IBT Staff Reporter

British Airways posted a record 531 million pounds ($762 million) full-year loss, hit by strikes and winter snow, though said it had managed to cut costs by around 1 billion pounds due to restructuring efforts.

U.S. oil prices dropped to near $70 on Friday, after falling the previous day for a seventh time in eight sessions, on unabated fears that Europe's debt crisis could hurt global economic growth and slow energy demand.

Germany is poised to approve on Friday the lion's share of a $1 trillion safety net for financially troubled euro zone nations as an EU task force looks to toughen regulations within the bloc blighted by a debt crisis that has cast a pall over global economic health.

Dell Inc's quarterly sales and profit beat expectations but its gross margin fell short of analysts' forecasts and the computer maker warned that components supply will remain tight.

Chrysler will probably launch its public offering in 2011 and expects that 2010 will be a better year than it originally had forecast, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

France and Germany pledged on Thursday to work together to solve a European debt crisis and support the euro, patching up a public rift that had rattled markets around the world.

With U.S. Senate passage on Thursday of a landmark bill to crack down on Wall Street, lawmakers must resolve differences between that measure and one approved in December by the House of Representatives.

The Australian Dollar is trading in very wide ranges as we write this report. The low of the day so far is USD 0.8072.

Stocks sank nearly 4 percent on Thursday on growing fears the euro zone's efforts to tackle its sovereign debt crisis will fall short, jeopardizing the global economic recovery.

The Senate will pass a sweeping reform of financial regulation on Thursday night, said an aide to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, capping months of wrangling over the biggest overhaul of financial rules since the 1930s.

Listening to Mozart does not make you smarter, researchers from the Austrian composer's homeland say, contradicting a popular 1993 study that first coined the Mozart effect.

Frustrated lawmakers pressed regulators to move faster to pinpoint the cause of the mysterious May 6 market crash, with two weeks of investigation producing few answers.

Biosecurity Queensland has hurried to a Sunshine Coast property amid fears of an outbreak of Hendra virus.

Assumptions by a sufferer that they'll be okay and won't need their life saving medication, local restaurant staff assuming there are no nuts in a menu item, or doctors assuming that patients with a food allergy understand the full extent of their condition, can all have tragic consequences, said AA President Maria Said.

The Senate was expected by the end of the week to approve the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the 1930s after the measure finally cleared a procedural hurdle on Thursday.

Computer maker Dell Inc reported a stronger-than-expected profit, but warned of volatile global currencies and components shortages, and the company's shares stumbled in after-hours trade.

Stocks sank nearly 4 percent on Thursday on growing fears the euro zone's efforts to tackle its sovereign debt crisis will fall short, jeopardizing the global economic recovery.

With the market extra sensitive to any negative news at present yesterdays shock 7% drop in the Westpac Consumer Confidence report for May sent the Aussie plummeting in local trade.

House prices will manage a small gain in 2010 after the worst crash since the Great Depression but gains in coming years are likely to come slowly, a Reuters poll found.

U.S. oil prices fell for the seventh time in eight sessions on Thursday on worries that fiscal problems in Europe could stifle global economic growth and energy demand.

Europe's debt crisis poses a potentially serious risk to the U.S. economic recovery because it threatens global credit markets and large American banks, a top Federal Reserve official said on Thursday.

U.S. oil prices fell sharply on Thursday on worries that fiscal problems in Europe could stifle global economic growth and energy demand.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission for the first time since 2002 did not describe the wireless industry as having effective competition, a situation one senior regulator blamed on consolidation.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Ever wonder why overhearing a cellphone conversation is so annoying? American researchers think they have found the answer.

New claims for state jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week for the first time since early April, suggesting the labor market recovery may have hit a speed bump.

The leaders of Germany and France pledged on Thursday to work together on financial regulation and the euro zone crisis after European discord over debt and new market rules rattled investors worldwide.

Stocks sank nearly 4 percent on Thursday on growing fears the euro zone's efforts to tackle its sovereign debt crisis will fall short, jeopardizing the global economic recovery.

Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube indefinitely in a bid to contain blasphemous material, officials said on Thursday.

Corrects spelling of researcher's surname