ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Merely running America's largest home -- a 1890s French Renaissance-style, 250-room chateau in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina -- wasn't enough.

GENEVA -- Serono SA said Friday that Germany's Merck KGaA has completed its share-purchase agreement with the Bertarelli family to take control of the Swiss pharmaceutical company.

WASHINGTON -- Ending 2006 on a positive note, employers boosted hiring and fattened workers' paychecks in December, capping a year in which the country's unemployment rate averaged a six-year low of 4.6 percent.

ATLANTA -- With Bob Nardelli gone as chief executive, the challenge facing Home Depot Inc. is to turn its stores back into the irresistible shopping destinations they were a decade ago -- making them more customer-friendly, with more knowledgeable employees, cleaner aisles and better stocked shelves.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission has denied all requests from cellphone companies who sought extensions to a federal mandate requiring enhanced 911 systems that allow emergency call centers to locate wireless callers.