General Motors, Economy | featured news

Strong pickup demand fueled a big jump in U.S. auto sales last month. GM's August U.S. sales rose 10 percent compared with a year earlier, while Ford's rose 13 percent and Chrysler's 14 percent. Most automakers reported strong gains as Americans flowed into dealer showrooms, drawn by model-year closeouts, low-interest financing and appealing new models. Analysts expect overall sales to rise around 20 percent when companies finish reported later Tuesday.

The U.S. economy is on increasingly unsteady footing, hurt by stubbornly high unemployment and volatile oil prices, the head of General Motors Co told reporters on Tuesday.

A Wisconsin dad drives all the way to Kansas each week to hang on to a job in tough times.

General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take more than half its stock in exchange for half of GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.

General Motors Corp. posted a $9.6 billion fourth-quarter loss Thursday and said it burned through $6.2 billion of cash in the last three months of 2008.