Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free. Polihale State Park has been closed since severe flooding destroyed an access road to the park and damaged facilities in December. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, ...

Hours after G-20 leaders agreed to a trillion-dollar bailout of the world economy in chilly London, one of the world's most flamboyant hoteliers opened his latest luxury hotel in sunny South Africa. Sol Kernzer admits opening an uber-luxury hotel in the current economic climate is not ideal, but he still firmly believes his latest venture -- One&Only -- in Cape Town's waterfront will be a success. Across his global hotel empire, from Atlantis in the Bahamas to the Royal Mirgae ...

British banking giant RBS has revealed it expects to make more job cuts and that former chief executive Fred Goodwin is considering taking a voluntary cut in his pension. New chairman Philip Hampton Friday made a strong apology for the bank's mistakes, which lead to a UK record loss of £24.1 billion ($34.6 billion) for 2008. In not so veiled comments he also laid the blame for the bank's current situation firmly at the feet of Goodwin, who retired after ...

Want to get the most out of your next brainstorming session at work? Bring in an oddball. If you can't find an oddball, try a naysayer or even a mere stranger — anyone who can keep things vaguely uncomfortable. If that sounds like a prescription for one of the worst meetings you've ever had, suck it up and go anyway. It might also be one of the most productive. Business experts and social scientists have long warned about the perils ...

Twenty years ago, when the New Kids on The Block were wearing their hair almost as high as their fame, the music business was a vastly different animal. There was no "American Idol." No such thing as a download, legal or otherwise. People collected posters, not ringtones. But it appears something has carried over from that distant era. Something loud, something jumpy, something ready to roar: Blockheads (or to those not familiar with boy band lingo, fans of New Kids ...

Associates of convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff knew he was scamming his clients but joined in anyway because of the big money they could make, a securities investigator testified in a sworn affidavit for a Connecticut court. The testimony by investigator Edward H. Seidle on Tuesday came as a Connecticut judge froze the funds of Madoff and several of his business associates as part of a lawsuit filed for members of a city's retirement fund who say they invested ...

Fewer Bentleys cruise the streets of Moscow these days, sushi sales are down, and construction on Europe's tallest tower has halted for lack of money. For fashionistas at the opening of the 18th annual Russian Fashion Week on Sunday, the most potent sign of the times was the sight of people wearing last year's styles. "Even the very rich aren't just going out and buying anymore," says Tatyana Ageyeva, a buyer who has worked for élite labels like Kenzo and ...

When the series "ER" airs its finale on Thursday, the event will not only mark the completion of one of NBC's most successful shows, but it can also be viewed as the end of an era for the network. "What's so symbolic about 'ER' leaving is that that 10 o'clock Thursday night slot started out what I always called the beginning of the second golden age of television with 'Hill Street Blues'," said Robert Thompson, a professor and founding director ...

"I was a walking time bomb. I knew I had to get on that plane if I wanted to be around to see my grandkids." Sandra Giustina is a 61-year-old uninsured American. For three years she saved her money in hopes of affording heart surgery to correct her atrial fibrillation. "They [U.S. hospitals] told me it would be about $175,000, and there was just no way could I come up with that," Giustina said. So, with a little digging online, ...

The first major protest ahead of next week's G-20 summit got underway in a cold and rainy London on Saturday, but police said they expected the event to be largely peaceful despite fears of violence in coming days. Such has been the Internet's phenomenal and dizzying growth that much of the technology which supports it has grown organically and without much forward planning. But what if the Internet was to run out of space This isn't just a theoretical debate, ...