AMERICAN EXPRESS

Rita Crundwell doesn't just handle the finances of a small Illinois city - she's allegedly a big-time thief who raided the city of Dixon's coffers to the tune of $33.2 million, the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois announced.

Stocks were lower on Wednesday after uninspiring earnings from IBM and Intel, while Chesapeake Energy slumped after a Reuters report highlighted large and unusual personal loans taken by its chief executive.

Stocks were lower on Wednesday after the S&P 500 notched its biggest gain in a month, weighed down by IBM and Intel after their quarterly results.

Stock index futures dipped on Wednesday after the S&P 500 tallied its biggest gain in a month and ahead of another round of corporate earnings.

Historically, the CEO of a corporate sponsor of the tournament, which began Thursday in Georgia, congratulates the Masters winner. But Augusta National has been a men-only club since its 1933 founding.

A Washington watchdog group alleges that U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock's campaign committee reimbursed him more than $300 for DVDs of the P90X training regimen, classifying them as a health care expense.

Twitter has launched a small business advertising program, in partnership with American Express, that will help small-business owners engage with existing and potential customers over the social network.

Shares of Yahoo were mixed Monday as it appeared a proxy fight looms for its board of directors.

Yahoo Inc. announced Sunday that it has appointed three new independent directors following a failure to arrive at a settlement with Third Point LLC, its largest shareholder that owns about 5.15 percent of shares.

One of the oldest neighborhoods in Manhattan may soon get closer to nature. SHoP Architects and mall operator Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE:HHC) unveiled an emerald proposal for the Pier 17 mall on the South Street Seaport last Thursday that will ease the historic district into the present.

Jay-Z, full named Sean Carter, kicked off the music component of the SXSW Interactive festival on Monday night at Austin City Limits in Texas, performing a full set of his most popular hits.

To explain complicated situations, good teachers use simple illustrations to open the minds of students.

Rumors are circulating that another Hip-Hop heavyweight will take the stage tonight with Jay-Z.

You know he'll make the song cry. Rapper Jay-Z will perform live from the South by Southwest (SXSW) 2012 festival on Monday night at the Austin City Limits Live at Moody Theater. A live stream will be available for those not lucky enough to be in Texas this week.

PayPal, the online payments arm of eBay Inc, has sparked a furor in the publishing world by asking some e-book distributors to ban books that contain obscene themes including rape, bestiality or incest.

Warren E. Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway holding company has made him one of the richest men around, said he’s pleased by new holdings in technology.

Twitter Inc. has officially introduced a service which will permit small businesses to buy and place ads on the online messaging platform.

Pizza Hut is offering their customer a complete proposal package on Valentine's Day, which not only contains food but all other offers that would make the day special for the love-birds.

Records indicate that Republican candidate Rep. Ron Paul, a champion of smaller government, was reimbursed twice for flights between Washington, D.C., and his district in Texas with campaign and taxpayer money.

The controversial SOPA and PIPA bills, which were shelved last week, after an internet-wide protest, accrued tens of millions of dollars in lobbying money; money that, in the end, was all for naught.

Office Depot Inc., the second-largest U.S. office-supply retailer, is testing PayPal's new point-of-sale (POS) system in a few stores, a top executive told Reuters. The news comes a few days after eBay Inc.'s PayPal unit said it had begun testing in-store payments in 51 Home Depot stores.