Behind Your Business

Reuters - Florida sued mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp on Monday for predatory lending practices, alleging the company at the center of the U.S. mortgage crisis made subprime loans to people who could not repay them.

Reuters - Chrysler LLC will shut its St Louis minivan plant, cutting production of its top-selling vehicle and 2,400 factory jobs in a sign of the automaker's troubles with a market reeling from record gas prices.

Investor's Business Daily - Treasury Sec'y Henry Paulson will reveal more details about his accelerated plans for the Fed to assume a larger regulatory role in maintaining financial-system stability in a London speech Wed. "I will be expanding on the role of the Fed as a macro stability regulator to look across the entire financial system, but will be emphasizing how this just has to be paired with market discipline," he told reporters.

AP - Wall Street ended a grueling first half quietly Monday, closing mixed as investors again based their trades on what has become the dominant force in the market: the price of oil. The major indexes closed out the first six months of 2008 with double digit declines, and are perilously close to the levels of a bear market.

Reuters - Ford Motor Co has had exploratory talks with French automaker Renault SA to sell Volvo, but the talks ended quickly due to price differences, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.