News

A U.S. advisory panel may not vote until next year on whether to recommend the broad use of Pfizer Inc.'s (PFE) Prevnar 13 pneumococcal vaccine in adults age 50 and older, which could curtail its initial use.

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) sold $1.25 billion of five-year floating-rate notes in the U.S. credit markets Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the transaction.

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WASHINGTON -- French oil company Total Fina S.A. has agreed to pay $15 million to the U.S. government to settle claims that it knowingly skimped on royalty payments due on natural gas taken from federal lands, the Interior Department said Wednesday.

Express Scripts  reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on higher costs, including an unexpected tax expense.

BOCA RATON, Fla. -(Dow Jones)- H.J. Heinz Co. (HNZ) will discontinue T.G.I. Friday's frozen single-serve entrees and multiserve meals, whose sales have suffered as consumers opt to buy snacks instead of full meals.

International companies trading in New York closed mostly lower Wednesday as investors remained uninspired by Greece's bailout deal and expressed disappointment with economic data showing business activity in Europe unexpectedly slowed.

Limited Brands revealed a 19% improvement in fourth-quarter profit that beat expectations, however it recorded a hefty tax charge and revealed a disappointing forecast.

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A Novartis AG (NVS) generic-drug manufacturing plant in Canada has halted production of certain drugs to give priority to the production of medically necessary drugs, as the company widens efforts to fix problems identified by U.S. regulators last year.

CME Group Inc. (CME) on Wednesday outlined plans to tie executive pay more closely to performance amid a range of efforts intended to make the world's largest futures exchange company more shareholder-friendly.

(This story has been posted on The Wall Street Journal Online's Health Blog at http://blogs.wsj.com/health.)

The head of General Electric Co.'s (GE) aviation business said Wednesday that he expects its engine deliveries to climb "north of 10%" this year from 2011, boosted by a strong commercial market.

Iconic cleaning-products manufacturer Fuller Brush Co., a pop-culture mainstay of the 1950s, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, five years after the company was taken over by private-equity firm Buckingham Capital Partners.

Overdraft fees, a profit center for banks, are the latest target of a new U.S. financial watchdog, which said Wednesday it would demand data from banks and work to make checking-account statements easier to understand.

Trade Balance: Jan/12 Dec/11 Nov/11 Jan/11 FY/2011 Forecast: -$115M -$591M -$457M -$291M -- Actual: - +$7M -$232M +$143M -$1.17B By Laurence Iliff

Argentina's unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in the fourth quarter as a fast-growing economy continued to add jobs, according to government data.

TOP STORIES UPDATE: NY Cotton Futures Fall To More Than 8-Week Low

The head of one of the world's largest aircraft leasing companies issued a stark warning that Airbus and Boeing Co. (BA) are building too many planes, with some recent blockbuster orders unlikely to be completed in full.

(Updated with final pricing terms in first two paragraphs.)

Congressional lawmakers can breathe a sigh of relief: Warren Buffett approves of the bill based on the "Buffett rule."

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(Updated with final pricing terms and other detail in first four paragraphs.)

All of the good publicity flowing from the crackdown on insider trading has one of the nation’s top law enforcement officials looking at what he might do in the future, and he’s seeing a lot of green.

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Altria is working on developing new products to entice smokers that are open to trying different types of tobacco and want a change from cigarettes. 

Mexican soft-drink bottler Arca Continental SAB (AC.MX, EMBVF) said Wednesday it expects that its profitability will improve this year from 2011 thanks to a more favorable exchange rate and negotiations for lower prices on raw materials.

U.S. weekly gasoline demand rose 3.4% to 8.281 million barrels a day in the week ended Feb. 17, according to a SpendingPulse report released Wednesday by MasterCard Advisors LLC, a division of MasterCard Inc. (MA).

Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) incoming CEO is viewed as having the experience and skills to lead the company out of a difficult period, but he's unlikely to change J&J's basic strategy of fielding a diverse lineup of health-care businesses.

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The European Commission--the European Union's executive body--is considering extending an agreement that bans Commerzbank AG (CBK.XE) from making any acquisitions, daily newspaper Handelsblatt reports ahead of publication Thursday.

("More Tesoro Refinery Workers Reject Labor Contracts," published on Feb. 21 at 4:01 p.m. EST, misstated the outcome of a vote by Mandan refinery workers on a contract, in the fourth paragraph and misstated Catlettsburg in the last paragraph.. The correct version follows.)

Hedge funds look set to take center stage as European merger-and-acquisition activity starts to pick up after a long drought and as bets on winning prices and bidders trigger dramatic rises in the stock price of target companies.

While most investors realize Iraq is still a dangerous place to travel to, they may not fully grasp the financial risks to trading in the nation’s currency.