IBT Staff Reporter

The S&P 500 posted its biggest daily percentage decline thus far in 2012 on Friday after an about-face on Greece's long-awaited debt deal ended a five-week streak of gains for equities.

The monthly budget deficit narrowed to $27.4 billion in January from $49.8 billion in the same month a year earlier, partly because some benefit payments normally made in January were shifted to December, the Treasury Department said on Friday.

I am constantly astounded by the lengths to which same-sex marriage opponents go to draw distinctions between their cause and the long-discredited cause of anti-miscegenation activists, when any clearheaded examination will show how similar they are.

CME Group Inc's super-sized board of directors is about to go on a diet, but the results are going to take a while to show.

First Solar said the U.S. Department of Energy has not released loan funds for a big California solar project because of construction permit issues, sending its shares down as much as 11 percent.

The S&P posted its biggest percentage decline so far in 2012 on Friday after an about-face on Greece's long-awaited debt deal ended a five-week streak of gains for equities.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday issued a call to action to restore U.S. housing markets, saying depressed house prices and sales are a serious drag on the economic recovery.

The housing market is holding back the broader economic recovery now that foreclosures have become a national crisis, a top Federal Reserve official said on Friday.

The nation's two largest banks, UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, had their credit ratings downgraded to BBB+ from A by S&P. The country's third largest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, was downgraded to BBB from BBB+.

A global probe into whether banks colluded to set the interest rates at which they borrow money from each other has thrown into question the future of the benchmark they use to price financial products worth an estimated $360 trillion.

Rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded 34 Italian banks on Friday, including heavyweights UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo , citing a reduced ability to roll over their wholesale debt and expected weak profitability.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphone has struggled to win over U.S. consumers but the Canadian company has long been able to rely on the loyalty of corporate and government clients who depend on its secure email. No more.

Massachusetts securities regulators said on Friday that they were subpoenaing Bank of America Corp for documents to determine whether the lender had knowingly overvalued assets in some investment products.

President Barack Obama, in an abrupt policy shift aimed at quelling an election-year firestorm, announced on Friday that religious employers would not be required to offer free birth control to workers and that the onus would instead be put on insurers.

President Barack Obama, announcing new rules on birth control coverage, said religious groups had expressed genuine concerns about his original plan but accused his opponents of using the issue as a political football in an election year.

Euro zone central banks began to fill in some of the blanks surrounding their new, more accommodative lending rules on Friday, revealing banks will get between 90 and 11 percent of the face value of the freshly-eligible loans they can now use as collateral.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos told his turbulent coalition government on Friday to accept a harsh international bailout deal or condemn the nation to catastrophe.

Spain cut severance pay for workers on Friday and watered down collective bargaining rights, giving more power to employers as it attempts to kick start its moribund jobs market and slash Europe's highest unemployment rate.

Americans felt worse about their personal finances in early February, but rising confidence in the labor market's prospects should help to support spending and the broader economy.

Stocks fell on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on pace for its first weekly decline in the past six, after another snag in negotiations for a financial bailout package for Greece.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released its file on Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who back in 1991 was up for a job on President George Bush's Export Council.

The Disney Channel -- home to bubbly fare from Hannah Montana to High School Musical -- has emerged as a potent global engine for Walt Disney Co after decades of quiet expansion. And it couldn't come at a better time for the Mouse House.

Ann Pettway, who kidnapped and raised a child as her own, will plead guilty to charges of kidnapping Friday.

A California-based hedge fund manager surrendered to FBI agents on insider-trading charges on Friday, an FBI spokesman in New York said.

Money manager AllianceBernstein LP turned in another disappointing financial report on Friday, with fourth-quarter profit and revenue falling short of Wall Street expectations as clients continued to pull money out of its stock funds.

Google Inc is expected to win approval next week from European regulators as well as U.S. antitrust authorities for its planned $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility , according to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. stocks dropped on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on pace for its first weekly decline in the past six, after another snag in negotiations for a financial bailout package for Greece.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said his company might benefit from the collapse of the AT&T bid for T-Mobile USA.

Man who assaulted woman on the tracks of a subway station has been arrested.