When Ria Jackson, 40, and her husband, Scott Jackson, 41, spent $2,000 to boost the curb appeal of their four-bedroom colonial in Bowie, it wasn’t to attract a buyer. They needed to make their home more attractive to choosy tenants.

NEW YORK, Aug. 14 — For years, the question of what constitutes fair and appropriate compensation for top business executives has been debated by legislators, corporate directors and activist shareholders.

The biggest single beneficiary of the $3 billion “Cash for Clunkers” government program so far is the Japanese automaker Toyota, according to federal figures released Friday.

Dallas-based Lone Star Funds, which specializes in acquiring distressed assets from troubled financial institutions, has established an operation in Washington so that it can help shape federal policy on taking over failed banks, officials at the private-equity firm said Friday.

Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction, or so the laws of physics say. Push and pull. Proton and electron. Gravity and levity.

The Department of Health and Human Services is almost certain to take on responsibility for creating the criteria used to decide what health records technologies qualify for billions of dollars in reimbursements to medical offices under a new stimulus program, officials said Friday.

BELGRADE, Mont., AUG. 14 — President Obama came to Big Sky country Friday afternoon to push back against loud opposition to his health-care proposals, saying the raucous town hall meetings aired on television in recent days are not representative of the public’s views on reform.

Stocks fell Friday as investors locked in profits after a two-day rally that had left the Standard & Poor’s 500 index at a 10-month high.

The Obama administration made a national priority of spreading high-speed Internet access to every American home and offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operators are staying away from the program.

GLENFIELD, N.D. — For the first time in five months, Janet Morgan was on her way to work — a happy occasion diminished only by what now was required to get there. She packed 13 boxes into the bed of her rusted pickup, careful to include what she considered her “survival items.” Family photograp…