IBT Staff Reporter

The supply of unsold new U.S. homes plummeted in March in the biggest drop in more than 45 years, government data showed on Friday, offering hope the distressed housing market is stabilizing.

U.S. President Barack Obama discussed North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons threat with Japan’s Prime Minister Tarso Aso in a telephone talk Friday.

A 13-year-old downloaded the billionth application from the Apple App online Store, becoming the grand-prize winner in the company's app countdown contest, Apple said Friday.

Freddie Mac (FRE.P) (FRE.N), the second-largest U.S. home funding company, on Friday said its mortgage investment portfolio grew by an annualized 65.8 percent rate in March, while delinquencies on loans it guarantees accelerated.

California's Riverside County has been one of the most punished areas in the U.S. housing crash and now local leaders are among the first in the nation with a program to buy foreclosed homes and sell them back to young families.

Stocks held gains on Friday after the government released a much anticipated concept paper on stress tests for the 19 biggest U.S. banks.

While today's modern cities certainly are graced by large fortifications, since the first days of civilization walls have been built around cities to protect citizens from outside invaders and attacks.

Early signs of a decent spring selling season in the U.S. housing market, as mortgage rates hit near-record lows, have been snuffed out by the latest round of dismal data.

Stocks pared gains on Friday after a much anticipated concept paper on the government stress tests for the 19 biggest U.S. financial institutions was released.

Chrysler LLC is making progress in restructuring talks involving the U.S. government and has no plans to file for bankruptcy before its month-end deadline, the automaker told its U.S. dealers on Friday.

A deadly strain of swine flu never seen before has killed as many as 61 people in Mexico and has spread into the United States, where several people were reported ill.

China has confirmed that Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso will make a trip to Beijing next week. It is his first official visit to China since taking office in September.

A deadly swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears of a possible pandemic. World Health Organization officials said the flu has killed about 60 Mexicans.

Diversified U.S. manufacturers 3M Co and Honeywell International Inc have joined the growing throng of industrials that said the economy has deteriorated more quickly than expected and cut their 2009 profit forecasts.

Ford Motor Co posted a smaller-than-expected first-quarter loss and said it was on track to at least break even in 2011 and did not expect to seek U.S. government loans, sending its shares up as much as 20 percent.

European ambassadors approved a European Union plan to ban imports of furs and other products from culled seals on Friday, moving the 27-nation bloc one step closer to a trade clash with Norway and Canada.

Stocks rose on Friday on better-than-expected results from companies, including American Express and Schlumberger, as economic data raised hopes the economic cycle may have hit a trough.

U.S. banks undergoing stress tests that need more capital will be encouraged to first go to their current stakeholders, possibly through conversions of preferred stakes to common equity, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said on Friday.

The top deputy to the confessed swindler Bernard Madoff is trying to negotiate a plea bargain with federal prosecutors under which he would disclose intimate details of his boss's giant Ponzi scheme, Fortune magazine said on Friday.

A Swiss insurance worker lost her job after surfing popular social network site Facebook while off sick, her employer said on Friday.

Arch Coal Inc said quarterly profit dropped 62 percent due to weak coal demand and higher costs, and the company forecast full-year earnings well below Wall Street expectations.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp named former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as chief executive of the MySpace online social network on Friday, replacing co-founder Chris DeWolfe.

Seven people have been diagnosed with a new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

UBS is aggressively seeking out business in the biotech sector, risking its capital to win deals amid cut-throat competition.

Xerox Corp forecast a weaker-than-expected second-quarter profit and cut its full-year profit outlook nearly in half as its customers delay purchasing printing equipment and supplies.

U.S. banks undergoing stress tests that need more capital will be encouraged to first go to their current stakeholders, possibly through conversions of preferred stakes to common equity, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said on Friday.

Global finance chiefs pointed to glimmers of hope that a deep recession might be easing but warned ahead of Friday meetings that they must clean up bank balance sheets to pave the way for recovery.

U.S. telecoms carrier AT&T Inc has set the size of a planned two-part bond at 1.85 billion pounds ($2.7 billion), IFR reported on Friday.

The inventory of new U.S. homes for sale at the end of the March plummeted at a record pace, government data showed on Friday, bringing a glimmer of hope of improvement in the housing market even as data on durable goods sales showed weakness in the economy as a whole.