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General Motors will officially announce this morning that its Wentzville plant will build the next generation of Chevrolet Colorado midsized pickups, according to a source familiar with GM’s plans.

The new assembly line will bring more than 1,200 jobs to Wentzville and St. Charles County, the source said, in addition to more than 400 new jobs planned for a second shift of existing van production.

The expansion marks a stunning turnaround for the plant, where languishing demand for full-sized vans had kept assembly work limited to a single shift.

GM executives, UAW leaders and public officials will gather at 11 a.m. in Wentzville to formally announce the addition of the new truck line. The announcement, confirming recent speculation by analysts, comes notably on the 100th anniversary of the Chevrolet brand.

The company has previously requested incentives to build a half-million square foot addition to its existing 3.7 million plant. The company provided no timeline for construction.

With more than 1,300 current employees at the Wentzville plant, the expansion could bring the total workforce to about 3,000 during the next few years, though it is unclear how many area residents might be hired.

GM will give preference to laid-off employees, locally and nationally, as required under the new labor pact that paved the way for the expansion. In addition, some active workers from GM’s plants in other states have already accepted transfers for the new van shift.

GM has not disclosed how many workers could exercise recall rights. But the United Auto Workers Local 2250, which represents Wentzville hourly workers, said only about 20 workers have recall rights cash advance no fax. Nearly two dozen laid-off GM workers have already returned to the plant for training to prepare for the second shift.

GM also will ask its existing employees to refer people for jobs, which could put people who were laid off from local Ford and Chrysler plants back to work, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Center for Automotive Research’s Labor and Industry Group.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

Offering good wages and benefits, automotive production jobs can ripple through a local economy, Dziczek said. Each new auto assembly plant job can spawn three or four other jobs statewide, she says, including everything from parts suppliers to restaurant and construction workers.

“When people think about the additional jobs, they think of parts. But it’s much broader than that,” Dziczek said.

Officials and business leaders in St. Charles county are counting those broader effects.

“They’re adding a half-million-square-foot expansion,” said Wentzville Mayor Paul Lambi, “which will put hundreds of contractors, architects, steelworkers and engineers to work.”

The economic downturn slowed development in Wentzville, which ballooned from 5,000 people two decades ago to a population of nearly 30,000 in the 2010 census. The recession caused homebuilders to pull back on construction.

“We have over 3,000 existing home lots available for development, so yes, we have room to grow,” Lambi said.

With the region’s housing market stagnating, the staff of real estate firm Dutchman Realty is down to five employees

SSM Health Care-St. Louis named Robert William “Bill” Hoefer as the next president of St. Clare Health Center in Fenton. He will begin his duties on Jan. 3.

In addition to leading the 174-bed hospital, which opened in 2009, Hoefer will serve as service line executive for the SSM Neurosciences Institute.

For the past four years, Hoefer has been vice president of operations for Sentara Norfolk General Hospital no fax payday loans. He has a master’s degree in health care administration from the Washington University School of Medicine.

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Even higher fares couldn’t pull American Airlines out of its financial nosedive.

American’s parent, AMR Corp., said Wednesday that it lost $162 million in the third quarter, as fuel spending jumped 40 percent, wiping out higher revenue from fare increases and passenger fees.

It was AMR’s fourth straight losing quarter and 14th in the last 16. In last year’s third quarter _ often the strongest of the year for airlines because of heavy summer travel _ AMR earned $143 million, or 39 cents per share.

AMR hasn’t turned a full-year profit since 2007, and it has lost more than $12 billion since 2001, adding to speculation that it could be headed toward bankruptcy protection.

American has high costs, a heavy debt load, too many gas-guzzling planes in its fleet, and years of labor problems.

AMR spent $2.3 billion on fuel, easily topping wages and benefits as the biggest third-quarter expense and swamping American’s average fares increase of 7 percent.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $6.38 billion. While that was $30 million better than analysts expected, the loss of 48 cents per share was wider than analysts’ forecast of 43 cents per share, according to FactSet.

Investors were disappointed. The company’s shares fell 11 cents, or 4.1 percent, to $2.71 in morning trading.

Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said the third quarter was “challenging for American Airlines,” but said the company was moving aggressively to improve. The top goal, he said, was to control costs.

