IBT Staff Reporter

Warren Buffett said out of control health care costs are a tapeworm limiting growth in an economy recovering only fitfully from the financial crisis.

Consumer spending increased slightly faster than expected in January as consumers dipped into their savings amid a small rise in incomes, a government report showed on Monday.

Shares of U.S. airlines rose on Monday amid growing sentiment the economy may be on the mend and that the airline industry is poised for mergers.

New research released on Monday conclusively links violent video game play aggression in kids.

Google claims Microsoft is taking over lawsuits and complaints brought by third parties to stir up antitrust complaints against them.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be in Chile on Tuesday to help officials assess and help provide post-quake needs.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp said on Monday its board will review activist investor Carl Icahn's unsolicited bid to increase his share in the company.

Astellas Pharma Inc launched a $3.5 billion hostile bid for OSI Pharmaceuticals to gain access to the blockbuster Tarceva cancer drug, in the latest move by a Japanese drugmaker to make inroads in the United States.

Factories around the world enjoyed a bumper February with business surveys showing the manufacturing sector in major economies continued to lead an economic recovery, despite a slowdown in some growth rates.

Carmakers will be keen to show off new green technologies at the Geneva Auto Show as economic uncertainties and waning scrapping schemes make forecasting sales trends difficult.

Daimler plans a technology cooperation with China's BYD to develop electric vehicles for China, in a sign that the German auto maker is increasingly dependent on China's know-how.

Lockheed Martin Corp, the No. 1 information technology provider to the U.S. government, is working hard to better predict and protect against increasingly sophisticated and stealthy cyber attacks.

American International Group Inc has asked former employees of its Financial Products unit for information about how much they earned elsewhere after leaving the company as it prepares to hand them retention payments, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

PepsiCo Inc forecast earnings growth at a low-double-digit rate in 2011 and 2012 and said its shift away from independent bottlers in the United States.

Stocks rose on Monday, boosted by AIG's deal to sell its Asian life insurance unit and prospects for solving Greece's debt problems, which have increased fears about the outlook for global recovery.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn, a 40-year veteran of the U.S. central bank, will step down in late June, giving President Barack Obama a freer hand to reshape the institution.

Four Afghan civilians and one foreign soldier were killed on Monday when a suicide car bomber hit a convoy of NATO-led troops near the southern city of Kandahar, officials and witnesses said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy promised on Monday to investigate how sea levees broke during heavy storms at the weekend, unleashing floods that killed at least 51 people.

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, and the Chinese Communist Party is not exactly itching to release its iron grip over society and the economy.

A massive earthquake and tsunamis killed 350 people in one Chilean coastal town, doubling the total death toll on Sunday as the government tried to get aid to hungry survivors and halt looting.

Iran launched a fierce verbal assault on the West on Monday, charging some European countries of subjecting Muslim communities to insult and violence and suggesting the United States and Europe aided terrorism.

Iran is ready to continue its cooperation with the United Nations atomic energy agency over its nuclear programme, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday.

Israel voiced optimism on Monday that China would not veto any new U.N. Security Council sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear programme, saying Beijing had listened attentively to a visiting Israeli delegation.

Greece needs to take further action quickly to tackle its debt crisis and meet its budget goals, European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said on Monday.

The release of Apple's anticipated iPad may have hit delays, according to one analyst on Monday.

Britain's Prudential will buy AIG's Asian arm for $35.5 billion in the insurance sector's biggest deal ever, helping the bailed-out U.S. group repay a big chunk of its taxpayer debt.

U.S. stocks rose on Monday, boosted by several mergers, including a deal by AIG to sell its Asian life insurance unit, and as a possible resolution appeared for debt-troubled Greece in the form of European Union aid.

PepsiCo Inc backed its outlook for 2010 and said it expects earnings per share to rise at a low-double-digit rate on an constant-currency basis in 2011 and 2012.

Online news has become more popular than regular print newspapers in the US, according to a new study.