Business

Americans backed off from holiday spending in January, but retail sales rose for a third month in a row compared with a year earlier, largely because of gas price hikes, according to figures released Wednesday by a key data service.

California's insurance regulator plans to take steps Wednesday to pressure insurance companies into ending any financial relationship they have with Iran.

Toyota in Europe is no where near the hot-selling carmaker it is in the United States. But the troubled auto maker's miseries have hit home there with the recall of the Prius, which has become something of an icon in environment-conscious Europe.

Businesses slashed wholesale inventories sharply in December, a much weaker showing than expected and a troubling sign that companies are still too pessimistic about the economy to begin restocking shelves on a sustained basis.

Partisanship is reaching new heights in Washington, even as President Barack Obama makes almost daily pleas to get along. He's scheduled a bipartisan health care summit, and just Tuesday he hosted GOP leaders at the White House for the first time in two months.