Boston Scientific Corp. , the Natick medical device maker, is preparing to slash thousands of jobs to cope with slumping sales, analysts say.

US Representative Barney Frank yesterday suggested that subprime mortgage lenders will face tougher federal regulatory scrutiny unless they do more to work with their delinquent borrowers and help them avoid foreclosure.

When one of the condominiums at Dale Village, a 108-unit complex in Roslindale, fell victim to foreclosure last month, its owner left behind more than an unpaid mortgage. She also owed the condo association $9,000 in fees and legal expenses.

Carl Icahn did a masterful job maneuvering Biogen Idec Inc. toward a likely sale of the company. Now get ready for the second act.

Radio talk show host Howie Carr, whose tortuous contract negotiations have kept him in limbo between two stations, may learn as early as this morning whether he can return to the airwaves on a new station.

REPRESENTATIVE BARNEY FRANK wants to broker a meeting Oct. 26 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston between the purveyors of troublesome subprime mortgages and the elected and neighborhood leaders who link such products to a rash of foreclosures across the state. How well the out-of-state mortgage companies respond, and what remedies evolve, could determine much about future relations between ...

NEW YORK - Three US economists, one of them a 90-year-old professor emeritus from Minnesota, will share this year's Nobel prize in economics for their work on how people's knowledge and self-interest affect their behavior in the market or in social situations such as voting and labor negotiations.

NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's much-anticipated business channel started yesterday as if it had been on the air for 10 years.

DETROIT - Local United Auto Workers leaders voted to recommend approval of a new four-year contract with Chrysler LLC that is similar to one ratified last week with General Motors .

NEW YORK - AOL is eliminating another 2,000 jobs worldwide as it tries to cut costs and make room to grow in online advertising.

During the summer's credit crisis, investors concluded that the default rates on subprime mortgages made last year would probably prove to be the highest in the industry's history.

A Los Angeles federal judge ordered RMG Technologies to stop selling software that lets ticket resellers bypass Ticketmaster security measures and make rapid-fire purchases of thousands of tickets. Ticketmaster of West Hollywood, Calif., said RMG's software may have played a role in the quick sellout of the popular Hannah Montana concert tour. RMG, based in Steubenville, Ohio, said its purchases ...

NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors said yesterday they filed civil money laundering charges against Lloyds TSB Bank PLC and the Bank of Cyprus PCL, alleging they helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars generated from an alleged securities fraud.

A Boston lawyer who once helped prosecute the former head of the National Hockey League's players union will soon be offered the job leading the union.

WASHINGTON - The investor group seeking to terminate a $25 billion buyout of student lender Sallie Mae told a Delaware court yesterday it should not have to pay a $900 million breakup fee.

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in auction yesterday to the highest levels in six weeks.

NEW YORK - The nation's three largest banks said yesterday they are teaming up to create a rescue fund of sorts - potentially as large as $100 billion - to help bail out troubled global credit markets.