IBT Staff Reporter

The Paris prosecutor's office has launched a preliminary investigation to see if BNP Paribas provided misleading information about investments in a fund buying Madoff-related products, a newspaper said on Saturday.

The U.S. Treasury Department is likely to unveil as soon as next week a three-part plan to relieve the U.S. financial system of the toxic assets that have been clogging up the banks' balance sheets, a source familiar with the plan said on Saturday.

Sales of Microsoft's Xbox 260s in the U.S. in February was up 53 percent from the same month last year, giving the company its biggest non-holiday sales month sales apart from September 2007 when Halo 3 was launched, according NPD Group research firm.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared to have added more fire to the an already flaming rivalry between the difference of Mac and a PC.

Documents turned over to the Connecticut attorney general show that American International Group Inc paid out over $218 million in bonuses, more than the previously disclosed $165 million, published reports said on Saturday.

Private equity groups Hellman & Friedman, Bain Capital and TPG have each shown interest in the iShares unit from British bank Barclays , sources familiar with the situation said.

German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said on Saturday he was talking to potential investors in troubled German carmaker Opel, rejecting a media report saying there was not yet any serious bidder.

The global economy is set to shrink by one to two percent this year, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Saturday, saying the depth of the slowdown was unprecedented since the 1930s Great Depression.

AUSTIN, Texas - Signing on for a Guitar Hero game was a no brainer, according to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.

Chinese health authorities said on Saturday that they had found no evidence of cancer-causing chemicals in baby products made by U.S. company Johnson & Johnson.

The U.S. government will announce as soon as Monday a long-awaited plan to try to get bad assets off the books of banks, a cornerstone of its efforts to tackle the credit crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The U.S. government will announce as soon as Monday a long-awaited plan to try to get bad assets off the books of banks, a cornerstone of its efforts to tackle the credit crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. regulators seized control on Friday of U.S. Central Federal Credit Union, a huge wholesale credit union with $34 billion in assets that provides services to nearly every other credit union.

A judge in Denver on Friday set aside her previous order that former Qwest Communications International Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio report to prison on Monday after his attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his 2007 insider trading conviction.

Wall Street's attempt to recover further from 12-year lows faces its biggest test yet next week in the Treasury's long-delayed bank rescue plan.

British bank Barclays PLC is offering to finance the purchase of its iShares fund unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources.

Proposed legislation to tax 90 percent of bonuses at companies receiving more than $5 billion in government funds is unfair, Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis said in a memo to employees on Friday.

Advisers representing General Motors Corp bondholders on Friday issued an appeal to the automaker and U.S. officials to break an impasse in a crucial round of debt restructuring talks.

Verizon Wireless is the U.S. network that has received fewer complaints from its subscribers, according to J.D. Power and Associates.

Advisers representing General Motors Corp bondholders on Friday issued an appeal to the automaker and U.S. officials to break an impasse in a crucial round of debt restructuring talks.

Citigroup’s chief executive tried to reassure employees about compensation a day after House legislators passed a bill to claw back bonuses for employees earning more than $250,000 at companies which received more than $5 billion in bailout funds.

An exodus of expertise from the natural resources sector following the collapse in commodities prices mean banks and industry could face a shortage of seasoned professionals when demand eventually recovers.

Sun Microsystems Inc, the darling of the dot-com boom, never really recovered from the bet it made on high-powered computers used to run the first generation of Internet datacentres.

U.S. states have spearheaded moves to curb global warming and are not ready to pass the leadership baton to President Barack Obama.

The West Antarctic ice sheet may start to collapse if sea temperatures rise by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit), triggering a thaw that would raise world ocean levels by 5 meters (16 ft), U.S. scientists said.

Hundreds of people in the United States are under investigation for financial scams, many involving Ponzi schemes, a U.S. regulator said on Friday, calling the phenomenon rampant Ponzimonium.

The iTunes store has begun selling HD movies for the first time, Apple said Thursday.

The European Union on Friday pledged more than $100 billion in new loans to the International Monetary Fund to bail out countries in the global recession and urged the G20 economic powers to help double its funding.

An AIG unit and Countrywide Financial Corp, now part of Bank of America Corp , have sued each other, alleging breach of contract, in a dispute over insurance losses for subprime mortgage loans now in default.