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A troubled economy and political infighting will darken the upcoming holiday retail season as consumer spending will barely rise over 2010 levels, says a new report from Ball State University. The forecast anticipates that overall retail sales will increase by 0.8 percent over last year. Sales during the last few months of the year have rebounded since the depths of the Great Recession of 2007-09 but still are not close to the prerecession heights.

Gov. Bill Haslam confirmed a sales tax deal with online retailer Amazon.com on Oct. 6, announcing thousands of additional jobs and what he hopes will be the resolution of a long-running dispute within the business community.

American Eagle Outfitters and Cotton Incorporated are partnering on a denim recycling program called “Cotton. From Blue to Green.” Through Oct. 18, more than 850 American Eagle Outfitters stores are participating as well as 47 college campuses across the U.S.

The disconnect between how executives and consumer privacy advocates view email marketing was never more obvious than during the latest hijinks surrounding Barnes & Noble's acquisition of Borders' customer data, including email addresses. As part of the Borders bankruptcy proceedings, Barnes & Noble paid $13.9 million for Borders' intellectual property, including its 48-million customer database.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot announced it has named Teresa Wynn Roseborough executive VP general counsel and corporate secretary, effective in November. Roseborough, who will be responsible for leading The Home Depot's legal department, as well as its government relations and corporate security services functions, joins the chain from MetLife, where she most recently served as deputy general counsel.

Copycatting another designer's ideas never turns out well. Especially when that designer often lends you nice jewelry. Because as Kim Kardashian learned recently, that designer will take away all those nice, free jewels and bad-mouth you to the press. 

Tesco is capitalizing on the 45 percent surge in its online clothing business by expanding this service to international markets. The U.K. multichannel retailer will deliver its range of clothing to countries in Europe through Clothingattesco.com, to be relaunched this month.

Chesapeake, Va. -- Dollar Tree said that its board has approved a $1.5 billion share repurchase program. The company said it has invested more than $1.9 billion for share repurchase since 2003, including $414.7 million in 2010 and $345.9 million in 2011, to date. “Dollar Tree continues to demonstrate the ability to self-fund growth while generating substantial free cash,” said president and CEO Bob Sasser. “The new share repurchase authorization reflects our commitment to build value for long-term shareholders and our confidence in the future.”

Beachwood, Ohio -- DDR Corp. announced Friday plans to redevelop four shopping centers by adding two new Walmart stores in Florida and expanding two existing stores in Ohio and Puerto Rico. "These projects will deliver desired growth opportunities to the world's most successful retailer and further strengthen DDR's relationship with its largest tenant," said Paul Freddo, senior executive VP leasing & development for DDR. At DDR's The Shops at Midtown Miami, a 645,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use center in Miami, Walmart plans to build a 160,000-sq.-ft. store on a currently undeveloped five-acre parcel adjacent to the existing center which currently features Target,

New York City -- Costco Wholesale Corp. turned in a strong September performance, leading the category with a 12% rise in same-store sales for the month. Wall Street expected a 10.1% rise. However, the warehouse club operator cautioned that margins were negatively impacted during the period and that it would be raising its membership fees to compensate. Target Corp., helped by strong sales of groceries, beauty products and clothing, saw September same-store sales rise 5.3%, beating the projected 3.9% increase. Sales for the period rose 6.5% to $5.9 billion. “We’re very pleased with our September comparable-store sales, which were