As recently as 2008, American was the world’s largest airline, but has since been surpassed by Delta, which bought Northwest, and United, which bought Continental. American is trying to compensate for its smaller size by expanding partnerships with British Airways and Japan Airlines to win more lucrative international travel.

As other airlines merged and returned to profitability in the last two years, analysts and investors have grown impatient with AMR management, skewering executives for failing to show enough urgency in fixing American’s problems.

The last few days provided another example of AMR’s woes. The company raised expectations it would settle labor negotiations with American Airlines pilots and win money-saving schedule flexibility, but there was no weekend deal and AMR’s stock fell 6 percent on Monday.

American and the pilots’ union could still reach an agreement any day, allowing American to argue that it is doing something to control costs and boost productivity.

The airline is also taking steps to update its fleet. It announced in July that it will buy 460 new jets from Boeing Co. and Airbus over several years. That should reduce fuel and maintenance spending, but the improvement will be gradual.

American said advance bookings are about the same as last year, but with a weak economy, it has cut the late-fall and winter flights by 3 percent compared with last winter. That should ease pressure to slash fares and help the airline cope with a high number of pilot retirements.

But American said fourth-quarter costs per mile will rise more than 6 percent over the same period last year. That figure doesn’t include fuel costs.

AMR’s stock price has fallen 64 percent this year _ far more than any other major U.S. airline company _ reflecting speculation that the company could be forced into bankruptcy protection like so many other carriers over the past decade.

Most analysts think that won’t happen anytime soon because the company has about $4.3 billion in unrestricted cash and short-term investments that could be liquidated in a pinch.

Standard & Poor’s analyst Jim Corridore said he doesn’t see a need for bankruptcy in the next year but called AMR shares “high risk.” He said problems include pilot retirements, lack of movement on labor talks, and AMR’s need to borrow money.

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Greece’s international debt inspectors have completed their review of the government’s reforms, saying Tuesday that if their conclusions are adopted by the eurozone and IMF, Athens is likely to receive the next batch of its bailout loans in early November.

The inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, collectively known as the troika, said Greece’s deficit targets for 2011 were “no longer within reach,” but that additional measures announced were adequate for 2012.

They said additional measures would likely be needed for 2013-2014, and that they should “focus on the expenditure side.”

Greek authorities “continue to make important progress, notably with regard to fiscal consolidation,” the troika said in a joint statement.

“To ensure a further reduction in the deficit in a socially acceptable manner and to set the stage for a recovery to take hold, it is essential that the authorities put more emphasis on structural reforms in the public sector and the economy more broadly.”

Greece has been dependent since May last year on a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout package from other eurozone countries and the IMF. Without the next euro8 billion loan installment, the country has said it would run out of funds to pay salaries and pensions in mid-November.

Mired in a recession that is deeper than originally expected, Greece’s economy is now only expected to recover from 2013 onwards, the troika said.

“There is no evidence yet of improvement in investor sentiment and the related increase in investments, in part because the reform momentum has not gained the critical mass necessary to begin transforming the investment climate,” it said free credit report and score. It noted, however, that exports were rebounding.

The debt inspectors said the Greek government had achieved a “major reduction” in the deficit despite the recession. However, it said, “the achievement of the fiscal target for 2011 is no longer within reach, partly because of a further drop in GDP, but also because of slippages in the implementation of some of the agreed measures.”

Additional measures the government recently announced _ which include extra taxes and suspending about 30,000 civil servants on partial pay _ “should be sufficient to bring the fiscal program back on track and ensure that the deficit target of euro14.9 billion will be met.”

The troika said that delays in the country’s privatization effort combined with worse market conditions would lead to “significantly lower” revenue than expected this year, but that the government was still committed to raising euro35 billion through privatizations by the end of 2014.

“Ensuring that the privatisation fund remains independent from political pressures remains key for success in this area,” it said.

Once the other eurozone countries and the board of the IMF approve the troika’s review, “the next tranche of euro8 billion … will become available, most likely, in early November.”

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Ameren Corp. says stricter clean air rules that take effect next year are forcing it to shutter two of its oldest Illinois power plants by the year’s end and eliminate 90 jobs.

