IBT Staff Reporter

Chemical maker LyondellBasell's plan to buy back nearly $2.8 billion in debt and pay a special dividend nearly the same size is a bullish bet that demand for commodity chemicals will recover from a recent soft patch and rally the rest of the decade.

More than once, President Barack Obama has written personal checks to struggling Americans, he told a Washington Post reporter, in an admission that is bound to be controversial.

Private holders of Greek debt may need to accept losses of up to 60 percent on their investments if Greece's debt mountain is to be made more sustainable in the long-term, a downbeat analysis by the EU and IMF showed on Friday.

Apple’s new voice-recognition app for the iPhone 4S, better known as Siri, made its first commercial debut last night, proving the new iPhone is more than just a smartphone.

The S&P 500 posted its third straight week of gains on Friday, lifted by optimism before this weekend's summit of European leaders and strong earnings from blue-chip stocks.

Wall Street posted its third straight week of gains on Friday, lifted by optimism ahead of this weekend's summit of European leaders and strong earnings from blue-chip stocks.

The owner of an exotic animal preserve in Zanesville, Ohio, who set the animals loose before shooting himself on Tuesday owed nearly $70,000 in unpaid taxes, although officials would not speculate on whether that was a factor in his suicide.

The threshold for publishing gruesome images like those of Muammar Gaddafi's death is falling as the internet and social media make many of the editorial decisions that used to be left to a small group of professional journalists.

The end of a drilling ban in New York was meant to be a new dawn for energy companies. After years of waiting, they would finally be able to exploit the richest deposit of natural gas in the country.

France's push to use more European Central Bank money to fight the euro zone debt crisis ran into strong resistance from Germany and other EU partners on Friday, leaving Paris looking increasingly isolated before a crucial summit.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn wants Navistar International Corp to consider merging with rival Oshkosh Corp , though he has not yet made a formal proposal to either company, several people familiar with the situation said.

Europe launched the first satellites in its Galileo global navigation system on Friday, a first step toward creating a network the European Union hopes will eventually rival the U.S.-run GPS system and establish Europe as a space power.

Wall Street advanced to its highest levels since early August on Friday on optimism ahead of this weekend's summit of European leaders to tackle the region's debt crisis and as strong earnings from blue chips lifted investor sentiment.

Railroad company Kansas City Southern said quarterly profit doubled, beating forecasts, with carloadings and revenue at record highs, and said the U.S. and Mexican economies would grow moderately through 2012.

NEW YORK - For the small club of companies who trade the food, fuels and metals that keep the world running, the last decade has been sensational. Driven by the rise of Brazil, China, India and other fast-growing economies, the global commodities boom has turbocharged profits at the world's biggest trading houses.

Little-known online games company Trion Worlds, after raising $100 million in venture capital since 2007, is looking at becoming the newest debutante at the digital media IPO ball.

Air Products and Chemicals Inc forecast a fiscal first quarter profit below Wall Street's expectations, sending the industrial gas supplier's shares down as much as 5.1 percent.

The end of a drilling ban in New York was meant to be a new dawn for energy companies. After years of waiting, they would finally be able to exploit the richest deposit of natural gas in the country.

A federal judge rejected American International Group Inc's request to move its $10 billion mortgage fraud lawsuit against Bank of America Corp back to a New York state court, where AIG believed the case belonged.

A new global art-prize competition for pictures created using a mobile device opens on Friday to any competitor bold enough to subject their work to scrutiny by a jury.

Euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund have approved the payment of the next tranche of financial support to Greece, a senior euro zone source told Reuters on Friday.

U.S. regulators on Friday approved BP's new exploration plan, moving the company closer to drilling new wells in the lucrative deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico a year and a half after the biggest offshore oil disaster in U.S. history.

The end of a drilling ban in New York was meant to be a new dawn for energy companies. After years of waiting, they would finally be able to exploit the richest deposit of natural gas in the country. But as companies delve into new regulations for drilling in New York, they're discovering a bitter reality: half the land they had leased for drilling may now be out of bounds.

The end of a drilling ban in New York was meant to be a new dawn for energy companies. After years of waiting, they would finally be able to exploit the richest deposit of natural gas in the country.

Michele Bachmann's entire presidential campaign staff in New Hampshire has quit, in the latest in a string of personnel losses. Can she rebound?

Stocks rose to their highest levels in more than two months on Friday in anticipation of a weekend European Union debt-crisis summit that could potentially remove a major cloud from markets.

General Electric Co reported earnings that met Wall Street expectations, but its shares slipped 1.4 percent as investors worried about declining profit margins at its energy equipment division.

News Corp is bracing itself for a dramatic showdown with shareholders and new revelations of surveillance tactics by some of its UK journalists at its annual meeting in Los Angeles on Friday.

Libya's National Oil Corporation has summoned Russia's Gazprom to a meeting in Tripoli to discuss what the Libyans said was a breach of investment obligations -- the first sign the new leaders are prepared to renegotiate Gaddafi-era contracts.