Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- American Express Co., the largest U.S. credit-card company by purchases, will slash 10 percent of its workforce to cut costs amid rising defaults as consumers squeezed by higher unemployment fail to repay their debts.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- A merger of General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, and Chrysler LLC may cost 74,000 jobs and close half of the smaller company's plants, according to a report from an accounting firm.