IBT Staff Reporter

General Motors Corp said Friday it will drop about 1,600 U.S. dealers as it struggles to slash billions of dollars in operating costs and debt ahead of an anticipated bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.

GMAC LLC, stung by billions of dollars in losses at its auto finance and mortgage units, on Friday scrapped its own name from its banking unit, which it will now call Ally Bank in an effort to gain customers.

Words matter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.That's why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to say two-state solution could make for a rocky start in U.S. President Barack Obama's first major foray into Middle East diplomacy.

A British government minister stepped down on Friday pending an investigation of allegations that he paid below-market rent for a house, the highest profile casualty so far of a growing expenses scandal.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said Thursday the recession in the EU member states would be twice as bad as it projected.

The European Union joined international criticism of Myanmar's military rulers on Friday for pressing new charges against detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Japan's Toshiba Corp said it sued Imation Corp and several recordable DVD manufacturers and distributors, claiming they are infringing on its patents.

Shares of several life insurers, including Hartford Financial and Lincoln Financial Group , rose on Friday after the companies got a preliminary green light to participate in a U.S. funding program.

Struggling No. 1 U.S. trucking company YRC Worldwide Inc plans to seek $1 billion in bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help it cover pension obligations, a move analysts say is unlikely to succeed as the company has no financial charter.

Retailers J.C. Penney Co Inc and Abercrombie & Fitch Co posted results that showed consumers were still wary about buying non-essential items.

Stocks slipped in choppy trading on Friday, as sliding crude oil prices prompted some selling in the energy sector and bank shares fell following a two-month run-up.

The video game, once considered recession-resistant, and console manufacturing sector are beginning to show signs from the economic strain.

U.S. consumer confidence rose in early May to its strongest since the September failure of Lehman Brothers, with rising expectations the economy may be in the last stages of the recession, a survey showed on Friday.

The global renewable energy sector grew in 2008 as power capacity and new investments both jumped 16 percent last year and for the first time ever, more renewable energy than conventional power capacity was added in the European Union and United States, two of the world’s major economies.

Regular readers know that American Idol is my guilty pleasure and last night, the show provided a rare surprise - despite the fact that producers and judges had been hyping a finale between Danny Gokey and Adam Lambert all season, a dark horse contestant sneaked in under the wire, beat one of the two the judge’s favorites and made it into the finale.

General Motors Corp plans to drop about 1,600 U.S. dealers as it struggles to slash billions of dollars in operating costs and debt ahead of an anticipated bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.

First Data Corp., an international electronic payments processor, said its sales were steady in the first quarter, but generated a loss overall.

Stocks rose on Friday as unchanged consumer prices, a slower pace in the decline in industrial output and stronger-than-expected data on consumer sentiment reinforced hopes the recession is easing.

Google apologized yesterday for what it called a traffic jam that resulted in slow service on its web properties, or even causing the site to go down.

U.S. consumer prices were unchanged last month and industrial output declined at a slower pace, reports showed on Friday, providing more evidence that the worst phase of the recession may be over.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. today reported a net loss of $26.8 million in its unaudited first quarter results.

Europe sank to what may have been the recession's low point in the first quarter of this year as tumbling German exports and investment plus further sharp drops in output elsewhere hastened the pace of a year-old contraction.

Corrects penultimate paragraph to say France's performance was notably stronger than that of Germany, Italy or Spain, not that it was France's worst quarter in six years

KKR Private Equity Investors LP reported Friday that its net asset value rose slightly for the quarter which ended March 31.

General Motors Corp is expected to slash up to 1,200 dealers as it struggles to dramatically pare down its operations and eliminate billions of dollars of costs ahead of an anticipated bankruptcy filing by the end of this month.

General Motors Corp plans to eliminate up to 1,200 U.S. dealerships, which are expected to begin receiving notices from the embattled automaker as soon as Friday, a person familiar with the plan said.

Prices of U.S. commercial property sold by institutional investors fell 5.8 percent in the first quarter, marking the fourth consecutive quarterly decline, according to an index published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

If Federal Reserve officials think U.S. homeowners are having a tough time selling into a depressed market, just wait until they try to offload the mother of all jumbo mortgages: a $366 billion portfolio of real estate bonds that continues to grow.

The Obama administration on Thursday tweaked its housing rescue plan by increasing incentives for mortgage lenders to slash the payments for homeowners in the worst-hit markets.