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WASHINGTON - The government will buy an ownership stake in a broad array of American banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday, announcing the historic step after stock markets jolted still lower around the world despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have held preliminary talks about a merger or an acquisition of Chrysler by GM, according to published reports Saturday.

NEW YORK - Wall Street capped one of its worst weeks ever with a wild session Friday that saw the Dow Jones industrials gyrate within a 1,000 point range before closing with a relatively mild loss and the Nasdaq composite index actually ending with a modest advance.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday that the Bush administration will move ahead with a plan to buy stock in financial institutions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors is in preliminary talks about a possible merger with fellow U.S. automaker Chrysler, The New York Times reported late on Friday.

DENVER - Prices at the pump are dropping fast, and gas could fall below $3 a gallon in a matter of weeks, if not sooner. Does that mean Americans will return to their heedless, gas-guzzling ways?

DUBLIN, Ireland - Davey McKeever was down to his last bet slip of the night, crumpled in a sweaty fist, at the Shelbourne Park greyhound track. The remnants of McKeever's first unemployment check would rise or fall on the ironically named Nest Egg.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government plans to invest directly in US banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday, expanding the focus of the government's 700-billion-dollar rescue plan.

WASHINGTON - Finance officials from the world's top economic powers endorsed a plan Friday to stem the worst financial crisis in more than a half-century.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - This stretch of rolling dairy country has long been Milton Hershey's turf, where he first found success making chocolate more than a century ago and earned a name synonymous with chocolate in America.

NEW YORK - The stunning collapse in oil markets accelerated Friday, sending a barrel of crude plunging below $78 as investors grow more pessimistic about resolving a mushrooming global economic crisis.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit edged down slightly in August, reflecting a drop in foreign oil from record levels. But the politically sensitive deficit with China increased as imports from that country hit an all-time high.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators took over two small banks on Friday, in Michigan and Illinois, bringing the tally of bank failures to 15 so far this year.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. is likely to announce further production cuts and possible plant closures as early as next week as it deals with slumping sales and a collapse in its stock price, a person with knowledge of the company's plans said Friday.

ARTEIXO, SPAIN Many U.S. apparel retailers are choking on slow-moving inventories as consumers hold back on spending. But Spain's Inditex, whose Zara chain pioneered cheap chic, is zipping ahead. The $13.8 billion company, which is closing in on Gap for the title of world's biggest clothing retailer, has nearly quadrupled sales, profits, and locations since 2000. This year, Inditex plans to expand by up to 640 stores. "They will weather the storms better than most of their rivals," says Michael Lewis, a supply-management professor at University of Bath's School of ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday the United States was developing plans to buy equity in financial institutions if necessary to halt market turmoil.

DETROIT/NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors has had talks with smaller rival Chrysler LLC about a merger that would combine the No. 1 and No. 3 American automakers at a time when both are struggling to cut costs and shore up cash, according to a source briefed on the matter.

When Apple released its MacBook Pro laptop, reviewers called it an evolutionary improvement and touted its new GeForce 8600 GT mobile graphics processor, made by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia. Now some models may have faulty chips.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (MUFG) could seek to renegotiate the terms of a planned $9 billion cash injection into investment bank Morgan Stanley, CNBC reported on Friday, even as sources told Reuters the deal was still on track to close on Tuesday.

In the fickle world of retailing, where hot concepts can be as fleeting as pop stardom, Costco (NasdaqGS:COST - News) has been a fortress of stability over the years. The $72 billion discount warehouse chain has built an empire of 544 stores in 40 states on one proposition to which it is fanatically devoted: keeping the prices of its quirky assortment of wares, everything from bulk antacids to flat-screen televisions, as low as possible.

Internet and Web browser security experts are sounding the alarm about a new type of malicious attack called "clickjacking," a technique that can be used to dupe Web surfers into revealing confidential information while clicking on seemingly innocuous Web pages. Among other things, a clickjacking attack can be used to take control of a computer's Webcam and microphone without the knowledge of the user.

While Ed Wallace claims in his Oct. 8 column that there is no auto credit crisis (BusinessWeek.com, 10/7/08), I invite him to actually talk with any of the thousands of customers who couldn't secure adequate financing on a new vehicle purchase this past month.