IBT Staff Reporter

Football season is almost here and for U.S. video gamers, that means one thing -- a new version of Madden NFL, which could be back in championship form after a couple of lackluster seasons.

A San Francisco native who loves the beach, parks, running and dancing, Marco has easily made connections over the Internet, racking up 5,200 on his profile. Not bad for a 4-year-old Miniature Schnauzer.

Stocks tumbled on Thursday, with the Dow and S&P down nearly 3 percent, after a French bank froze three funds that invested in U.S. subprime mortgages, prompting central banks to take steps to calm investors. Evidence the U.S. mortgage market crisis was having a global impact and spreading to other markets hammered financial stocks.

In another sign that traditional media is losing market share to the Internet, a new study finds that U.S. online ad sales are expected to overtake newspaper advertising by 2011.

Nokia Corp. said Wednesday that in a ‘pragmatic’ move, it will discontinue a part of its internal chipset development to work more closely with outside developers, including a transfer of 200 of its employees to STMicroelectronics for third generation (3G) technology.

Vonage Holdings Corp. reported a narrower quarterly loss on Thursday as it sacrificed subscriber growth by spending less on advertising its Web-based calling service, sending shares up 9 percent.

North Dakota's senior U.S. senator plans to support the $4.9 billion sale of Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s Bobcat machinery unit to South Korea's Doosan Infracore.

A second hedge fund managed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is suffering from losses and is selling down some of its positions, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Most U.S. retailers posted weaker-than-expected July sales on Thursday, hurt by a delayed back-to-school shopping season and high gas prices that cut consumers' trips to the mall.

Wireless chip supplier Qualcomm (expects to keep its market lead despite a decision by No. 1 mobile handset maker Nokia to order microchips from smaller rivals, Qualcomm's Chief Executive Paul Jacobs said on Thursday.

General Motors Corp. is raising incentives to boost sales in August, mainly for full-size pickup trucks, the automaker's global head of product development said on Thursday.

American International Group, one of the biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, warned on Thursday that mortgage defaults are spreading.

Major central banks swept in to calm credit markets spooked by mounting losses on Thursday, with the European Central Bank injecting record amounts of cash to prevent the financial system from seizing up.

General Motors Corp.'s Buick brand tied Toyota Motor Corp's Lexus for top ranking in a widely watched U.S. survey of vehicle reliability released on Thursday.

France's biggest listed bank, BNP Paribas froze 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) worth of funds on Thursday, citing the U.S. subprime mortgage sector woes that have rattled financial markets worldwide.

Canadian housing starts fell 4.3 percent in July to miss estimates while new home prices rose at a slower pace than in the prior month, suggesting a steady cooling of the domestic housing market.

Mexican consumer prices jumped 0.42 percent in July, accelerating from June and pushing 12-month inflation above the 4-percent limit the central bank says is acceptable.

Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) will continue to grow in the U.S. market, but at a slower rate than it has in the past, and is considering targeting young consumers with a premium small car, the automaker's North American sales chief said on Thursday.I don't think the double-digit growth of the past few years will continue because we are such a large part of the U.S. market now, Jim Lentz told Reuters in an interview.On Wednesday, Lentz said Toyota is on track to post a U.S. sales increase of 5 to 6 percent in 2007. The automaker is now neck and neck with General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in global sales, and is expected to become the world's largest automaker this year.For next year, we will definitely grow, but we have to reevaluate the market in the fourth quarter to see how much we could grow, he said. Toyota sold 2.5 million vehicles in the U.S. market in 2006 and had more than 17 percent of the market in July.Through July, Toyota has surpassed Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) -- excluding Ford's luxury brands, which it is looking to sell -- to become the second-largest automaker behind GM in the United States.As the Japanese automaker has grown in the United States, it has entered every segment with a full line of cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles, including a luxury line with its Lexus brand and an experimental youth-oriented line with its Scion brand.When asked about what Toyota might offer next for U.S. consumers, Lentz said the automaker is looking at the premium small car segment -- a category most automakers in the United States have stayed away from so far.Lentz said Toyota has been studying a process called urbanization in which large numbers of people in their 20s and early 30s are moving into cities.These people have money and they need cars, Lentz said. They don't have long commutes, and they don't have too much space to park. That's where we see the need for a premium small car.BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest premium carmaker, is the only automaker to succeed with a small luxury car in the U.S. market -- with its Mini Cooper. The Mini shows that a small car does not have to be a cheap car, Lentz said.The Mini subcompact has four models in the U.S. market, ranging in base price from $18,700 to $26,000.In contrast, Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research) charges a base price of $13,850 for its Fit subcompact car, while Toyota charged $12780 for its Scion xA, which it stopped making last year. It charges $14,550 for its new Scion xD. GM's base price for its Aveo subcompact starts at $10,560.I think it's time for more luxury-type small cars, Lentz said. He declined to provide any details on Toyota's plans, saying: We are looking at that, and that's all I can say.RAPID GROWTH, SLOW ON DEALERSLentz said Toyota plans to maintain only two channels at dealers even as it grows rapidly in the United States. The automaker has been admired for its dealership efficiency at a time when rivals GM and Chrysler LLC, just purchased by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management (CBS.UL: Quote, Profile, Research), have been criticized for having too many brands and dealerships.With only two brands -- Toyota and Lexus -- in the U.S. market, the automaker launched its youth-oriented Scion brand in late 2003, pulling it into the Toyota channel and keeping only the Lexus brand under a separate dealership.We are not considering a new brand, but if we were to have one, we would not increase our channels, Lentz said.

A limited partner in a failed hedge fund run by Bear Stearns says the investment bank took only meager steps to prevent the fund's recent collapse.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., known for its Midas touch, again found itself on the defensive Thursday amid speculation that two of its hedge funds had fallen sharply in recent weeks and were selling down positions.

U.S. and Canadian regulators said on Thursday they were reviewing AstraZeneca Plc's widely used stomach drugs, Nexium and Prilosec, after data raised concern about heart problems with long-term use.

Proposed legislation that would boost taxes paid by wealthy private equity managers could have the unintended consequences of hurting small business partnerships as well, President George W. Bush said on Thursday.

A rule change that has made it easier for short-sellers to execute trades may be partially responsible for wild swings in the stock market over the last several weeks.

Stocks fell sharply on Thursday as another shoe dropped in the U.S. subprime mortgage sector meltdown, causing investors to flee riskier assets for the relative safety of government bonds. Stocks added to their declines after the Wall Street Journal reported a second Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hedge fund was suffering losses and was selling its positions.

Korea’s central bank raised a key interest rate by 0.25 percent to 5 percent on Thursday, the highest level in six years.

Dubai-based Istithmar is set to buy Jones Apparel Group Inc.'s Barneys New York for $942.3 million after Japanese casual-clothing retailer Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. on Thursday pulled out of the bidding war. The retreat by Fast Retailing ended a month-long tug-of-war over the luxury department store chain, although the operator of the Uniqlo stores has no intention of slowing down its overseas expansion drive.

Police arrested a teenager suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter novel on the Internet weeks before the official French release, the book's publishers said on Wednesday.

President Robert Mugabe's government has warned it will arrest white Zimbabwean farmers resisting evictions from new land targeted for black farmers, state media reported on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Tourism has 417 employees and big plans: 'We need three or four times as many hotels as we have now,' says Nimrud Youkhana, the minister, 'and we need to get more airlines to fly here.'