The 70-year-old plants at Meredosia and Hutsonville, Ill., have run sporadically over the past few years because they are the least efficient in the company’s fleet and don’t produce electricity cheap enough to sell in a weak power market.

Ameren said new regulations finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency this summer were the primary reason it was choosing to permanently mothball them. The rules require steep cuts in power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution. To a lesser extent, the company said, it’s hamstrung by the regional grid operator’s rules that prevent it from selling the plant’s generating capacity more than a year in advance.

“We cannot continue to economically operate these units,” Steven R. Sullivan, head of Ameren Energy Resources Co., said in a statement. “Numerous options to bring these units into compliance were explored, including installing additional environmental controls, but the costs were just too high to be justified.”

Utilities across the country have announced the closure of dozens of older coal-fired power plants in recent weeks, frequently blaming EPA regulations Payday Loan for Bad Credit. The closures and related job losses have become political fodder for conservative lawmakers who assert that the regulatory agenda by the administration of President Barack Obama is damaging an already feeble economy.

Environmental and public health advocacy groups reject the argument.

“It’s wildly disingenuous,” said Henry Henderson, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Counsel’s Chicago office. “There is a design life to engineered equipment, and these old plants are past their design life.”

The older coal plants being shut down around the country are the dirtiest and most responsible for poor air quality and respiratory disease linked to thousands of premature deaths, he said. Also, lost generation capacity is being replaced by new renewable energy sources and energy efficiency projects, which are creating new jobs.

Ameren’s Meredosia plant, about an hour west of Springfield, dates to the 1940s.

The plant began generating electricity in 1948, and additional generating capacity was installed incrementally until the mid-1970s.

Ameren has already closed two of Meredosia’s four units. One of the units runs on coal, the other on fuel oil. Together they can generate 369 megawatts

A special court heard arguments Monday about whether to dismiss charges against former Prime Minister Geir Haarde, who has been accused of failing to prevent the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland.

Haarde appeared before the Landsdomur, a special court which is being convened for the first time in the nation’s history to conduct a trial of charges against a government minister.

The two-hour hearing finished at midday, and a decision is expected within three weeks.

Haarde, 60, who has pleaded not guilty, could be sentenced to up to two years in prison if convicted.

His lawyer, Andri Arnason, argued that the former leader should have been the subject of a criminal investigation “where the accused would have, among other things, been able to give rebuttals.”

“The result of the investigative commission was not a criminal investigation,” said Arnason. “It would have been a good basis for a continued investigation but can never replace one on line pay day loans.

“How is it that in the 21st century a criminal case is brought forward without a criminal investigation? Would this be tolerated in any other case? I highly doubt that,” Arnason said.

However, prosecutor Sigridur Fridjonsdottir said Haarde could have given a statement to investigators at any time.

“The arrangement in this case is considerably different than in criminal cases in general but it in no way contravenes the laws on Landsdomur,” Fridjonsdottir said.

It has been nearly a year since the Althingi, the Icelandic parliament, voted for Haarde to be charged for allegedly failing to prevent the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland that sparked protests, toppled the government and brought the economy to a standstill. The parliament decided not to pursue charges against three other members of Haarde’s government.

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Stocks are rising after Tropical Storm Irene wound up being less severe than many analysts had anticipated.

The storm ripped through the East Coast and caused widespread flooding. Millions were still without power. However, a consulting firm predicted that insured damages would range between $2 billion and $3 billion, lower than initially estimated.

The New York Stock Exchange and other major U.S. exchanges opened for trading as usual Monday.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 170 points, or 1.5 percent, at 11,455. The S&P 500 is up 20, or 1.6 percent, at 1,197. The Nasdaq is up 42, or 1.7 percent, at 2,521.

Greek stocks jumped 15 percent after two major banks agreed to merge to better withstand that nation’s debt crisis.

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Ford’s ambitious plans to grow in Asia took a toll on its second-quarter profit, with higher costs to design and sell cars offsetting rising sales.

The company’s net income fell 8 percent to $2.4 billion for the April-June period. Ford blamed higher prices for steel and other commodities, but also said that after years of restructuring, the company is strong enough to spend heavily on future growth. Ford spent $400 million more on engineering and advertising new vehicles than it did a year earlier.

“That’s the new thing for Ford, that we are investing in the future,” Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said.

Rival Chrysler Group also took a hit, reporting a loss of $370 million in the quarter. Like Ford, Chrysler said the loss was a sign of a healthier balance sheet. Without a $551 million accounting charge for refinancing bailout debts to the U.S. and Canadian governments, Chrysler would have earned $181 million.

Ford’s worldwide sales were up 7 percent. Revenue rose 13 percent to $35.5 billion. But the company warned last month that its profit could slip, citing investments in future products.

Investment in Asia is the next step in President and CEO Alan Mulally’s plan to move beyond the company’s near collapse in 2006, when it took out $23 billion in loans to restructure. Since then, it has cut costs and sunk billions into improving Ford cars, resulting in nine straight quarterly profits. Now, the company aims to expand its business in Asia, where it’s dwarfed by General Motors Co.

Ford plans to roll out 15 cars in India and China over the next four years, and as a result, it’s spending hundreds of millions more on product development than it did a year ago. In Asia, Ford reported a pretax profit of just $1 million, down $112 million from the same time last year. The company also took a hit because some of its hottest cars are smaller and less profitable than its older models, like the $8,000 Figo in India. It hopes to make up for that by selling more cars.

An investment now could mean a windfall for Ford later. GM sells three times more cars in China than Ford does in all of Asia, and GM booked a $600 million profit in its international operations _ which includes Asia _ in the first quarter cash advance companies. Ford currently controls less than 3 percent of the market in both India and China, but wants to increase its sales by 50 percent by mid-decade.

Ford also said it is spending more on production to meet post-recession demand in the U.S., where people are expected to buy nearly 2 million more cars this year than they did last year. Ford projects that annual U.S. sales will be in the lower end of its 13 million to 13.5 million forecast. The company lowered its forecast for European sales, which were weakened by the debt crisis in the latest quarter. Ford now expects sales no higher than 15.3 million vehicles, down from 15.5 million.

One reason sales softened in the U.S. was a lack of discounts. Both Ford and Chrysler were able to command higher prices for their cars and trucks last quarter, partly because of tight supplies of Japanese cars following an earthquake in that nation.

Chrysler’s average selling price rose nearly 5 percent from a year earlier to $29,964 while Ford’s rose 1 percent to $31,179, according to Edmunds.com automotive website. Both spent less on rebates and other deals.

While Chrysler was focused on paying off its government loans, Ford paid $2.6 billion of its own debt during the quarter. The company now has $14 billion in debt, a legacy of its 2006 restructuring. Ford hopes its steady reduction in debt will convince ratings agencies to return the company to investment-grade status, which would make it cheaper to borrow money.

Ford may not have to wait long. Standard and Poor’s Ratings Service said the company’s “financial performance is tracking levels consistent with a higher rating,” although it said it is waiting to act until Ford completes contract talks with the United Auto Workers union. Ford and the UAW are expected to kick off negotiations on a new four-year contract this Friday.

GM is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings Aug. 4.

Ford shares fell 30 cents, or 2 percent, to $12.89 in afternoon trading.

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Masked assailants blew up the Egyptian pipeline that carries gas to Israel and Jordan early on Monday, starting a fire that burned for hours and disrupting the flow of the gas, security officials said.

The blast targeted a pumping station at a location of about 65 miles (100 kilometers) south of the Mediterranean coastal city of El-Arish in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

El-Arish is 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Israel’s border.

The officials said the attackers, armed with assault rifles, arrived in two pickup trucks without number plates and forced the three security guards on duty to leave before placing the explosives and shooting the pipeline’s valves to release the gas.

The explosion triggered a blaze that took firemen at least seven hours to extinguish, they said guaranteed high risk personal loans.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said there were no casualties.

Monday’s blast was the third to hit the strategic pipeline since an uprising overthrew Egypt’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February.

No one claimed responsibility for Monday’s explosion. Disgruntled Bedouin tribesmen in the area have been blamed for attacking the pipeline in the past. Islamists opposed to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel have also been suspected.

