Ford Motor Co., the only major US automaker to avoid bankruptcy, rose after posting an unexpected third-quarter net income of $997 million, its first operating profit since early 2008 on smaller discounts and higher sales.  On an adjusted basis, Ford reported a quarterly pretax profit of $1.1 billion, or 26 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $3 billion, or $1.32. Ford beat the 20 cents a share adjusted loss estimated by an average of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. It expects to be “solidly profitable” in 2011.

Philip Green has a problem with four purple crushed-velvet dresses hanging from a display stand.   “Here’s one of my pet hates: too many garments on a rack,” Green says, thrusting the frocks at Becky Bateman, manager of UK fashion chain Topshop’s flagship London store.

It’s a Thursday morning in early October, and Green, 57, has strolled down London’s Oxford Street from the head office of Arcadia Group Ltd., his privately held retail clothing company, for a store inspection.

That’s the kind of attention Green has also lavished on Topshop’s first US outlet. In April, he flew supermodel Kate Moss to New York to open the 2,323-square-meter emporium in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood that he says cost $25 million to prepare.

When Barack Obama was elected president, he was heralded as a possible savior for climate-treaty talks that had dragged on for years while George W. Bush rejected limits on US greenhouse-gas emissions.

“America is back” at the United Nations negotiating table, Democratic Senator John Kerry declared after the November election. Danish climate minister Connie Hedegaard said US emissions policy moved forward 35 years overnight.