AP - Repaying a student loan could soon be a little less painful.

Reuters - AIG's American Life Insurance Company (Alico) will restructure its western European businesses in order to generate cost savings, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.

Reuters - U.S. consumer spending rose last month for the first time since February as government stimulus pushed incomes sharply higher, the Commerce Department said on Friday, supporting the view the economy was close to pulling out of recession.

BusinessWeek Online - You've got a dirty little secret. During long lunch breaks, or after work when everyone else heads home to their families, you're sneaking out to a secret rendezvous. You know what you're doing is perfectly justified, but you still feel a little bad afterwards. You never thought it would come to this. But here you are -- cheating on your financial planner.

Reuters - Freddie Mac , the second-largest U.S. home funding company, on Friday said its mortgage investment portfolio shrank by an annualized 9.9 percent rate in May, while delinquencies on loans it guarantees accelerated.

BusinessWeek Online - With signs the economy is improving but still fragile, Federal Reserve policymakers held the Fed funds rate steady -- at zero to 0.25% -- on June 24, and maintained its pace of purchases of government debt at mortgage-backed securities.

AP - Rates for 30-year home loans edged up this week, remaining above record lows reached over the spring.

Reuters - The federal government has agreed to accept $25 billion of preferred stock in two American International Group Inc businesses as partial repayment of debt, the company said on Thursday.

Reuters - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday stuck to its huge program of buying government and mortgage debt, which is designed to keep borrowing costs low and boost recovery, and said it saw signs that the deep U.S. recession was easing.

Reuters - An unexpected jump in U.S. durable goods orders last month backed hopes the economy was healing, a prospect cautiously supported by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.