IBT Staff Reporter

David Letterman shocked viewers Thursday night on his CBS Corporation television show with his candid story of getting extorted by an employee of the network who threatened to reveal the host's affairs with women working on his show.

Oil fell to near $70 a barrel on Friday after worse-than-expected U.S. employment figures raised doubts about the strength of the economic recovery, but a slump in the dollar helped drag crude prices off their lows.

Gun shots ring sharply across a valley littered with rusting hulks of Soviet tanks as Afghan soldiers crouch down and open fire into the dusty haze.

German industrial heir Ludwig Merckle is more confident he may not need to sell drugs distributor Phoenix after cashing in shares in HeidelbergCement, two people familiar with his plans told Reuters.

Switzerland's two large banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, could weather a severe deterioration of the economy, Swiss banking regulator FINMA said on Friday, publishing its conclusion from a stress test for the banks.

Grieving Samoans buried their dead in unmarked beachside graves on Thursday as the gruesome task of recovering bodies from villages destroyed by four tsunamis continued and an aftershock shook the region.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank warned on Friday that the global economic recovery might falter as complacent policymakers lost their will to cooperate.

The Philippines declared a nationwide state of calamity on Friday as a super typhoon bore down a week after flash floods killed nearly 300 people in and around Manila.

ConocoPhillips said on Friday weak North American natural gas prices would hurt its third-quarter earnings, and its total oil and gas output would fall nearly five percent from the second quarter.

American Airlines (AMR.N) and fellow Oneworld alliance partners British Airways (BAY.L) and Iberia (IBLA.MC) face fresh European Union antitrust hurdles as they look to extend their pact to include coordinated schedules and prices.

Employers cut more jobs in September than expected and the unemployment rate crept up to 9.8 percent, with economists predicting that the rate will eventually exceed 10 percent before falling in 2010.

A court in army-ruled Myanmar upheld its guilty verdict on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Friday, a legal source said, a ruling likely to keep the Nobel laureate in detention until after next year's elections.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday wrapped up debate on a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and prepared to vote on the legislation next week.

Greece's Forthnet has offered to buy Wind Hellas in a deal that could value the indebted Greek mobile phone group at about 2 billion euros ($2.91 billion), opening the prospect of a bidding war.

A two-minute video of an Israeli soldier held captive by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past three years shows him healthy and coherent and speaking to the camera, Israeli officials said on Friday.

High-risk patients who took a combination of three older heart drugs -- a generic statin, a generic blood pressure pill and a low-dose aspirin -- cut their risk of a heart attack or stroke by as much as 80 percent, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday wrapped up debate on a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and prepared to vote on the legislation next week.

A shareholder of Cadbury is suing the British confectioner's board and chief executive, saying investors stand to lose out massively if the company refuses to negotiate over a $15.68 billion takeover bid from Kraft Foods Inc.

An experimental diabetes drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca met its main target in a late stage study, achieving significant reductions in glycosylated hemoglobin levels.

U.S. President Barack Obama met the man heading U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, Friday, a White House spokesman said.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co is on the verge of catching up with private equity arch-rival Blackstone in having a share listing, more than two years after initially seeking to go public.

Aid for thousands of survivors of an earthquake in the Indonesia port of Padang began trickling in on Friday, but rescue efforts were hampered by power blackouts and a lack of heavy equipment to shift masonry.

Chicago played its two trump cards on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle both making impassioned speeches as they urged the IOC to choose the Windy City as host of the 2016 Olympics.

The chief executive of Motors Liquidation Co (MTLQQ.PK), the old shell of General Motors that remains in bankruptcy court, is hoping that the company will get court approval for a plan of liquidation by the middle of next year, he said on Thursday.

Ford Motor Co of Canada (F.N) bucked the trend in September, posting comfortably higher auto sales as the broader Canadian industry continued to slide.

Germany's new car market grew by 21 percent in September and orders fell a less-than-feared 12 percent even as a scrappage scheme for old autos ran out of money, the VDA vehicle manufacturers association said on Friday.

An Israeli court has stepped into a battle over a legacy that may include lost manuscripts of the great 20th century writer Franz Kafka, ordering an elderly heiress to open up a secret hoard of papers, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Friday.

Ending a complete lack of suspense, director Michael Bay said Thursday that he will shoot a third Transformers film, whose release date has been brought forward by exactly one year to July 1, 2011.

Willy Wonka could soon be kicking up his heels.