EDGE Boston

European nations strove to find a concrete response to Ireland’s debt crisis and protect other vulnerable countries Wednesday after earlier efforts were bogged down in a morass of political complications.

All but wiped out in 2008, Republicans groping for a comeback strategy determined there would be no swift return to economic health under incoming President Barack Obama. They soon also agreed privately to oppose his major legislation. The strategy worked.

Newly elected members of Congress will get a reminder Friday of the economic challenges they face in January: The jobs report for October is expected to show hiring weak and unemployment still high.

When stumping on the campaign trail, the nation’s new slate of governors could afford to make sweeping but vague promises about how they’d solve their states’ massive looming budget deficits.

The Federal Reserve is about to take a huge risk in hopes of getting the economy steaming along again. Nobody is sure it will work, and it may actually do damage.

After a last-minute back-to-school buying spree, Americans appeared to have taken a shopping pause in October, resulting in a mixed retail sales picture.

An economy growing 2 percent a year might be tolerable in normal times. Today, it’s a near-disaster.

A photo of President Barack Obama hangs on the wall in CoraFaye’s Cafe, a short walk from the Denver museum where Obama signed into law the most sweeping U.S. economic package in decades in an attempt to put people back to work and end the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

AIG, which became a lightening rod for criticism over government bailouts, said it reached a deal to repay billions of dollars it received during the credit crisis.

The recession seems to be socking Americans in the heart as well as the wallet: Marriages have hit an all-time low while pleas for food stamps have reached a record high and the gap between rich and poor has grown to its widest eve