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The Senate canceled its planned July Fourth recess on Thursday, but partisan divisions remained razor sharp as the clock ticked on efforts to strike a deal to avoid a government default and trim huge federal deficits.

A day after President Barack Obama accused congressional leaders of procrastinating over the impasse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that the chamber would meet beginning next Tuesday. The Republican-run House is not in session this week but had already been scheduled to be at work next week.

Despite the Senate’s schedule change, there was no indication the two sides had progressed in resolving their chief disagreement. Democrats insist that a deficit-cutting package of deep spending cuts also include higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans and fewer tax breaks for oil companies. Republicans say any such agreement would be defeated in Congress, a point Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made anew when he invited Obama to meet with GOP lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.

“That way he can hear directly from Republicans why what he’s proposing won’t pass,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “And we can start talking about what’s actually possible.”

McConnell’s invitation seemed almost like a taunt, since well before McConnell spoke the White House had announced that Obama was heading to Philadelphia to attend Democratic fundraising events.

White House spokesman Jay Carney defended Obama’s decision to attend the fundraisers, saying, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.” He also said McConnell had merely “invited the president to hear what would not pass. That’s not a conversation worth having.”

The Obama administration has warned that if the government’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit is not raised by Aug. 2, the U.S. will face its first default ever, potentially throwing world financial markets into turmoil, raising interest rates and threatening the economic recovery. Many congressional Republicans indicate they’re unconvinced that such scenarios would occur, and some administration officials worry that it could take a financial calamity before Congress acts.

One Democratic official familiar with the debt talks said the real deadline for reaching an bipartisan agreement on the debt and deficit reduction is mid-July, in order to give congressional leaders time to win votes and put final details of a deal into shape. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal details of private negotiations.

Obama has said that in talks, Republican and Democratic negotiators have found more than $1 trillion in potential spending cuts over the coming decade, including reductions favored by both sides.

The Democratic official said Thursday that of those cuts, roughly $200 billion would come mainly from savings from Medicaid and Medicare, the federal health insurance programs for the poor and elderly.

Another $200 billion would come from cuts in other automatically paid benefit programs, including farm subsidies fast payday loan. Another large chunk would come from cuts in discretionary spending that Congress approves every year _ presumably over $1 trillion, which is more than the White House but less than Republicans have proposed.

Both sides would then also count whatever interest savings they achieve through those deficit cuts.

The White House is also proposing about $400 billion in higher tax revenues. Republicans want no tax increases and deeper spending cuts than Democrats have proposed.

The overall goal would be to cut at least $2 trillion over 10 years.

Increasing the current borrowing limit by about $2.4 trillion would carry the government until the end of 2012 _ thereby avoiding another congressional vote on the issue until after the next presidential and congressional elections. Republicans have insisted on coupling any extension with at least an equal amount of budget savings.

For next week, Reid laid plans for the Senate to debate legislation authorizing U.S. involvement in Libya. He told reporters that Democratic senators would also discuss the deficit standoff with Obama next Wednesday at the Capitol or the White House, meet with administration economic advisers and learn about a deficit-cutting plan crafted by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

“What we have to do is too important to not be here,” Reid said.

But GOP senators belittled the plans, saying little would be achieved.

“Talk about Libya? How does that answer the concerns expressed by the president” about the debt limit, said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

A confrontational tone dominated the day, with each side accusing the other of lacking seriousness about finding a way to extend the debt ceiling.

“Where is the president? Campaigning,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of a parade of GOP senators who took to the Senate floor to accuse Obama of not tackling the deficit standoff. “We’re here, Mr. President.”

Democrats focused on the GOP refusal to consider tax increases, including loophole closers Democrats have proposed on companies that ship jobs abroad and on wealthy owners of yachts, race horses and aircraft.

“Protecting them is not protecting America,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the No. 2 Senate Democratic leader.

The stakes of the debate were underscored when a Standard & Poor’s executive said the credit-rating agency would give the government its lowest rating should lawmakers fail to agree on raising the borrowing limit and cause a federal default.

Should that occur, S&P would drop the U.S. rating of AAA to D, John Chambers, managing director of sovereign ratings for the company, said on Bloomberg Television.

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