On CNet, Steven Musil writes...

Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company. "I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News said.

Read the reast on CNet.

Bad news for the U.S. and U.K, as they both move closer to losing their AAA credit ratings.

On Bloomberg, Matthew Brown wrote...

The U.S. and the U.K. have moved “substantially” closer to losing their AAA credit ratings as the cost of servicing their debt rose, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The governments of the two economies must balance bringing down their debt burdens without damaging growth by removing fiscal stimulus too quickly, Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s in London, said in a telephone interview. Under the ratings company’s so-called baseline scenario, the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013, Moody’s said today in a report. “We expect the situation to further deteriorate in terms of the key ratings metrics before they start stabilizing,” Cailleteau said. “This story is not going to stop at the end of the year. There is inertia in the deterioration of credit metrics.”

Read more of this on Bloomberg.com

Next, the relationship between the United States and China is becoming increasingly strained. 

On The Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes...

China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America's U6 unemployment at 16.8pc.
"It's going to be really hard for them yet again to fudge on the obvious fact that China is manipulating. Without a credible threat, we're not going to get anywhere," said Paul Krugman, this year's Nobel economist. China's premier Wen Jiabao is defiant. "I don’t think the yuan is undervalued. We oppose countries pointing fingers at each other and even forcing a country to appreciate its currency," he said yesterday. Once again he demanded that the US takes "concrete steps to reassure investors" over the safety of US assets. "Some say China has got more arrogant and tough. Some put forward the theory of China's so-called 'triumphalism'. My conscience is untainted despite slanders from outside," he said

Read the rest of this on The Daily Telegraph. 

Update 1: How you can possibly avoid a late refund from your state. 

CBS News reports...

Some states suffering severe, recession-induced budget problems are holding off on paying tax refunds to people and businesses. North Carolina, Hawaii and Alabama are already doing it and others, such as New York and Kansas, might.The states are holding or may hold onto your money as long as they can because they need to use it for other purposes, tax expert and attorney Barbara Weltman told "Early Show" Saturday Edition" co-anchor Chris Wragge. You know the economy is getting bad when the government cannot afford to give you back your own money. News out today says that some states may have to delay tax refunds due to budget constraints. 

Read the rest on CBS News.

William M. Welch from USA TODAY wrote...

Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months. "It's an indicator of how bad it is," says Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. "You know things are bad when you have to do that."

To read more of this article, visit the USA Today website. 

Stay tuned -- updates to come...

Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds. Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.

Read more on USA Today.

Ford Motor Co. outsold General Motors Co. in February for the first time in more than a decade. Ford sold 334 more cars than GM in the U.S. It was the first time since August 1998 that Ford outsold GM. Ford's said Tuesday its sales jumped 43 percent thanks to strong demand for its cars. The automaker grabbed some sales from Toyota, which is struggling with a massive safety recall.

Read more on MY Way News.

General Motors said Tuesday that United States sales rose 11.5 percent in February, including a 32.2 percent gain for the four brands it is keeping: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC. Ford Motor Company, Toyota and other automakers are scheduled to release monthly sales data later in the day, and Toyota’s figures are expected to show a sizable drop in February because of the automaker’s big recalls.

Read more on The New York Times.

Read about GM's own recall problems on Daily Finance. 

White House economic adviser Larry Summers said the winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures. "The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it's going to be very important ... to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends," Summers said in an interview with CNBC, according to a transcript.

Read more on Reuters.

Billionaire Warren Buffett said Monday the economy is improving but at a very slow rate and consumers are still not spending much, so job growth will remain slow. Buffett appeared on the CNBC cable network for three hours Monday morning — two days after releasing his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders — and he addressed a range of topics, including health care reform and succession at his company.

Read more on The AP.

Harry Markopolos is the whistle-blower who uncovered Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme 10 years before the rest of the world learned of the biggest financial crime in history. While a lot has been written about Madoff’s scam, few actually know the dramatic details of how Markopolos and a small group of sleuths went about investigating the fraud that reached around the globe.

In “No One Would Listen,” Markopolos shares his story --- read it on MSNBC.

Add Gatorade to the list of endorsement deals that Tiger Woods has lost. A representative for the drink, sold by PepsiCo Inc., confirmed late Friday that it had ended its relationship with the golfer.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar. "That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said.

Read more on ABC News.