AP - Calling himself a realist, Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday scaled back his proposal to raise income taxes, shifting to a call for an increase of just one percentage point to be used solely for preventing deep cuts to education.

Reuters - U.S. mortgage applications nudged higher last week, reflecting increased demand for home purchase loans even as interest rates trekked higher, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

AP - Nationalized mortgage lender Northern Rock said Wednesday that it returned to profit in the second half of 2009 as interest income rose and losses on loans fell.

The Motley Fool - The first Friday of every month brings the all-important employment report. February's numbers were better than anticipated. The United States lost only 36,000 jobs, versus the 68,000 that experts expected. This compares with 651,000 jobs lost in February 2009. Still, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%, with the unofficial rate stuck around a whopping 16%.

AP - Commercial mortgages were among the best-performing loans and leases held by banks and thrifts in the fourth quarter of last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Tuesday.

BusinessWeek - Who got us into this mess? It's not just greedy mortgage lenders and irresponsible economists who are responsible for the current financial crisis. Leaders, so called, have played a role too, by not managing their companies and so being detached from what was going on in them. And behind much of this has been an educational process that encouraged such detachment. As I've argued at length in my book, Managers not MBAs, the MBA is fine education -- but in the functions of business, not the exercise of managing. ...

AP - THE SALE: American International Group Inc. sold its American Life Insurance Co. division, or Alico, to MetLife Inc. for $15.5 billion. The deal is AIG's second big asset sale in two weeks. On March 1, it said it would sell its AIA Group unit to Prudential PLC for $35.5 billion.

AP - American International Group Inc. said Monday that it will sell its American Life Insurance Co. division for $15.5 billion to MetLife Inc. The government-approved deal, AIG's second big asset sale in two weeks, will give the insurer more cash to repay the billions of bailout dollars it still owes the government.

Reuters - MetLife Inc pursued AIG's foreign life insurance business for two years before finally clinching a $15.5 billion purchase that will give it beachheads in 47 nations from Peru to Bangladesh.

The Motley Fool - With the recent auction of Treasury's Bank of America (NYSE: BAC - News) warrants, the big bank joins Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - News), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS - News), and several other banks in completing its exit from TARP. But, is it a buy?