The Big Picture

From Bloomberg News

Harley-Davidson Inc. reached a tentative labor agreement that would keep open a York, Pa.,factory that’s the motorcycle maker’s largest plant, a union official said.

Members of Local 175 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers will vote on the proposed contract on Dec. 2, Paul Cover Jr., a union negotiator, said Friday. The plant had 2,400 employees as of May 13.

What would Buck say?Here's a wake-up call for supporters of Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum:

The city fathers in Baltimore are backing a $4.1 million plan to build a Negro League museum there to draw tourists and rejuvenate a section of the town.

Harley plays the fieldKansas City was among the first to drop out of the running for landing a Harley-Davidson manufacturing plant.

Revenue rebound From Greg Hack and the Associated Press
The U.S. casino business, hit by double-digit revenue declines in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J., hopes it’s on the road to recovery.

John Stout Jr. has been elected to a three-year term as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Stout is chief executive officer of Plaza Belmont Management Group, a private equity fund based in the Kansas City area that specializes in the acquisition of food manufacturing companies.

Stout, who will represent the general public on the board, succeeds the late Kevin Nunnink.

A buyer's market?If you're looking for one way to land a new home, consider the foreclosure market. Same with an office building.

There are plenty of both on the auction block, thanks to the financial crisis of the past two years.

One of the Kansas City area's main economic engines continues to run in low gear.

Practically every major indicator tracked monthly by the County Economic Research Institute was trending worse in September, according to the latest report.

Here are some of the key stats compiled by CERI, which then compares the data with the average for the same month over the previous five years.

Unemployment:

An official Thanksgiving without the pie?Hold the whipped cream. Don't pour the hot coffee. There might not be pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving feast next week.

Hometown greeting card giant Hallmark Cards Inc. has made an investment in Newput Corp., developer of the SocialCalendar Facebook application.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Hallmark said in a news release that it relaunched the SocialCalendar today as the Hallmark SocialCalendar. Newput will create products and content for Hallmark that will make it easier, for example, for people to remember and acknowledge birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other events and occasions.

From Bloomberg News

Donations to Harvesters help feed the needyNearly one in six Americans lived in households that struggled to afford food at some point last year as tight credit and the fastest rate of food inflation since 1980 combined to strain budgets, the government said.