Business Highlights

By The Associated Press

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Citigroup to cut 11,000 jobs, a familiar story

NEW YORK (AP) ⿿ Citigroup said Wednesday that it will cut 11,000 jobs, a bold early move by new CEO Michael Corbat.

The cuts amount to about 4 percent of Citi's workforce. Most of them, about 6,200 jobs, will come from Citi's consumer banking unit, which handles everyday functions like branches and checking accounts.

Citi said that it will sell or scale back consumer operations in Pakistan, Paraguay, Romania, Turkey and Uruguay and focus on 150 cities around the world "that have the highest growth potential in consumer banking."

The bank, the third-largest in the U.S. by assets, did not say how many jobs it will cut here.

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Starbucks to open 1,500 more cafes in the US

NEW YORK (AP) ⿿ Another Starbucks may soon pop up on a corner near you, as the world's biggest coffee company plans to add at least 1,500 cafes in the U.S. over the next five years.

The plan, which would boost the number of Starbucks cafes in the country by about 13 percent, was announced at the company's investor day in New York Wednesday. Taking into account Canada and South America, Starbucks plans to add a total of 3,000 new cafes in its broader Americas region.

Worldwide, the company says it will have more than 20,000 cafes by 2014, up from its current count of about 18,000. Much of that growth will come from China, which Starbucks says will pass Canada as its second-biggest market.

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Poll shows support for raising taxes on the rich

WASHINGTON (AP) ⿿ Americans prefer letting tax cuts expire for the country's top earners, as President Barack Obama insists, while support has declined for cutting government services to curb budget deficits, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows. Fewer than half the Republicans polled favor continuing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

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