Thursday.

An oil well in the shadow of wind turbines in Abilene, Tex. The state gets 4.5 percent of its electricity from the turbines.

A poster for “Shrek the Musical” in the Times Square subway station parodies “A Chorus Line.”

If shareholders continue to wage legal battles against the fund and its manager, they risk getting far less back, because more of their money will be used to pay the fund company’s outside lawyers.

The flagship Macy’s store in Herald Square. Department stores fared the poorest over all.

AT&T said Thursday that it would spend less on new equipment and reduce its work force of 303,500 throughout 2009.

Heinrich Kieber provided information on bank clients.

Viacom said it would cut nearly 7 percent of its work force, or 850 workers, while NBC Universal said it was laying off 500 employees.

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange, which weathered the news of more layoffs and poor retail sales on Thursday.

Jean-Claude Trichet, center, president of the European Central Bank, in Brussels Thursday with his vice president, Lucas Papademos, left, and Guy Quaden, governor of Belgium’s central bank.

Microsoft named Qi Lu to run its struggling Internet unit on Thursday, filling an important position that had been vacant since the departure of Kevin Johnson in July.

Like other newspapers, the Denver newspaper has been facing declining classified and advertising revenue and rising distribution costs.

Brady W. Dougan, the chief executive of Credit Suisse, said the cuts would reduce the investment bank’s staff to 2005 levels.

The effort, led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, comes after auditors said they could not certify the phone company as solvent.

William Del Biaggio III in 2002; he is charged with falsifying documents.

The 5.1 percent decline was the third consecutive drop in demand for both durable goods and nondurable goods.

The warning came hours after the company’s chief executive tried to assuage concerns about the recession’s effect on the coffee retailer’s sales and profits.

The financier now owns about 5.4 percent of the Internet search company, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

With steep drops in housing construction and auto sales, the company moves to trim $600 million in costs.

Capital One has bought North Fork Bank in New York and Hibernia.

The company cited a harsh impact from the stronger dollar and continuing sluggish sales of several big medicines.

The chip maker warned that fourth-quarter revenue would be much weaker than expected because of sluggish demand.

The largest U.S. luxury home builder wrote down less inventory in the fourth quarter, but dire market conditions kept it from giving any kind of forecast.

New Zealand’s central bank cut its interest rates on Thursday, joining policy makers around the world seeking to lower the cost of borrowing to bolster their slowing economies.

Representative Xavier Becerra of California has emerged as the top candidate for United States trade representative.

Airlines, which assert that they own landing slots at Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark Liberty airports, hate the idea of an auction.

Donald Trump at a news conference in September at the construction site for the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. With Mr. Trump are his children, Eric, Ivanka and Donald Jr.