60 Bloomsbury Estates perches high over downtown Raleigh, a brick edifice so imposing that it has garnered over-the-top comparisons to Cinderella's Castle at Disney World's Magic Kingdom. www.newsobserver.com/1591963 The tally of newly laid-off workers filing for unemployment insurance dropped last week, the government said Thursday, a sign job cuts are easing. www.newsobserver.com/1592353 The stock market found little to celebrate heading into the long holiday weekend. www.newsobserver.com/1592343 After a yearlong free-fall in the American car market, the decline of sales slowed in June, offering hope to automakers that the bottom has been reached and more shoppers may slowly start returning to showrooms soon. www.newsobserver.com/1591951 Orders to U.S. factories jumped in May by the largest amount in nearly a year, another sign that the nosedive in manufacturing is nearing an end. www.newsobserver.com/1592392 Federal investigators filed mortgage and accounting fraud charges Wednesday against Beazer Homes USA, but the homebuilder will escape prosecution because it agreed to pay victims $50 million and accepted responsibility. www.newsobserver.com/1592041 Johnson & Johnson, making a big jump into the risky but potentially lucrative field of Alzheimer's disease, is taking a major stake in Irish biopharmaceutical company Elan Corp., investing up to $1.5 billion initially. www.newsobserver.com/1592349 Investors kicked off the stock market's third quarter with a moderate gain after getting some reassuring data on manufacturing and housing. www.newsobserver.com/1591958 Philip Morris International, maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes for sale overseas, has agreed to buy a Swedish company's South African snuff and pipe tobacco operations for 1.75 billion South African rand, or roughly $222 million. www.newsobserver.com/1592280 Exelon Corp. on Thursday sweetened its hostile takeover bid for NRG Energy Inc. by 12 percent to $8 billion in stock, citing newly identified cost savings along with NRG's recent deal for Reliant Energy's Texas retail business. www.newsobserver.com/1592296 Unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro spiked to a 10-year high in May, reinforcing concerns any recovery will take time with so many people out of work. www.newsobserver.com/1592233 The departure of Peak Fitness from the Triangle has been less than smooth, and as the gym chain closes facilities in the area, many members are scrambling for refunds, answers and resolution that may not come. www.newsobserver.com/1591952 In the Triangle, auto dealers are feeling a tad more optimistic than they did in the first half of 2009. www.newsobserver.com/1591954 Johnston Health medical officials give top marks to a WakeMed partnership proposal to expand cardiac care in Johnston County, which has one of the state's higher death rates from heart disease. www.newsobserver.com/1591957 Workers at the world's largest pork plant in Bladen County ratified their first union contract Wednesday. www.newsobserver.com/1591956 An Arkansas electric manufacturer says it will expand an existing plant in Western North Carolina. www.newsobserver.com/1591955 Stock Building Supply, struggling from a slowdown in home construction, has completed its financial restructuring and has emerged from Chapter11 bankruptcy. www.newsobserver.com/1591965 Apartment prices in the typically resilient Manhattan market plunged in the second quarter by the largest annual amount in decades. www.newsobserver.com/1591964 Years of arguing that a Vietnamese fish isn't catfish -- and winning a federal law saying as much -- the U.S. farmers now want to have it both ways. They want the Vietnamese imports considered catfish so that they will be covered by a new inspections regime. www.newsobserver.com/1590212 Workers at the world's largest pork plant in Bladen County ratified their first union contract today. www.newsobserver.com/1591708