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PORTLAND, Ore. — BMW of North America is voluntarily recalling nearly 89,000 Mini vehicles because of a water pump malfunction that could cause a fire.

The company says in a regulatory filing Monday that the water pump that cools the turbocharger in some of its cars has a circuit board that can malfunction and overheat. That could cause smoldering and potentially a fire.

No accidents or injuries have been reported. BMW will replace the pump at no cost to owners.

The recall applies to 2007-2011 models of the Mini Cooper S, 2008-2011 Cooper S Clubman, 2009-2011 Cooper S Convertible and 2011 Cooper S Countryman. It also includes the 2009-2011 models of the Mini JCW, JCW Clubman and JCW Convertible.

Adobe details plans to cut 224 Bay Area jobs

San Jose-based Adobe Systems has decided to eliminate 224 jobs in the Bay Area within weeks as part of previously announced staff reductions linked to the software maker’s intensified push into digital media and marketing.

Adobe will chop 121 jobs in San Jose and 103 jobs in San Francisco, an official filing by the company with state labor officials shows. The employment cuts are due to be in place by Jan. 31.

The hundreds of job losses are part of a reduction of about 750 positions announced in November by Adobe.

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Demand for loans to buy homes and refinance mortgages slid in the final week of 2011, even as mortgage rates dipped, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell 4.1 percent in the week ended Dec. 30, weighed down by a 9.6 percent drop in purchase loan requests and a 2.5 percent decline in refinancing requests, seasonally adjusted data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed.

Average 30-year conforming mortgage rates dipped to the year’s low of 4.07 percent from 4.10 percent the prior week, and well below 4.82 percent at the end of 2010.

The slide to near-record-low borrowing rates has spurred more homeowners to seek refinancing, propelling that index up more than 60 percent in 2011.

But demand for loans to buy homes fell in the year, as borrowers struggled to come up with cash for down payments or stayed on the sidelines due to worries about unemployment. Full Article…

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The father of an Oakland toddler shot in the head during a gun battle says his son is responding to contact.

Hiram Lawrence told KTVU-TV (http://bit.ly/sBRSRZ) that his 1-year-old son, also named Hiram, remains in critical condition but is responding to touch. He was speaking to reporters outside Oakland Children’s Hospital on Wednesday.

Police were still searching for suspects after the shootout in a parking lot where a rap music video was being filmed left seven people wounded, including the boy.

The boy, just weeks away from his second birthday, was shot in the head when at least three men opened fire on a crowd of people shortly after 6 p.m. on Monday.

The crowd was in the parking lot where a rap video was being filmed.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya’s oil production is quickly increasing and now stands at more than 600,000 barrels a day, a prominent Libyan oil expert said Thursday.

Ali Tarhouni, who just stepped down as the oil and finance minister, said he expects production to reach 700,000 barrels a day within a few days.

He held his government post until a new transitional government was sworn in Thursday. He said he refused an offer to serve in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib because of the many challenges it will face in establishing governance and economic stability.

Before the civil war, Libya was producing about 1.6 million barrels per day.

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If ever you’ve left your desk a little messy, a tad disorganized and disheveled, if ever your piles of paper have grown so dense that they’ve begun to shift like the Hayward Fault, terrifying your workplace neighbors, you owe Jim Williams a deep debt of gratitude.

No one, you see, topped Williams in topping his work space. Williams, a superstar analog chip engineer who died in June, had a workbench right out of some techno sci-fi thriller.

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