Most stocks fell after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed to the highest level since 2007, as FedEx Corp. slumped and concern grew that European leaders will struggle to resolve the region’s debt crisis.

Oil declined to a two-week low as Saudi Arabia was said to be taking action to lower prices and after FedEx Corp. reduced its profit outlook, increasing concern that an economic slowdown will curb demand.

Republican Mitt Romney said Tuesday that Democratic President Barack Obama believes government should “take from some to give to the others” as he defended telling wealthy donors that half of Americans believe they are “victims” who are entitled to government assistance.

FedEx Corp. says the global economy is stalling, and it's going to get worse next year.

Coal producer Alpha Natural Resources said Tuesday it was cutting production by 16 million tons and eliminating 1,200 jobs companywide, laying off 400 workers immediately by closing mines in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Two Citigroup Inc. executives are departing after federal prosecutors named them earlier this year in a mortgage-insurance fraud case that resulted in a $158.3 million settlement and an admission of wrongdoing by the bank.

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders rose this month to its highest level in six years and many expect the housing recovery will strengthen in the next six months.

Yahoo has completed a long-awaited $7.6 billion deal with China's Alibaba Group, generating a windfall that could help ease the pain of Yahoo shareholders who have endured the company's foibles during the past few years.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally said today he has no plans to retire from the second-biggest U.S. automaker.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Roche Holding AG’s $6.7 billion public bid to buy Illumina Inc. stopped the gene-sequencing company’s board from discussing what price would be acceptable and may have scuttled a possible deal, according to Chief Executive Officer Jay Flatley.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.’s shares surpassed $700 as record first-day orders for the latest iPhone fueled optimism that the company will keep generating the revenue growth that transformed it from a niche computer manufacturer into the world’s most valuable business.

His campaign at a crossroads, Mitt Romney struggled Tuesday to limit political fallout from his dismissive comments about nearly half of all Americans while Republican officials debated the impact of serial controversies on the party's hopes of capturing the White House.

Wendell and Margret Brady haven’t paid their mortgage in more than three years, withholding the money amid a foreclosure dispute on the couple’s 11-bedroom house in Morristown, N.J.

The price of oil fell for a second day, as a major shipping company gave investors reason to question the strength of oil demand.

Lending for mortgages dropped in 2011, as refinancings declined and many borrowers relied on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), according to bank regulators’ 2011 data on housing loans.

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy returned to the forefront of the presidential campaign today even as Mitt Romney’s message against President Barack Obama was again distracted, this time by the release of a video where he calls many Americans “victims” dependent on government.

Ford hopes the redesigned Fusion will finally trounce the Camry.

The remarkable revelations from Mitt Romney’s strategists about his flailing campaign should give his supporters hope: After all, if the Romney campaign has been this wrong about everything else, then it is almost certainly wrong about the Romney campaign.

In U.S. politics, Republicans flourish when the focus is on tax cuts; they suffer when Medicare is the focus. It looks like it’ll be different this year.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks fell for a second day and the euro weakened on concern European leaders will struggle to resolve the debt crisis. Spain’s two-year notes stayed lower after a bill auction and commodities dropped.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Oil declined for a second day in New York, extending its biggest drop in two months, on concern that a U.S. economic slowdown will curb demand in the world’s largest consumer of crude.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock futures dropped, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will decline for a second day, amid mounting concern that Europe’s leaders will struggle to resolve their debt crisis.

Manchester United PLC said Tuesday that its net loss widened in its fiscal fourth quarter after the celebrated soccer club was knocked out of lucrative competitions early in the season.

The massive light-up map depicting the Battle of Gettysburg will head to a nearby town after being saved from the scrap heap.

Intuit Inc. on Tuesday reaffirmed its financial guidance for the first quarter and full fiscal year 2013.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- FedEx Corp., operator of the world’s largest cargo airline, cut its annual profit outlook as a weakening economy spurs shippers in the U.S. and overseas to switch to cheaper delivery options.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.’s patent-infringement complaint targeting Apple Inc. devices, including ones that have the Siri voice-recognition program, will be investigated by a U.S. trade agency.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- A lot of conservatives are puzzled that polls show the presidential election is even close, let alone that most show Barack Obama ahead. So convinced are they that Obama has failed that they think he ought to be out of the running.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae didn’t give Bank of America Corp. special consideration in agreeing to pay more than $500 million to transfer servicing of 384,000 mortgages to firms more likely to prevent foreclosures, a U.S. auditor said.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally says he has not told the company's board when he plans to retire.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Medtronic Inc. must try again to prove that it didn’t infringe two patents controlled by Boston Scientific Corp. over implantable defibrillators, a U.S. appeals court said today.

