A new survey says 60 percent of employers run credit checks on potential hires, as opposed to 42 percent in 2006.

Companies say credit checks provide insight into a person's character and work ethic. Many job applicants disagree.

Andrew Hudson who runs Jobslist.com -- a metro-area job finding Web, disagrees with the practice of using credit reports as a hiring tool.

Amazon is cutting off affiliates that help it sell products in Colorado because of a new tax on online sales.

Affiliates earn money by using their Web sites to link customers to online sellers like Amazon.

Amazon told affiliates in an e-mail on Monday it would no longer pay them advertising fees because of the new law.
 

Read the full story at cbs4denver.com

Food manufacturers rushed to recall products made with hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it found Salmonella Tennessee in one company’s supply of the ingredient, widely-used used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings.

The unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent in February as employers shed fewer jobs than expected, evidence that the job market may be slowly healing.

The Labor Department said employers cut 36,000 jobs, below analysts' expectations of 50,000. Analysts expected the jobless rate to rise to 9.8 percent.

The unemployment rate, which hasn't risen since October, could be bottoming out. Still, 14.9 million Americans are unemployed, nearly double the total when the recession began, and the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs during that time.

Nissan announced the recall of 539,864 vehicles.

Nissan says the affected modles may have problems with brake pedal pins and fuel gauges. The company says it discovered a production error in the brake pedal pin, which could cause the pedal to disengage. It said it had three reports of that happening, but no reports of injuries.

The fuel gauge problem could cause the affected vehicles to incorrectly indicate the amount of fuel remaining in the tank.

A month after Toyota vowed to fix vehicles that suddenly accelerated, some car owners have already started complaining that the repairs were insufficient, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday.

So far, at least seven complaints in the last two weeks have been filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, saying the repairs to pedals and floor mats have not stopped their cars from surging unexpectedly, the paper reports.

Counting on mail service six days a week is virtually a birth-right, but now the U.S. Postal Service wants to kill the sacred cow.

"I think it's not a good idea," said surprised postal patron Cornell Wade when told of the plan to eliminate Saturday service.

At a Tuesday news conference in Washington, D.C., postal officials spelled out the problem.

"Any paper-based communication is being challenged by how they exist and provide their services in an Internet world," said John Potter, Postmaster General.

A company in the Colorado mountains is building a home unlike any other. It will be so energy efficient it won't need to be hooked up to the power grid.

"The home will actually produce more energy in any given year than it will consume," home builder John Rath said.

When it's finished it will be an 8,000 square foot "net zero" house, putting more energy back into the system than it uses.

"It's a 17 kilowatt system that's been modeled to get to achieve the zero net energy," Rath said.

Ford posted a 43 percent jump in February U.S. auto sales and outsold General Motors for the first time in nearly a dozen years as it grabbed sales from struggling Toyota.

Ford Motor Co.'s sales surged thanks to strong demand for its cars and because it was able to grab some customers from Toyota Motor Corp., whose sales fell 9 percent due to a massive safety recall. Ford sold 334 more cars than GM in the U.S. for the first time since August 1998, when GM was in the midst of a strike.

General Motors says it is recalling 1.3 million compact cars in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to fix power steering motors that can fail.

Models covered by the recall include 2005 to 2010 Chevrolet Cobalts, the 2007 to 2010 Pontiac G5s, 2005 and 2006 Pontiac Pursuits sold in Canada and 2005 and 2006 Pontiac G4s sold in Mexico.

GM says the vehicles are safe to drive and never lose steering, but they may be harder to steer when traveling under 15 mph.