IBT Staff Reporter

The top German official at the European Central Bank resigned unexpectedly on Friday in conflict with the bank's policy of buying government bonds to combat the euro zone's debt crisis.

President Barack Obama began an uphill battle on Friday for support for a $447 billion jobs plan he hopes will rescue a faltering economy and his own re-election prospects.

Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Friday that the company's target for Chrysler sales in North America remains at 2 million units, despite a weakening economic outlook.

Federal prosecutors in New York are building a criminal-fraud case against Liechtenstein's oldest bank, Liechtensteinische Landesbank, that could result in charges it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes, according to persons briefed on the matter.

Nervous investors scrambled on Friday to protect their assets, paying higher prices for options ahead of the weekend as European debt woes weighed on the prospects for global growth.

A NASA satellite is expected to make a crash landing on Earth in late September or early October. No one knows where it will land, not even NASA. It could even land on you -- but luckily, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than of having a piece of the satellite fall on your head.

The United States pressed Europe's strongest economies on Friday to give unequivocal financial support to weaker euro zone states to overcome a debt crisis that threatens the world economy.

Credit Suisse has hired Greenhill & Co investment banker George Matsuzaka to focus on the insurance sector, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters on Friday.

Investors sent shares of AOL down over 5 percent on Friday after conflicting reports about a possible tie-up between AOL and Yahoo.

Wall Street stocks tumbled on Friday after the surprise resignation of a European Central Bank executive board member brought concerns over the region's debt back to the fore.

The patients' names, account numbers, diagnosis codes, admission and discharge dates, and billing charges were posted on Student of Fortune, a commercial homework help Web site. The information was contained in a detailed spreadsheet, which the site posted on Sept. 9, 2010, to show customers how to create a bar chart from raw data.

Evernote, which makes a popular app for taking notes and storing data on tablets, phones and personal computers, is considering filing for an initial public offering by the end of next year, its chief executive told Reuters on Friday.

The one component of President Barack Obama's jobs plan most likely to win approval in Congress -- payroll tax cuts -- will produce only a modest incremental lift to the U.S. economy and may barely nudge unemployment lower.

In the new film Contagion, a rapidly evolving virus threatens to wipe out global society and federal health officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose staffers served as extras, must save the world from the killer outbreak.

Nervous investors scrambled to protect their assets, paying higher prices for options ahead of the weekend as European debt woes weighed on the prospects of global growth.

A new report is saying AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is pushing hard for a merger between his company and Yahoo.

* THE ISSUE: President Barack Obama called on Congress late Thursday to pass a $447 billion package of spending initiatives and tax cuts to boost economic growth and generate jobs. Here are several investment ideas based on his proposals.

Treasury debt prices rose on Friday, taking benchmark yields to the lowest in at least 60 years as investors looked for a safe haven on revived worries a European debt crisis could have a significant global impact.

NASA has delayed the GRAIL launch one more day in order to review propulsion system data from Thursday's detanking operation.

Google Inc is advising its Gmail email service customers in Iran to change their passwords in the wake of a cyberattack that has affected a major swath of the country.

Amazon.com Inc's agreement to start collecting sales tax in California next year may help brick and mortar rivals compete on prices with the world's largest Internet retailer.

Weak jobs and housing starts data for August doused any hopes for robust growth after a bleak second quarter, underscoring its vulnerability to a struggling U.S. economy and the widening European debt crisis.

Apple Inc scored a symbolic legal victory in efforts to keep its lead spot in the tablet computer market when a German court upheld a ban barring Samsung's local unit from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablets in Europe's biggest economy.

U.S. stocks tumbled on Friday after the top German official at the European Central Bank resigned in protest of the bank's bond-buying program, which has been a major tool in fighting the region's debt crisis.

European Central Bank Executive Board Member Juergen Stark will step down from his post because of a conflict over the central bank's controversial bond-buying program, two sources told Reuters on Friday.

Electronic Arts Inc on Friday won the dismissal of a lawsuit by former Rutgers University quarterback Ryan Hart accusing it of using his image in its NCAA Football video game without permission.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday announced the availability of two funding opportunities for community health centers to help build, expand and improve community health centers across the U.S. to provide needed care to low-income Americans.

It worked for asbestos so why not for toxic mortgages?

Kroger Co , the biggest U.S. supermarket chain reported higher quarterly net profit as robust sales eased worries that higher food prices would cause shoppers to reel in spending.