Business News - AP

NEW YORK - Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings — gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll — gone, gone, gone.

DETROIT - For General Motors Corp. to acquire Chrysler LLC and all of its warts, GM would have to get desperately needed cash. Lots of it, according to industry analysts.

DENVER - Qwest Communications International Inc. says it has reached a tentative agreement for a four-year contract with a union representing about 20,000 employees.

TOKYO - Mazda denied Saturday that a decision had been made by troubled Ford Motor Co. to sell its stake in the Japanese automaker but it didn't rule out a possible deal.

WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund says it strongly endorses a plan by rich countries to fight the global credit crisis.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission has sided with the National Football League in a long-running programming dispute with Comcast Corp., ruling that Comcast should carry the league's NFL Network on its popular digital cable package.

NEW YORK - In this fall's TV season, a secret agent speeds around in a Chevrolet Camaro, a man tries to save the world with the help of a Dodge Ram pickup, and a famous talking car returns to the streets in the form of a Ford Mustang.

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.

May 7, 1998: Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler-Benz, the maker of the upscale Mercedes Benz, announces a $36 billion merger with Chrysler. The new company, DaimlerChrysler AG, begins trading on the Frankfurt and New York stock exchanges on Nov. 17.

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.

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.

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?

NEW YORK - Sellers of insurance on bonds issued by bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. are now likely to face demands that they pay out more than 91 cents on the dollar to buyers of those insurance contracts.

NEW YORK - Federal antitrust regulators on Friday cleared Wells Fargo's $11.7 billion acquisition of Wachovia Corp., capping a weeklong battle for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank.

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.

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.

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.

HARTFORD, Conn. - General Electric Co. spared investors any nasty surprises as it reported a 22 percent drop in third-quarter earnings on Friday, meeting its own lowered forecast and blaming the decline on its struggling finance arm. The company's loan and lease business has been hammered by the worst financial crisis since the 1929 stock market crash.

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