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Wall Street drops, worried about a global slowdown - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened lower on Friday, putting equities on track for their fifth straight monthly decline, as China's manufacturing shrank and kept fears of a global economic slowdown in the forefront.

The S&P 500 index has dropped more than 13 percent this quarter and 5.8 percent in September, putting the benchmark index on pace for its worst quarterly performance since 2008 as the euro zone debt crisis and weakening economic data fuel concerns economies around the globe are slowing.

As of Thursday's close, the Wilshire 5000 index is down 13.39 percent for the quarter, representing losses of about $2.2 trillion.

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Europe again steps back from brink in debt crisis - Yahoo! News

BERLIN (Reuters) - Following a now-familiar script, Europe again averted disaster in its debt crisis when German deputies rallied behind Chancellor Angela Merkel to approve a stronger euro zone bailout fund on Thursday.

But bigger challenges lie ahead for the euro zone and markets are already demanding more far-reaching measures to prevent a crisis that began in Greece from spreading far beyond Europe and its banks.

The Bundestag (lower house) overwhelmingly approved new powers for the 440-billion-euro EFSF fund to make precautionary loans, help recapitalize banks and buy distressed countries' bonds in the secondary market.

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Charlie Sheen settles lawsuit over "Men" firing - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Charlie Sheen has settled a lawsuit with the makers and creators of "Two and A Half Men" over the actor's dismissal from the top-rated U.S. television comedy earlier this year, Warner Bros. said on Monday.

Sheen had filed a $100 million lawsuit against the studio behind the CBS comedy and its creator Chuck Lorre after he was fired from the show in March.

Warner Bros. did not put a figure on the settlement. The case had been settled through arbitration.

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Netflix signs pay TV deal for Dreamworks animation - Yahoo! News

(Reuters) - Online video rental company Netflix Inc said it won pay TV rights to Dreamworks Animation movies starting in 2013, the first time a major Hollywood studio has chosen an Internet streaming player over a traditional cable channel.

News of the deal drove Netflix's stock up nearly 7 percent to a high of $137.88 in early trade on Nasdaq on Monday.

Netflix did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

However, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told The New York Times that the deal, worth $30 million per picture to Dreamworks over a number of years, was "game-changing" and represented a bet that viewers would soon no longer make distinctions between content streamed on the Internet or through cable.

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Europe aims to beef up crisis fund, world urges action - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Europe is working to ramp up the firepower of its bailout fund, top officials said on Saturday, as the United States, China and other nations raised the alarm about its debt crisis hurting the world economy.

Financial markets plunged last week on fears that Greece's near-bankruptcy could spread to other euro zone countries, heaping pressure on European policymakers to prevent a repeat of the chaos that swept the world in 2007-2009.

The European Union's top economic official, Olli Rehn, said as soon as the region's governments confirm new powers for their 440-billion-euro fund, known as the EFSF, attention will turn to how to get more impact from the existing money.

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Wall St bounces back on Fed stimulus hopes - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rebounded after a wobbly start on Tuesday on cautious optimism that the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy panel would add more monetary stimulus to a flagging economic recovery,

At the two-day meeting that started Tuesday, the Fed is expected to try to push already-low long-term interest rates even lower by tilting toward longer-duration bonds in its portfolio, a move known as Operation Twist.

The rally was broad-based, though defensive sectors such as utilities, telecommunications and health care were up more sharply, leading the way higher.

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No assault charges against actor Matthew Fox: city - Yahoo! News

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Prosecutors will not file assault charges against "Lost" actor Matthew Fox regarding an incident where he allegedly punched a female bus driver, a City of Cleveland spokesperson said on Saturday.

Fox was detained and handcuffed by Cleveland police about three weeks ago after witnesses told police he punched Heather Bormann, the driver of a private party bus, multiple times in the chest, stomach and groin.

Bormann, 29, brought an initial complaint against Fox on August 30, two days after the alleged attack.

Asked about the decision, her attorney, J. Norman Stark, said Bormann was not told directly by prosecutors that charges will not be pursued and instead found out from media reports.

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UBS raises rogue equity trade losses to $2.3 billion - Yahoo! News

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS on Sunday increased the amount it said it had lost on rogue equity trades to $2.3 billion and alleged a trader concealed his risky deals by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems.

UBS stunned markets on Thursday when it announced unauthorised trades had lost it some $2 billion. London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008.

"The loss resulted from unauthorised speculative trading in various S&P 500, DAX, and EuroStoxx index futures over the last three months," UBS said in a brief statement.

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EU officials seek to dispel fears of credit crunch - Yahoo! News

WROCLAW, Poland (Reuters) - EU officials sought to dispel fears about a bank lending freeze on Saturday, despite a stark warning from senior aides that a "systemic" crisis in sovereign debt now threatened a new credit crunch.

Last week, central banks around the world announced they would work together to offer extra loans in U.S. dollars to banks, a move designed to prevent money markets from freezing up in the wake of Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

European banks are struggling to borrow amid growing alarm about the threat of a Greek debt default among U.S. money market funds and other traditional dollar lenders. European bank stocks have tumbled by a third since July.

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Political satire "Butter" drips with ambition - Yahoo! News

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ambition and folk art collide in director Jim Field Smith's comedy, "Butter," which uses a state fair butter carving competition to satirize the divisiveness of American politics.

The British comedian-turned-filmmaker crafts the story of Laura Pickler, a woman who steps into her husband's shoes as a competitive butter sculptor after he is pressured into retirement in order to give someone else a chance to win.

For Pickler, played with pitbull edge by Jennifer Garner, being the better half of Iowa's most popular butter artist is just the first step toward an eventual future in politics.

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