IBT Staff Reporter

A day after oil prices plunged an unprecedented $12 a barrel, a New York trader sat on the steps of the dormant oil futures pit, playing a word game on his tablet computer.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein was in good spirits on Friday at his firm's annual meeting, despite battling some testy shareholders and what seemed to be a cold.

When commodities melt down as abruptly as they did on Thursday, the first assumption is that big investors dumped massive long positions.

Finance ministers from Germany, France, Italy and Spain did not discuss Greece leaving the euro zone or the possibility of a Greek debt restructuring during a meeting in Luxembourg on Friday, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said.

Stock investors head into next week with added worries about the sustainability of the recent rally and a desire to reduce risk, as shown by the stampede out of commodities on Thursday.

Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae on Friday said it would ask for an additional $8.5 billion from taxpayers as it continues to suffer losses on loans made prior to 2009.

Top finance officials of the euro zone's biggest economies met to discuss Greece's debt crisis on Friday and Athens denied a media report that it was considering whether to leave the bloc.

Some Buddhists are preparing to celebrate the Buddha's birthday next week. The traditions and exact dates of the celebrations vary. However the birth is mostly celebrated at the same time in various east Asian nations with the exception of Japan.

The mayor of Mexico City, a quake-prone metropolis of 20 million people, said on Friday he is planning a warning system that will send alerts directly to mobile phones seconds before an earthquake strikes.

Jerry Seinfeld loves breakfast cereal, Superman and stand-up comedy. And on Friday he launched a website dedicated to one of those passions.

Two Federal Reserve officials on Friday stressed there will be no rush to roll back the U.S. central bank's super-easy monetary policy with the labor market still healing and inflation expectations largely in check.

PIMCO's Bill Gross, who runs the world's largest bond fund, said on Friday the only way he would reverse his short position on U.S. government-related bonds and purchase Treasuries again is if the United States heads into another recession.

PIMCO's Bill Gross, who runs the world's largest bond fund, said on Friday the only way he would reverse his short position on U.S. government-related bonds and purchase Treasuries again is if the United States heads into another recession.

Discovery Communications Inc and Oprah Winfrey have pushed out Christina Norman as chief executive of OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, after a tough start for the five-month old cable network.

Visitors are continuing to flock to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday and the Al Qaeda chief’s final hideout is becoming a ‘ghoulish’ tourist attraction.

Oil's sharp slide this week is welcome because high prices may hurt the world economy and in the longer term accelerate the use of alternative fuels, OPEC delegates said on Friday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co is in advanced talks with U.S. regulators to resolve a probe into its role in selling subprime mortgage-backed bonds in 2007, a case that highlights a rare misstep by Chief Executive Jamie Dimon.

Oil fell on Friday to cap a frenzied trading week that sliced prices by a record of more than $16 a barrel on demand worries and a move by investors to slash commodities exposures.

The Boston Bruins look avoid making infamous history two years in a row.

At least two of the helicopters used in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound seems to have been a new stealth design, according to several reports emerging from the scene. The use of such helicopters may have been key to the success of the operation that resulted in bin Laden's death.

Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden briefed President Barack Obama in a private meeting on Friday, as the President told the troops involved job well done.

An unexpectedly strong report on U.S. payrolls helped equities bounce back on Friday from four days of losses, tempering worries that stocks could suffer

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is stirring things up with their new exhibition on graffiti and street art.

The space shuttle is now delayed until at least May 16.

Oil fell on Friday to cap a frenzied trading week that sliced prices by a record of more than $16 a barrel on demand worries and a move by investors to slash commodities exposures.

Companies created jobs at the fastest pace in five years in April, pointing to underlying strength in the economy even as the jobless rate rose to 9.0 percent.

The Sony data breach that compromised the personal data of more than 100 million customers of the Japanese electronics conglomerate may claim yet another victim -- the cloud computing industry.

An unexpectedly strong report on payrolls helped stocks bounce back on Friday from four days of losses, tempering worries that stocks could follow the sharp declines seen this week in commodities.

President Barack Obama has spoken in private with members of the U.S. team which raided and killed Osama bin Laden on Sunday after arriving earlier at Ft. Campbell in Kentucky.