Five months into his term as chief executive of Morgan Stanley, John J. Mack is stepping up efforts to add new businesses.

Continental, a German auto parts maker, has avoided most of the jolts that have rattled its American counterparts - Delphi and General Motors.

Two U.S. oil companies filed arbitration this week against Yemen for expropriating an oil-producing block with output worth more than $1 billion a year.

A careful reading of the evidence suggests that even the wealthy have been made worse off, on balance, by recent tax cuts.

With 21.7 million people expected to fill airports over the Thanksgiving travel period, this would seem to be the time for the T.S.A. to shine.

By The Associated Press.

Europe's food industry and consumer groups are to submit ideas to the European Union on Thursday on how to confront obesity.

By Bloomberg News.

In a bid to supply steel to North American auto plants, Arcelor has begun a 4.3 billion Canadian dollar ($3.66 billion) hostile bid for Dofasco, Canada's largest steel maker.

Falling fuel prices lifted consumer sentiment in the United States this month, brightening the outlook for the holiday shopping season.

Prosecutors have charged a former securities broker with insider trading by illegally obtaining advance copies of Business Week and buying stocks that the magazine was covering favorably.

By Bloomberg News.

Signing up my father for a Medicare drug plan should be simple, especially because the Medicare.gov Web site is well designed and easy to use. If only the real world would cooperate.

By Reuters.

The Procter & Gamble Company said yesterday that third-quarter earnings fell at two units acquired from Gillette, hurt by marketing expenses and flat battery sales.

By The Associated Press.

By Reuters.

Datacolor's SpyderTV unit is the high-tech route to adjusting color, brightness and contrast.

By Reuters.

By Bloomberg News.

By Bloomberg News.

By The Associated Press.

The Creative Prodikeys PC-MIDI multifunction keyboard lets you play music as you type, or vice versa.

For discerning mediaphiles, aftermarket drives offer faster recordings and higher quality.

A line of high-capacity batteries from Sonnet Technologies offers a solution to the iPod's Achilles' heel: its battery.

Animatronics are primed to invade the living room in the form of a hairy, interactive digital toy: the Alive Chimpanzee by the toy robotics maker WowWee.

Is it better to turn off the computer or can I just keep it on all the time?

Memorex has increased the capacity of its tiny Mega TravelDrive hard drives from four gigabytes to as much as eight gigabytes.

Before you throw up your hands, there are basic steps that can be taken to help decide which plan is right for you.

In a world of smaller and smaller laptops, the Flybook attempts to find a balance somewhere on the spectrum between miracle and torture device.

When Derek Mercer's company became successful, he faced a stark choice: cash out or hire a manager to take charge.

AFP - The holiday season is looking a bit brighter for US retailers, with energy prices falling from record highs and the impact of hurricanes fading, analysts say.

The European Commission is to begin legal action against the Italian central bank, over alleged bias in takeover cases.

A former stockbroker is arrested on suspicion of trading on information contained in stolen copies of Business Week magazine.

Nintendo, creator of iconic characters Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers, sees profits drop amid weaker sales of its latest gaming console.

Car-parts firm Delphi delays plans for executive rewards amid union and investor opposition.

New pensions secretary John Hutton is to unveil five tests he wants reforms to meet as he makes his first key speech.

Reuters - Swisscom is considering bidding for Danish telecoms company TDC in conjunction with a private equity group, in what would be roughly a $12 billion deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Reuters - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has set up a new facility to provide funds to poor countries in the case of natural disasters or balance-of-payments crises stemming from a surge in oil prices, Japan's Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Thursday.

The owner of the Capital and Classic FM radio stations, GCap Media, sees profits drop by more than a quarter.

Reuters - Swisscom AG is reviewing ways to acquire Danish telecoms company TDC A/S and may team up with a private equity group to secure the $12 billion takeover deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

AFP - Kesa Electricals, the British electricals-to-furniture retailer, said that group sales across its European businesses rose by 2.5 percent during the third quarter to 973.1 million pounds (1.42 billion euros, 1.68 billion dollars).

