Broker Regulation

Despite an intensifying pace, little progress is being reported in talks on averting automatic spending cuts and tax increases that economists fear could send the U.S. economy off a "fiscal cliff."

Christmas is now only two weeks away with the new year lurking in the shadows a week later. Maybe its all this talk of the cliffand the impending doom it impliesbut flipping the calendar this year just doesnt seem to harbor the same batch of hope and jubilation.

A year-end deadline approaching, quiet negotiations to avoid an economy-rattling "fiscal cliff" yielded no tangible signs of progress on Monday as Republicans pressed President Barack Obama to volunteer spending cuts he will support while the White House insisted the GOP endorse higher tax rates on upper incomes.

Maryland has received conditional approval by the federal government to operate a state-based health insurance exchange in 2014, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown announced Monday.

Oregon is among the first six states to get preliminary approval from the Obama Administration to operate a health insurance exchange.

The U.S. government said Monday that it is selling its remaining shares of American International Group stock, moving to close the books on the government's biggest bailout during the 2008 financial crisis.