IBT Staff Reporter

An earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 5.6 shook eastern Venezuela on Friday, leaving minimal physical damage, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

U.S. consumer prices rose modestly last month, while industrial output rose on a cold snap, suggesting the economy was growing but not generating a level of inflation that would spur the Federal Reserve to roll back from its stimulative policies.

U.S. stocks slid on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co reported deep fourth-quarter loan losses and raised concerns about bank profits.

A teenage girl who appeared topless in a sexting cell phone picture that was distributed among her middle-school classmates should face child-pornography charges, a Pennsylvania prosecutor argued before a U.S. appellate court on Friday.

Cellphone users in the United States have contributed more than $10 million to Haitian earthquake relief through text messages in what is being hailed as an unprecedented mobile response to a natural disaster.

Google Inc and Verizon Communications Inc said they support minimal Internet regulation and reasonable network management as regulators weigh open Internet rules.

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson paid millions of dollars in kickback payments, including disguised pay-offs, to nursing home pharmacy company Omnicare Inc to prescribe its drugs to patients, U.S. federal attorneys alleged on Friday.

U.S. stocks slid from 15-month highs on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co reported deep fourth-quarter loan losses that raised concerns about earnings for the banking industry.

Shares of Leap Wireless International Inc jumped 9 percent after a report on DealReporter.com said the low-cost wireless carrier appeared close to a deal with investment banks to explore strategic options.

Juniper Networks Inc said on Friday it was one of the victims of a cyber attack in China first brought to light by Google Inc, which has threatened to quit the country.

U.S. airlines, set to start reporting quarterly losses next week, are likely to offer more evidence of returning business travel demand as the industry gropes its way out of the 2009 economic recession.

Procter & Gamble Co plans to introduce its own website this month to sell goods directly to consumers and to work on improving its relationships with established online retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

The U.S. Justice Department accused giant pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson of paying tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Omnicare Inc to buy and recommend J&J drugs.

The U.S. economy will expand at a decent clip this year as a recovery in housing and consumer spending offset troubles in commercial real estate, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said on Friday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co on Friday announced a record $9.3 billion payday for its investment-banking employees, setting the stage for competitors like Goldman Sachs Group Inc to also make eye-popping payouts.

Tata Consultancy Services glided past street estimates with a 33 percent rise in quarterly profit as demand for outsourcing surged and prices stabilised, fuelling hopes of recovery in the showpiece sector.

U.S. federal fund futures rose for the second day in a row on Friday as investors continued to push back expectations for the timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike on the back of a benign inflation report.

Negotiators from the House of Representatives and Senate made solid progress in talks that stretched into the early morning on Friday, the White House said. Democrats hope to send the bill's major provisions to budget analysts within days.

As phone makers increasingly focus on developing their own browsers, mobile browser makers are turning to operators and new software stores to open new sales opportunities to make up for lost sales.

The death toll from devastating earthquake in Haiti may be as high as 50,000 to 100,000 people, the Pan American Health Organization said on Friday.

U.S. stocks slid on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co reported deep fourth-quarter loan losses that raised concerns about earnings for the banking industry.

U.S. stocks slid on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co reported deep fourth-quarter loan losses that raised concerns about earnings for the banking industry.

General Motors' German unit Opel appointed a new management team on Friday led by Nick Reilly as chief executive and a close ally, Mark James, as finance chief.

Europe's leading economies showed no sign on Friday of adopting U.S. President Barack Obama's proposal for a levy on banks to repay taxpayers for bailouts but vowed to press on with their own ideas to target the sector. The president of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, said Obama was right to propose the plan, which foresees Wall Street banks paying up to $117 b...

JPMorgan Chase & Co's average deposits were $329.8 billion last quarter, down 3% quarter-on-quarter and down 3% year-on-year, despite increasing both its number of branches and checking accounts from last quarter.

The United States will soon give China a formal diplomatic note expressing concern about cyber attacks that prompted Google Inc to threaten to pull out of China, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

A simple see and treat approach using a test costing $2 could help doctors prevent 100,000 cervical cancer deaths a year in women in poorer countries, British scientists said on Friday.

A study of atomic bomb survivors in Japan conducted over 53 years has found that they appear to suffer a far higher risk of heart disease and stroke because of their exposure to radiation.

The U.S. idea of recouping the costs of the financial bailout by taxing banks is the right one, the chairman of euro zone finance ministers said on Friday, but it would be difficult to copy in the European Union.