NEW YORK — American International Group is selling an overseas life and health insurance unit for $15.5 billion to MetLife as it continues to shed assets to repay billions in government aid.

Alico, which operates in more than 50 countries, is the second international unit AIG has sold this month. On March 1, AIG said it would sell a cornerstone of its business, Asia-based life insurer AIA Group, to Britain's Prudential PLC in a government-approved $35.5 billion deal.

The sales of Alico and AIA could net enough to eventually cover the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's $47.9 billion investment in AIG.

WASHINGTON — With the fate of his signature legislative initiative far from certain, President Barack Obama is taking his last-ditch push for health care reform on the road.In a speech today in Philadelphia, Obama will try to persuade the public to back his plan to remake the nation's health care system, while also urging uneasy lawmakers to cast a "final vote" for a massive reform bill in an election year.Obama's pitch in Philadelphia, along with a stop in St. Louis Wednesday, comes as the president begins an all-out effort to pass his health care proposals. Though his plan has received only modest public support, Obama has implored lawmakers to show political courage and not let a historic opportunity slip away.Despite staunch Republican opposition, Democratic leaders are cautiously optimistic they can pass a bill without GOP votes.Party leaders are narrowing in on a strategy that calls for House Democrats to go along with a health care bill the Senate passed in December. Obama would sign it into law, but senators would promise to make numerous changes on issues that have concerned House Democrats. Because Senate Democrats lost the 60-seat majority needed to stop GOP filibusters with the Massachusetts Senate race, the changes would have to be made under rules that require only simple majority votes.

NEW YORK — Cablevision and ABC were negotiating a deal today that tentatively ended a dispute over fees and restored millions of viewers' access to the Academy Awards telecast in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut shortly after the broadcast began.The two sides, who had been hammering at each other for days in the media, said a deal had been reached Sunday night, nearly 15 minutes into the Oscar awards broadcast.Neither side released details about the deal, and it was unclear how permanent it would be.A stalemate in the dispute had led ABC's parent company, the Walt Disney Co., to pull its programming from the cable operator's subscribers at midnight Saturday.