IBT Staff Reporter

A strong turnout by shoppers for Black Friday boosted U.S. video game sales 8 percent last month, marking the strongest November on record, but sales for the whole year are likely to be flat at best, according to retail research firm NPD Group.

Dec 09, 2010

Foreign central banks' overall holdings of marketable securities at the Federal Reserve fell in the latest week, data from the U.S. central bank showed on Thursday.

Dec 09, 2010

Americans are not, in general, proficient in foreign languages. That situation, according to experts, is not good for the nation, not good for humanity, and not good for the individual monolinguist.

Dec 09, 2010

Production at one of Toshiba Corp's key chip factories has been halted by a brief cut in power, the company said, hitting output of NAND flash memory used in tablet computers and smartphones.

Dec 09, 2010

Citigroup Inc appointed on Thursday U.S. president Barack Obama's former budget director as a global banking vice chairman.

Dec 09, 2010

Senate Republicans delivered a serious setback to the community of Ground Zero responders and their families today by blocking the Zadroga bill from coming to a vote.

Dec 09, 2010

Stocks edged up on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P 500 closing at a two-year high, a trend investors expect to continue through the rest of the year.

Dec 09, 2010

TerreStar Networks is facing a more court fights with creditors over its reorganization plan.

Dec 09, 2010

Outside the US and UK - where today's no change decision from the Bank of England left interest rates near 33-year lows beneath inflation - emerging economies are also flirting with sub-zero real rates of interest, Japanese investment bank Nomura's London office notes.

Dec 09, 2010

Ford Motor Co plans to add 1,800 autoworker jobs and invest $600 million to overhaul its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky, which will make the next generation of its Escape small SUV.

Dec 09, 2010

U.S. stocks edged up on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P 500 closing at a two-year high, a trend investors expect to continue through the rest of the year.

Dec 09, 2010

Dell Inc's billionaire chief executive, arguing that his efforts to transform his company have gone unnoticed by some on Wall Street, wants to drive the acquisitions that will prove crucial to its long-term future.

Dec 09, 2010

Manny Gomez created a shopping list on Amazon.com just to keep track of some auto parts he wanted to buy. But as the holidays approached, he thought it wouldn't hurt to share the list with family and friends.

Dec 09, 2010

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced concern on Thursday at reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to halt financial or Internet services for WikiLeaks.

Dec 09, 2010

An Alaska Superior Court Judge has said he will rule by Friday on Senate candidate Joe Miller’s challenge to the apparently victorious write-in campaign of incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Dec 09, 2010

Iran has temporarily released on bail a pioneering Iranian blogger who has been sentenced to more than 19 years in prison, a rights group said on Thursday.

Dec 09, 2010

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended slightly higher on Thursday, with the S&P 500 hovering around two-year highs, a trend investors expect to continue through the rest of the year.

Dec 09, 2010

Facebook and Twitter deleted the accounts of cyber activists who targeted Visa and other Internet payment sites that sought to block the WikiLeaks website after its release of U.S. diplomatic cables.

Dec 09, 2010

Manny Gomez created a shopping list on Amazon.com just to keep track of some auto parts he wanted to buy. But as the holidays approached, he thought it wouldn't hurt to share the list with family and friends.

Dec 09, 2010

Ford Motor Co will invest $600 million to overhaul a Kentucky plant to make the next generation of its Escape small SUV, in a sign of the gradual recovery for the U.S. auto industry from its near collapse in 2009.

Dec 09, 2010

Chevron Corp , the second-largest U.S. oil company, will increase spending by a fifth to $26 billion in 2011, with 85 percent going to exploration and production as the industry seeks out new sources of growth.

Dec 09, 2010

New economic data on Thursday offered more signs the recovery was gaining traction, with claims for jobless benefits falling and wholesalers stocking up in anticipation of strong holiday demand.

Dec 09, 2010

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq edged up on Thursday, hovering around two- and three-year highs respectively, but a recent rise in bond yields and uncertainty over tax-cut legislation unsettled investors.

Dec 09, 2010

European Union leaders meet next week under pressure to take bolder steps to quell the euro zone debt crisis, despite signs that volatility in European bond markets is abating toward the end of the year. The European commissioner for monetary affairs, Olli Rehn, said it was time for Europe to show proper coordination, and back its shared currency union with closer economic union.

Dec 09, 2010

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attacked the United States on Thursday over secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, saying the West had no right to preach to Russia about democracy.

Dec 09, 2010

Chronology: Key events that have punctuated Oracle's handling of Java this year.

Dec 09, 2010

She made it to the provocative list of 2010 of Showbiz Tonight, CNN

Dec 09, 2010

Russia is seeking an explanation from NATO after documents published by Wikileaks revealed that the military alliance planned to protect Baltic States against Moscow. Russian officials stated that the Kremlin was awaiting clarification from NATO the proposed Eagle Guardian plan.

Dec 09, 2010

U.S. wholesale sales climbed at the sharpest rate in seven months during October and inventories kept rising strongly, according to a government report on Thursday that suggested optimism about a healthy holiday shopping season.

Dec 09, 2010