Despite a perfect storm of rising fuel and materials costs and a souring economy, Nashville's builders say they're more challenged than discouraged by the residential and commercial landscape.

TOKYO -- The dollar steadied against the euro and the yen on Friday, keeping gains made on data that showed signs of resilience in the US labor market and separate figures that undermined the single European currency.

In the world of higher commodity prices, corporate winners and losers fall into two distinct camps. Commodity producers are big beneficiaries, their business outlooks generally strong and their ratings stable, as scarcity and worldwide demand affect every

Employers cut far fewer jobs in April than in recent months and the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent. It was a better-than-expected showing that nonetheless still revealed strains in the nation's labor market.

THE LOCAL plastics industry expects a gloomy second half of the year as rising prices of raw materials and a generally negative business sentiment take their toll.