Imports

Whole Foods Market has long trumpeted its premium chocolate bars for being made the old-fashioned way, in Switzerland. But two years ago it added another manufacturing claim to the product's labels—one that would appeal to millions of Americans who...

Federal regulators urged retailers to pull more Simplicity bassinets from their shelves after Illinois attorney general staffers purchased models that could kill a baby but were excluded from a federal alert issued last week. The most troubling aspect of...

Some companies would be permitted to skirt independent lab testing of children's products in favor of their own in-house certification, thanks in large part to lobbying by the world's biggest toymaker, the Tribune has found. Toymaker Mattel Inc. argued...

PULL up a stool at Lou's, a wine bar that opened six weeks ago, sandwiched between a fluff-and-fold laundromat and a pawn shop near the corner of Melrose and Vine, and Lou Amdur can tell you all about Spanish wines. Rich Garnachas from Priorato and...

FORD MOTOR CO.'s announcement last week that it lost a record $12.75 billion in 2006 will tempt the new Democratic Congress to come to the rescue of Detroit's Big Three automakers. General Motors and DaimlerChrysler are also expected to announce SUV-sized...

by Frank James More bad economic news today on the unemployment front. Jobless claims climbed to the highest level in seven years last month. What's truly unnerving is that the numbers are coming in even worse than economists and other......

By 9 a.m. the crab boats have already been coming and going from the pier for close to five hours, with migrant Burmese workers laboring to unload, sort, weigh and steam crabs that are destined for dinner plates on the other side of the world....

For executives like Tom Matte, the huge U.S. trade imbalance presents a constant shell game. A senior manager for an international auto handler, Matte must find storage space for hundreds of Hondas arriving in the bellies of hulking cargo ships from...

Two years ago Gabriel Morales was offered a job transfer with Motorola. Instead, he took his $10,000 in severance pay and invested it in his family's new import/export business in Miami. Star Supply imports shoes from Brazil. The business is "almost in...

Federal Reserve policymakers today raised interest rates by another notch for the fifth consecutive time this year amid signs of a strengthening economy. Wall Street stocks, which had traded in a narrow range this morning, rose modestly after the Fed...

A legion of Greek winemakers is intent on recapturing the country's ancient viticultural glory. They aim to break the stereotype that all Greek wines are that mix of plonk and pine resin known as retsina. Last summer's Olympic Games in Athens gave some...

Wall Street stock swooned today after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed concerns about the chronic and growing U.S. trade deficit and its impact on the value of the U.S. dollar and interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average lost...