IBT Staff Reporter

Acerbic British music judge and entrepreneur Simon Cowell said on Monday that the winner of the first U.S. version of the television singing competition, The X Factor, will receive a $5 million record deal.

Stock index futures rose on Monday on growing hopes Europe will sort out its tangled debt issues and as metals prices advanced on bets of a stronger global economy.

Actor Ashton Kutcher has created an exclusive listing for his Hollywood Hills bachelor pad house at $2.6 million.

Diversified industrial company Danaher Corp agreed to buy medical diagnostics company Beckman Coulter Inc for $83.50 per share, or about $6.8 billion, including debt.

U.S. stocks rose on Monday as a flurry of merger news and solid earnings boosted investors' appetite for equities, pushing the Dow and the S&P 500 to their highest levels since June 2008.

Google’s marketing executive in Egypt, Wael Ghonim, has been released by authorities according to several news reports.

Loews Corp reported its best quarter of the year as strong investment income from its biggest holding, CNA Financial , helped the conglomerate post a better-than-expected 16 percent increase in quarterly profit.

Facebook film The Social Network and thriller Inception won top honors from the Writers Guild of America on Saturday in one of the last major Hollywood award shows before the Oscars later this month.

Google Inc is reaching out to some of its top advertising customers to promote its mobile marketing services, as the Internet giant moves to expand its advertising business from computer screens to smartphones.

Stock index futures rose on Monday, tracking gains in European stocks, as metals prices advanced on bets of a stronger global economy.

The reportedly video-recorded attacks and killings of 3 members of a Muslim sect in Indonesia on Sunday have prompted the nation's top human rights minister to urge police to take action to hold the attackers responsible.

U.S. stocks were set to open slightly higher on Monday, boosted by merger news and rising metals prices as investors bet on a stronger global economy.

Sprint Nextel is reportedly rolling out a Kyocera smartphone on its network at an event tonight in New York.

U.S. stocks rose on Monday, lifted by merger news and solid earnings that suggested Wall Street may have the strength to rally further.

Mega-banks will have to pay more for U.S. deposit insurance under a new regulation set for final approval on Monday as the government advances a boatload of financial oversight changes.

The big traditional brokerages are in danger of losing relevance in a world where more investors want independent and unbiased advice, TD Ameritrade Chief Executive Fred Tomczyk said on Thursday.

A California judge has ruled to allow a group of lawyers with connections to Oakland City Hall to represent alleged Nortenos gang members who are facing a city lawsuit that seeks to prevent them from hanging out in the city's Fruitvale neighborhood.

Allen & Overy (A&O) plans to open an operational support and legal services center in Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland, and employ 300 people by 2014 to run it.

Physical delivery times for wholesale Silver Bars in London – heart of the world's physical bullion markets – have improved. But major dealers continue to offer three-day settlement or longer, compared with the more normal two-day terms.

The state of California has agreed to settle a predatory lending lawsuit which it has filed against two former Countrywide Financial Corp. executives for $6.5 million.

India's former Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja, his personal secretary RK Chandolia and former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura have been arrested by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over his alleged manipulation while allocating the second-generation telecom (2G) spectrum licenses in 2007 and 2008.

Dickstein Shapiro, a Washington D.C.-based law and lobbying firm, said that former U.S. Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) has joined the firm as a senior adviser.

Harmony, the world's fifth-largest listed gold miner, said October-December headline earnings per share totaled 69 cents, compared with 33 cents in the previous three months, boosted by record gold prices and said it was on track to meet its long-term production targets.

Arianna Huffington launched the news site in 2005 more as a commentary outlet and an alternative to other conservative news sites by inviting Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to blog. Now with the takeover by AOL, Huffington will become the boss of AOL group's editorial content.

Sanofi-Aventis is reportedly expected to sweeten its bid for U.S. biotechnology company Genzyme later this week. The two companies are said to be negotiating a cash deal worth $74 a share or $19 billion, plus extra payments linked to experimental multiple sclerosis drug Lemtrada.

Gold held near $1,350 an ounce on Monday after the metal's first weekly rise this year supported investor confidence in the metal, though a more optimistic view of the global economic outlook is continuing to weigh on prices.

Where the fast-paced worlds of travel and technology meet, smart phone applications provide travelers with better control over their hectic schedules.

Hasbro Inc's quarterly profit beat Wall Street estimates, helped by international demand for the No. 2 U.S. toy company's action figures, games and puzzles, and the company said it should be able to grow revenue and profit in 2011.

AOL has spent $315 million on one of its biggest acquisitions so far, news aggregator Huffington Post, adding another leaf to its portfolio of content which includes other names like TechCrunch and Engadget.