IBT Staff Reporter

The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the bird flu virus, reports the Associated Press.

Hurricane Irene hit the U.S. East Coast at the most inopportune time for many businesses, keeping millions of shoppers away from stores and auto dealerships during what should have been a busy weekend.

Stocks rallied more than 2 percent in a broad rally on Monday as a merger between two big Greek banks provided a rare bit of encouraging news out of debt-stricken Europe, while a rebound in consumer spending calmed fears of a new U.S. recession.

Verizon Communications is expected to prevail on key issues such as healthcare costs in its negotiations with unions but may end up postponing its plan to freeze pensions, according to experts who have been following the telephone company's labor dispute.

Warren Jeffs, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints leader who was convicted on charges of sexually assaulting two underage girls, is near death, an undisclosed source told ABC News. Jeffs is currently serving a life in prison with no possibility of parole for 45 years sentence.

Telecoms giant Vodafone said on Monday it was exploring the possibility to cooperate with Wind Hellas, Greece's third-biggest telecoms operator.

Aufeminin.com is chasing acquisitions in English-speaking countries as it wants to boost traffic at its popular women interests' websites.

The hard-working maids of The Help hung on to the top of a storm-battered box office over the weekend and beat a trio of new releases with $14.3 million in domestic ticket sales, studio estimates released on Sunday showed.

Zynga, the social games maker may delay its plans for an initial public offering because of poor market conditions and to answer questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to media reports on Monday.

Two globe-trotting celebrities, Sofia Coppola and Petra Ecclestone, held weddings in Italy over the weekend, one low-key and the other over-the-top, according to media reports on Sunday.

A list of the notable gaffes made by Republican presidential candidates during the presidential campaign.

LDK Solar Co Ltd suffered a quarterly loss as a sharp drop in solar wafer prices forced it to write down millions of dollars in inventories, but forecast revenue for the current quarter above estimates on stabilizing prices.

The New York Blood Center, which serves more than 20 million people in New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley and New Jersey, is the first blood bank to suffer from an urgent need of blood donors because it lost an estimated 2,000 donations during the Hurricane Irene storm.

United Auto Workers President Bob King said on Monday that he was upbeat about reaching a contract deal with U.S. automakers that would keep them competitive against Asian and European rivals.

The hard-working maids of The Help beat three new releases to win the North American box office on a weekend dampened by Hurricane Irene, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.

Two globe-trotting celebrities, Sofia Coppola and Petra Ecclestone, held weddings in Italy over the weekend, one low-key and the other over-the-top, according to media reports on Sunday.

Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition will make a proposal this week to persuade rebel colleagues to back measures to bolster the powers of the euro zone bailout fund, a senior conservative lawmaker said on Monday.

U.S. and Russian space agency officials are considering temporarily pulling astronauts off of the International Space Station, The Wall Street Journal reports Monday, following last week's failure of an unmanned cargo mission to the international space station.

Irene does damage to 1,400 cell towers, but for the most part, telecom infrastructure was left alone.

Zynga, the social games maker may delay its plans for an initial public offering because of poor market conditions and to answer questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to media reports on Monday.

Stocks jumped nearly 2 percent on Monday as a merger between two big banks in Greece suggested Europe was working through its financial problems and a rebound in consumer spending calmed fears about the U.S. economy.

Experts say children and teenagers should not practice boxing because their brains are more vulnerable to acute, chronic injuries and concussions caused by blows to the head.

New Jersey Transit's trains remain out of service Monday until further notice, as a result of damage inflicted by Hurricane Irene.

Western Union Co , the world's largest payment transfer company, said it will club its online, mobile and prepaid cards businesses into a new entity to offer more services and draw more customers.

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said that she was just kidding when she said that Hurricane Irene and the earthquake that rocked the East Coast Tuesday was a message from God. The Minnesota congresswoman, who notoriously hates President Barack Obama, publicly announced that Hurricane Irene was the channel through which God wanted to tell politicians to pay attention to the debt and deficit crisis in the United States.

Hurricane Irene is expected to have caused substantial property losses, though figures are still hard to come by because of uncertainty about wind damage, catastrophe modeling company Eqecat said on Monday.

Stocks rallied more than two percent in a broad rally on Monday as a merger between two big Greek banks provided a rare bit of encouraging news out of debt-stricken Europe, while a rebound in consumer spending calmed fears of a new recession.

Consumer spending rose at its fastest pace in five months in July, a further sign the economy is not falling back into recession, although manufacturing activity in Texas almost stalled this month.

China's Supreme Court and prosecutors office will step up the fight against computer hacking by toughening penalties for those caught doing it, state media said on Monday.