German firms became less confident about their business outlook during November, a report suggests.

India offers West African nations up to $1bn towards infrastructure projects in exchange for oil rights.

A former stockbroker is arrested on suspicion of trading on information contained in stolen copies of Business Week magazine.

Gordon Brown believes pensions proposals to be published next week are unaffordable, the BBC learns.

Shares in Capital Radio-owner GCap Media plunge 17% after it reports profits down by more than a quarter.

Reuters - London-listed hedge-fund company Man Group Plc said on Thursday Marathon Asset Management had replaced it as purchaser of assets and accounts of London businesses of bankrupt U.S. brokerage Refco .

Reuters - RTL Group is buying out CNN's 50-percent share in German news channel n-tv, taking its stake to 100 percent, it said on Thursday.

Reuters - Swisscom AG is reviewing ways to acquire Danish telecoms company TDC A/S and may team up with a private equity group to secure the $12 billion takeover deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

A reduction in subsidies for Europe's sugar farmers is agreed by European Union agriculture ministers.

Gordon Brown believes pensions proposals to be published next week are unaffordable, the BBC learns.

Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, tells MPs the bank will closely monitor the impact of gas prices on inflation.

Reuters - Swisscom AG , which is mulling a bid for Denmark's TDC , is talking to buyout firms about divesting parts of TDC's business in the event of any takeover, sources close to the matter said.

Reuters - Nintendo Co. Ltd. (7974.OS) said its first-half operating profit plunged 51 percent as sluggish GameCube sales outweighed currency-related gains, but it kept its forecast for the full year.

Steel firm Novolipetsk is to float about 7% of its shares in London, the latest Russian firm to join the market.

Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft sees profits surge after taking over the main business of Yukos.

AP - German business confidence fell in November, a closely watched survey showed Thursday, with the country's retailing sector leading the decline, though signs of a moderate economic recovery continued.

The Serious Fraud Office is to consider whether it needs to investigate corruption allegations against Compass.

The new round-the-clock licensing laws will have little effect on drinks consumption, a survey says.

Russia agrees to relax rules over foreign ownership of shares in gas and oil giant Gazprom, reports say.

The boss of US telecoms firm Savvis resigns after an inquiry into a strip club bill charged to a company credit card.

A survey of German businesses reported a larger-than-expected decline in confidence in November, suggesting that Europe's biggest economy, while growing, remains fragile.

In the face of trade talks that have been deadlocked for years, Pascal Lamy intends to issue a broad outline of where the different sides stand on a range of issues.

The slow progress of New Orleans' largest black-owned bank in returning to full operations is the wider tale of a community still in stasis.

Once-conservative mainstay marketers are looking to nontraditional media as they seek to reach bombarded consumers.

Bird flu fears spur Lehman Brothers to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic.

The Canadian government outlined an aid package for its softwood lumber industry that may exacerbate Canada's long-running trade dispute with the United States.

ON Dec. 22, 2002, a swarm of securities regulators gathered on a stage to announce a pact with Wall Street firms to improve the quality of investment research. Representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, the New York attorney general's office, the North American Securities Administrators Association, and state regulators, were present. Only Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane of Hazzard County seemed to be missing.

By Bloomberg News.

The European Union's agriculture commissioner has scaled back a plan to reduce sugar prices after producers said that they faced job losses and lower earnings.

Robert McCormick has resigned from Savvis Inc. after an investigation into charges he made on a company credit card at a New York City topless club in 2003.

For decades, tourists have paid thousands for the chance to surf, snorkel and splash in Hawaii's crystalline waters. Now they're paying $5.50 a bottle to drink it.

The Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft yesterday reported a jump in profit of about 600 percent for the first half of 2005, reflecting its takeover last year of the largest production unit of the privately held Yukos.

NBC did not interrupt its broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with the news that a balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters.

Across China, dozens of reborn cities are sprouting up, relocating their town centers or creating entirely new ones.

In the United States, employees celebrate when their companies sell shares to the public. In France, the workers stage protests.