NEW YORK — The developers planning to build a $100 million Islamic center near the World Trade Center site still have financial hurdles to clear: They haven’t finished buying all the property they want for the project and are nearly a quarter-million dollars behind on real estate taxes and late [ Read More → ]

Workers are paying a larger portion of their health insurance costs as businesses shift more of the burden to their employees to help ride out the economic downturn, an annual study shows. The average employee contribution toward premiums for family coverage climbed 14 percent this year to nearly $4,000, according to [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - More than 3 million seniors may have to switch their Medicare prescription plan next year, even if they’re perfectly happy with it, thanks to an attempt by the government to simplify their lives. The policy change could turn into a hassle for seniors who hadn’t intended to switch plans [ Read More → ]

If you’re planning on going to warmer climbs this summer, take note – new guidance from Direct Line suggests that paying for medical care abroad is becoming more expensive, meaning that cutting back on insurance cover could turn out to be a false economy. The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), formally [ Read More → ]

The New Zealand economy feels a lot like a ‘Zombie Nation’ that wants to keep extending the loans and pretending that eventually everything will eventually go back to normal. Parts of our financial system and many property owners have been in a zombie-like state for much of the last two years, [ Read More → ]

Both those who took out loans before 1998 and those whose loans date from after that period will now pay interest on their balances, after a period where those with older loans were effectively paid to keep hold of them, and those with newer loans paid zero interest. The Student Loans Company confirmed that [ Read More → ]

Back in 2008, a South Florida financial executive found himself firing each of the 70 employees reporting to him. Then, he, too, became a casualty of the crumbling economy. The executive asked for some anonymity in exchange for his honest account of what followed. Sweating through an unfriendly job market, he [ Read More → ]

Testimony began this week in the politically charged, insider stock trading trial of Fort Lauderdale heart doctor and top Republican fundraiser Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah. Zachariah, who has raised millions of dollars for the GOP, has been accused by the Securities and [ Read More → ]

Anna and Charlie Reynolds of St. George, Utah, were worried about losing their home to foreclosure last year. Then they got a lucky break—from an unlikely savior. Some investment funds are emerging as the best hope for millions of U.S. households, like the Reynolds, above, who were behind on [ Read More → ]

A California woman deep in credit card debt turned to a debt-settlement company that immediately began deducting money from her bank account for its promised services. After three months, the woman started getting calls from her creditors and learned they had never heard from the company. She asked for her money [ Read More → ]