US Bank is rejecting allegations in a lawsuit that claims one of its employees helped Peregrine Financial Group CEO Russ Wasendorf Sr. mislead regulators about his misuse of customer funds.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told campaign donors that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going to “remain an unsolved problem” and that pressuring Israel to make concessions to get the Palestinians to act “is the worst idea in the world.”

Shares of home products retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond fell Tuesday after an analyst downgraded the stock a day before the company reports second-quarter results.

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is licensing technology from Microsoft to let BlackBerry devices store and transfer large files more easily.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. hired former CBS Corp. television executive Nancy Tellem to oversee content produced for the company’s Xbox entertainment console.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Kohl’s Corp., the third-largest U.S. department-store company, plans to hire more than 52,700 workers for the holidays, an increase of more than 10 percent from a year earlier.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the second-largest maker of processors for personal computers, fell the most in almost two months after the company said Chief Financial Officer Thomas Seifert is leaving to seek other opportunities.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. lost a bid to persuade a federal judge in California to lift a preliminary ban on U.S. sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer imposed as part of a patent dispute with Apple Inc.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Eleven years ago, eliminating income taxes for low-income Americans was an applause line for a Republican president. The party’s candidate for president in 2012 sees the number of people paying nothing as a problem.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- FedEx Corp. dropped the most in three months after cutting its annual profit outlook because a weakening economy has prompted shippers in the U.S. and overseas to switch to cheaper delivery options.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co., providing 1.33 billion euros ($1.73 billion) to restructure debt at the Disneyland Paris resort, said it has no plans to buy out the other shareholders in the park’s operator.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s chief financial officer is retiring, and his replacement is a longtime executive at the investment bank.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Berry Plastics Group Inc., the container maker owned by funds tied to Apollo Global Management LLC, may set terms for its initial public offering as soon as this week, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. homebuilders climbed in September to the highest level in more than six years, adding to signs of progress in residential construction.

Walgreen Co. has completed its $438 million purchase of a regional drugstore chain that operates in several states under the USA Drug, Super D Drug and Med-X names.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said the central bank’s third round of quantitative easing will help the economy keep growing despite headwinds from Europe’s debt crisis as well as potential U.S. tax increases and spending cuts.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- AgustaWestland, the world’s second- largest helicopter maker, and Northrop Grumman Corp. will jointly bid to supply a new U.S. presidential helicopter as well as search and rescue helicopters for the U.S. Air Force.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Gold declined for a second day in New York as a rally to a six-month high spurred some investors to sell the metal.

Apple's stock reached $700 for the first time on Tuesday, the day after it announced that orders for its iPhone 5 topped 2 million in the first 24 hours.

The amount of bad debt in Spain's banks rose to a record in July, according to data released Tuesday, as the country came under further pressure to take up the European Central Bank's offer to help governments struggling with too much debt by buying unlimited amounts of bonds.

The U.S. current account trade deficit narrowed in the April-June period, pushed lower by an increase in American exports and cheaper oil imports.

Germany's top central banker on Tuesday defended his right to speak out about the need for a stable currency, even using a German literary classic to describe printing money to help governments as temptation from the devil.

Health Care REIT says accelerated joint venture buyouts related to its acquisition of Sunrise Senior Living Inc. will raise the expected real estate value of those properties to about $3.2 billion from $1.9 billion.

Global markets mostly fell Tuesday as investors worried about the global growth outlook and Spain's apparent delay in accepting a financial aid package.

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- News Corp.’s U.K. publishing unit was sued by at least 43 more victims of phone hacking by its now-defunct News of the World tabloid, including “Dr. Who” actor Christopher Eccleston and English model Katie Price.

An Alabama man was charged this month with the 1980 murder of an Oxnard teen. A Placerville man was arrested last month for a 1986 rape and murder of a San Mateo teen. A San Francisco man is currently on trial for the murder and robbery of a tourist two decades ago.

An Ohio franchisee who runs several western Pennsylvania Panera Bread stores has agreed to pay more than $76,000 to settle discrimination claims by current and former black employees.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.’s YouTube and Google Play video services will get more than 600 programs from News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox studio, adding TV shows and movies such as “Family Guy,” “Glee” and “X-Men.”

not merely overweight, but obese.

Egypt's general prosecutor issued arrest warrants Tuesday for seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor and referred them to trial on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that has sparked riots across the Muslim world.

Tehran has deployed one of its Russian-made submarines in the Persian Gulf, just days after the United States and more than two dozen allies began naval exercises nearby, Iranian state television reported Tuesday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday the U.S. is concerned about the impact insider attacks are having on its forces in Afghanistan.

An appeals judge has temporarily allowed enforcement of a law that permits the indefinite detention of people believed to have supported terrorists.

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The New York Mets have named the Las Vegas 51s their new Triple-A affiliate.