IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. chocolate maker Hershey Co is considering launching a bid of at least $17 billion for British chocolatier Cadbury Plc in an effort to outstrip a hostile offer by Kraft Foods Inc, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Investors tempted to put money into star hedge fund manager John Paulson's new gold portfolio will have to commit at least $10 million and leave the money locked up for at least one year, according to a prospectus.

The charitable trust that controls Hershey Co is pushing the company to launch a rival $17 billion bid for Cadbury Plc , the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

At what may be the height of her early career, teen sensation Taylor Swift finds herself facing the downside of stardom -- naysayers.

The driver of a tour bus for Miley Cyrus died on Friday when the vehicle crashed in Virginia, but the teen singer was not on-board, police said.

The Afghan government would quickly be overthrown if NATO troops pulled out of the country now, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Friday.

Might sound bizarre, but its true. If all, or the majority of the computers and laptops in the US used Google Chrome OS right now, it would save up to 1.5 million hours, or 217 years of energy consumption every day.

Barnes & Noble Inc said on Friday it had sold out of its newly-launched Nook electronic readers due to high demand -- a pre-holiday miscalculation that analysts said could boost sales of rival Amazon.com Inc's market leading Kindle.

Singer Miley Cyrus on Friday afternoon issued a statement on her website about the death of bus driver William G. Douglas killed in the crash.

U.S. electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

Auto retailer and financer America's Car-Mart Inc posted better-than-expected quarterly results, helped by strong same store sales and an increase in its customer base. For the second quarter, the company reported net income of $6.3 million, or 53 cents a share, compared with $3.9 million, or 33 cents a share, a year ago.

Taiwan's largest chipmaker MediaTek Inc on Friday reached a broad patent agreement on third-generation (3G) chips with US rival Qualcomm without paying royalties, the firm said in a statement on its website.

Google Chrome OS open source version was released on Thursday and already programmers have turned the code into a test version of the new OS that is set to officially debut at the end of 2010.

When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened but even more bargain hungry customers cross their thresholds.

The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the United States, health experts said on Friday.

Early reports suggest that what caused Miley Cyrus tour bus to crash was likely that the driver suffered a cardiac arrest, but the report has not yet been confirmed by police.

The U.S. economy's return to growth in the third quarter was less brisk than previously thought as the trade deficit worsened and companies still aggressively cut inventories, a Reuters survey predicted.

U.S. stocks fell for a third straight day on Friday as investors took weaker-than-expected results from computer maker Dell and homebuilder D.R. Horton as a further sign that the recovery would be anemic.

South African media group Naspers has signed an increased $1.6 billion forward start loan with a group of international banks, banking sources said on Friday.

U.S. electric sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, amid growing interest in green technology and battery-powered vehicles.

The number of mass layoffs reported by U.S. employers fell last month from September, a government report showed on Friday, suggesting job losses were close to bottoming.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade 2009 has changed its route for the first time in 82 years, Macy's announced ahead of Thanksgiving Day when millions of attendants are expected.

NYSE Euronext , LCH.Clearnet, BATS Global Markets and other firms partnered with banks have urged two U.S. legislators to drop a proposed rigid cap on dealer ownership of clearinghouses, according to a letter sent this week.

Google Chrome OS open source version was released on Thursday and already programmers have turned the code into a test version of the new OS that is set to officially debut at the end of 2010. The working Chrome OS has already appeared on several peer-to-peer BitTorrent tracking sites, including Mininova.org and Pirate Bay.

Audrey Hepburn once declared her look was attainable and an upcoming auction of some of the fashionable film star's wardrobe will make that possible.

South Korean model Daul Kim was found hanged in her Paris apartment Thursday, a spokeswoman for the city prosecutor's office said.

Vampire romance movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon raked in $26.3 million at North American box offices in midnight showings, breaking the record set by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, studio officials said on Friday.

Oprah Winfrey said on Friday that she will end her popular TV show in 2011 because it feels right in her bones after 25 years, and urged viewers not to believe rumors of why she's quitting.

Brazilian Romero Britto has created the 2010 edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival's poster, adding to a long list of striking images by famous artists that have made the posters desirable objects among collectors.