UNITED STATES

Asian stocks steadied on Friday with big gains unlikely as investors looked to take profits after three days of gains, while the euro held its tiny increase following Germany's approval to expand the euro zone bailout fund.

As several U.S. states fight to enact stricter immigration laws, several sources have reported a shocking practice that has occurred in more than one state: shackling pregnant women to their hospital bed during childbirth.

Facebook faces regulatory scrutiny in Ireland, site of its European headquarters, over its handling of personal information, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

Burger and ice cream chain Friendly's is close to filing for bankruptcy and may try to sell itself at auction, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Japanese factory output rose less than expected in August, in a sign that companies were feeling the pinch from a strong yen and faltering global demand and the economy's swift rebound from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami was tailing off.

Bain Capital and Carlyle Group are among three private equity firms bidding for auto parts supplier TI Automotive in an auction that could fetch around $1.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

Japanese factory output rose less than expected in August, in a sign that companies were feeling the pinch from a strong yen and faltering global demand and the economy's swift rebound from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami was tailing off.

Victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme might recover as much as $6.2 billion less than previously estimated if a recent court decision involving owners of New York Mets baseball team remains the law.

Bank of America will charge debit-card users $5 a month in response to new federal regulations that could cost the company up to $2 billion in annual revenue, it announced on Thursday.

Occupy Wall Street protests are nothing new for NYPD.

The chances of the U.S. economy averting a new recession got a boost on Thursday with claims for jobless benefits falling to a five-month low last week and growth a touch stronger in the second quarter than previously estimated.

The latest listeria outbreak in cantaloupe melon is the deadliest of its kind to have hit the United States in the past decade. 16 lives have been lost and more cases are being reported by the day, but what are the causes and what symptoms should we be looking out for?

Canada will reintroduce copyright legislation on Thursday as it grapples with the realities of the Internet age and tries to balance the demands of consumers with concerns from the movie industry.

September U.S. auto sales are seen rising to their highest since April when the earthquake in Japan began to impact inventory and demand, but a weak economic outlook will curb the pace of the industry's recovery in the coming months.

John Travolta joined Nicolas Cage as the latest celebrity accused of being a time traveler after a 19th century photo appeared on eBay.

According to an independent study, 41 percent of U.S. mobile owners plan on buying an iPhone 5. Furthermore, 27 percent of Android device owners and 52 percent of BlackBerry owners plan on making the switch.

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who led a 400-person congregation in Rasht just a few years ago, was arrested on apostasy charges in 2009. He was found guilty of the crime of abandoning Islam and sentenced to death a year later.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's 80-year-old definition of forcible rape excludes several examples of sexual assault that are typically considered rape by police departments across the country. Critics say it is an extremely narrow and archaic definition of rape that results in an under-reporting of the crime.

Oracle and Autonomy escalated their war of words on Thursday, sparring publicly over whether the British software firm had ever been shopped to the U.S. technology giant.

Ben Bernanke put markets on notice this week: Despite already having spent trillions of dollars to stimulate growth, the Federal Reserve would do more if inflation falls too far and the threat of deflation grows.

A war of words between Oracle and Autonomy escalated on Thursday when dealmaker Frank Quattrone and Autonomy chief Mike Lynch disputed the U.S. software giant's claims about the nature of a meeting all three parties attended in April.