In a live interview on CNBC today, Warren Buffett said there has been little progress over the past few months in the "economic war" being fought by the country. "We haven't got the economy moving yet."

While the economy is a "shambles" and likely to stay that way for some time, he remains optimistic there will eventually be a recovery over a period of years.

BECKY: The last time we sat down to talk to you was on May 4, and at that point you told us that you think we're in an economic war right now. How much progress do you think we've made in that war?

BUFFETT: Well, it's been pretty flat. I get figures on 70-odd businesses, a lot of them daily. Everything that I see about the economy is that we've had no bounce. The financial system was really where the crisis was last September and October, and that's been surmounted and that's enormously important. But in terms of the economy coming back, it takes a while. There were a lot of excesses to be wrung out and that process is still underway and it looks to me like it will be underway for quite a while. In the (Berkshire Hathaway) annual report I said the economy would be in a shambles this year and probably well beyond. I'm afraid that's true.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc chief executive Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant at a Tennessee hospital and has "an excellent prognosis", the hospital that performed the operation confirmed on Tuesday.

Jobs, 54, received the transplant because he was "the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available," the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute said in a statement on its Website.

"Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis," the statement said. James Eason, program director at the institute and the hospital's chief of transplantation, added that the confirmation had come with Jobs's permission.

The hospital did not release details of Job's condition or when the operation was performed, but the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that the transplant took place about two months ago.

Hospital spokeswoman Ruth Ann Hale did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Jobs' condition. A prognosis refers to a doctor's prediction regarding the probable course of a disease, disorder

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Orders to U.S. factories for manufactured goods from computers to aircraft surged in May for a second straight month. And a gauge of business investment rose last month by the most in nearly five years.

Together, the data Wednesday signal that the recession could be at or near a bottom.

Yet new-home sales fell unexpectedly last month. It was a reminder that any recovery in the housing market will be long and slow.

Even so, investors focused on the positive news on durable-good orders and business investment, before Federal Reserve policymakers announce their decision on interest rates Wednesday afternoon.

The Dow Jones industrial average added about 80 points in midmorning trading. Broader stock averages also surged more than 1 percent.

The Commerce Department said demand for durable goods rose 1.8 percent last month, far better than the 0.6 percent decline that economists expected. It matched the rise in April, with both months posting the best performance since December 2007, when the recession began.

Orders for non-defense capital goods, a proxy for business investment plans, jumped 4.8 percent, the biggest increase since September 2004. That could signal that businesses have stopped trimming their investment spending.

The back-to-back monthly gains in orders for durable goods -- items expected to last at least three years

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New U.S. home sales fell slightly last month, another sign that the housing market's recovery is likely to be gradual and prolonged.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales dropped 0.6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, from a downwardly revised April rate of 344,000. Sales were down nearly 33 percent from May last year.

The results fell short of economists' forecast of a 360,000 sales pace, according to Thomson Reuters. However, many analysts think new home sales hit bottom in January and will increase gradually as the economy gathers steam.

The median sales price of $221,600 was up 4.2 percent from April, but down 3.4 percent from a year ago.

Still, houses are still sitting on the market unsold for months. There were 292,000 new homes for sale at the end of May, down more than 2 percent from April. At this sluggish rate of sales, that's a 10-month supply.

The inventory of homes for sale "will remain enormous, particularly with increased competition coming from distressed sales of existing homes," wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief economist with MFR Inc.

Fallout from the housing crisis has played a central role in the U.S. recession, now the longest since World