IBT Staff Reporter

Oil fell to around $69 a barrel on Monday, extending the previous session's drop, pressured by jitters over the pace of U.S. economic recovery and easing concerns about Iran and Nigeria.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie stopped at an ice cream shop in Amman Jordan with their 15 month old twins Knox and Vivienne and all posed for a photo.

Three Americans won the Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for revealing the existence and nature of telomerase, an enzyme which helps prevent the fraying of chromosomes that underlies aging and cancer.

American Express Co President Alfred Kelly will leave the company early next year to seek an opportunity as a chief executive elsewhere, the credit card issuer said on Monday.

Economic activity in the U.S. non-manufacturing sector (services sector) grew in September for the first time in 11 months according to a survey of purchasing and supply executives by the Institute for Supply Management.

Chrysler Group LLC has created a separate Ram brand for its Dodge pickup trucks and replaced the heads of two car brands as the automaker rushes to complete a critical long-term business plan.

Activity in the U.S. service sector expanded in September for the first time since August 2008, while employment in the sector also improved, the Institute of Supply Management said on Monday.

Oil fell to below $69 a barrel on Monday, extending the previous session's drop, pressured by jitters over the pace of U.S. economic recovery and easing concerns about Iran and Nigeria.

Actress Julia Roberts arrives for the filming of her upcoming movie Eat, Pray, Love at Mirzapur village in the northern Indian state of Haryana September 27, 2009.

A suicide bomber walked into an Iraqi funeral tent and blew himself up Monday, killing at least six mourners and wounding 15, Iraqi police said.

The U.S. job market strengthened in September for the first time since January of last year, suggesting a slow and rough road to recovery, a research group said on Monday.

Southern California Edison shut the 472-megawatt Unit 3 at the Mountainview natural gas-fired power station in Southern California for planned reasons by Sunday afternoon, the California Independent System Operator said in a report.

U.S. officials are hoping joint patrols between Iraq's largely Arab army and Kurdish troops will build trust in tense disputed northern areas, dampening the tinder that many fear could ignite Iraq's next wa

Support for Japan's new cabinet is riding high at 71 percent, but in one sign of possible trouble ahead, the same percentage of voters are unhappy with the prime minister's explanation of funding scandal, a survey showed on Monday.

The new chief of Pakistani Taliban militants who U.S. and Pakistani officials said might be dead has surfaced to meet journalists in his stronghold of South Waziristan.

The U.S. service sector in September expanded for the first time since August 2008, growing at a faster pace than expected to take the benchmark index to its highest since May 2008, according to a report released on Monday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on a three-day visit he began on Sunday, when the neighbors signed a pact on China's economic aid to the impoverished North.

Kenya's coalition government rejected on Monday international donors' accusations it was not doing enough to tackle the root causes of last year's post- election violence and bring to account those behind the killing.

Markets reopened and some children attended school in the earthquake-shattered city of Padang on Monday, but inland villages engulfed by landslides were to be left as mass graves to focus on getting aid to survivors.

Stocks rose on Monday as data showed the services sector expanded after about a year of contraction and on positive broker comments on big bank stocks.

The G30, a group of prominent bankers, policymakers and economists, called on Monday for sweeping reforms to the International Monetary Fund, warning that the impetus for change would wane as pain from the financial crisis fades.

Foreign and Afghan forces launched an assault on Monday against a group of Taliban in an area of eastern Afghanistan where the militants killed eight American soldiers at the weekend, an official said.

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it rejected an appeal by former Qwest Communications International Inc Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio of his insider trading conviction on the grounds that he did not get a fair trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it rejected an appeal by former Qwest Communications International Inc Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio of his insider trading conviction on the grounds that he did not get a fair trial.

Afghanistan's U.N.-backed election watchdog will treat presidential candidates as equally likely to be guilty of vote fraud in suspicious cases, new rules issued on Monday show, a move that may ensure a win for Hamid Karzai.

Rescue workers used sandbags to stop a raging river from breaching its embankment near a southern Indian city on Monday as floods triggered by heavy rains over the last week left 2.5 million people homeless.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to the United States next month and address both houses of Congress, the government said on Monday

China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea, nudging it to improve its economy, while reports of Indian and South Korean swoops on North Korean shipping underscored strains behind a recent easing of tension.

The Obama administration wants to ensure multilateral development banks have adequate resources, but any capital increase must be tied to reforms, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday.