Business News Headlines

TORONTO (Reuters) - Research in Motion capped an already dismal year with a steep profit warning on Friday, taking a huge charge to write down inventories on its languishing PlayBook tablet and sending its shares tumbling more than 8 percent. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, the company whose ubiquitous BlackBerry virtually …

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened on Friday to obstruct a Franco-German drive for swift change to the European Union's treaty intended to help save the euro. After talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Cameron said he was not convinced treaty change was needed to reinforce the …

DALLAS/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve and other central banks must not succumb to calls for additional help from monetary authorities in the face of high budget deficits, two top Fed officials said on Friday. Using the Fed as a printing press to solve the U.S. deficit problem would unleash the "sinister beast" …

PARIS (Reuters) - French bank Societe Generale is to cut 700 jobs at its American and Asian operations as it pulls back on U.S. dollar lending to cut debt and strengthen its balance sheet, two trade-union sources said on Friday. The latest sign of retrenchment at French banks comes as the euro zone debt crisis reaches boiling …

MILAN (Reuters) - Fiat SpA's five car factories in Italy are all in the red and its profits now driven squarely by U.S. affiliate Chrysler, meaning a further scaling back of its 100-year-old Italian operations -- if not a complete pullout -- now looks increasingly likely. The company's quixotic chief executive Sergio Marchionne …

(Reuters) - Verizon Wireless plans to pay $3.6 billion for wireless airwaves from a venture of cable companies Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc and privately held Bright House Networks. The deal, which includes the option for cable companies to resell Verizon Wireless service, comes as Verizon's biggest rival AT&T; Inc …

Small businesses and startups that were skittish about the economy this summer started hiring in bigger numbers this fall, helping drive the unemployment rate down to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest in two and a half years.

A surprise drop in the U.S. unemployment rate sent stocks higher Friday, capping a week of extraordinary gains. Investors were also encouraged after Germany's chancellor made tough remarks about fiscal discipline in the European Union.

A congressional panel has subpoenaed former Sen. Jon Corzine to testify next week about his role leading MF Global, a brokerage firm that collapsed this fall after a disastrous bet on European debt.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed forward Friday with what markets see as an emerging plan for more effective action to contain the European financial crisis, urging tougher rules against government overspending.

Research In Motion Ltd., the struggling maker of the BlackBerry phones, is writing off much of its inventory of PlayBook tablets, since it has to sell them at a deep discount.

Cable companies Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks are giving up on their dreams of creating their own wireless network, opting instead to resell Verizon Wireless service.

Hoping to harvest some fresh cash, the online game company behind "FarmVille" said Friday that it plans to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of up to 100 million shares.

Oil prices are steady after the government said the unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level since March 2009.

Honda Motor Co. is recalling 304,000 vehicles globally for air-bags that may inflate with too much pressure in a crash, send metal and plastic pieces flying and cause injuries or deaths.

China wants to convert some of its mountain of U.S. government debt into investment in renovating American roads and subways, the commerce minister said Friday.

A million-dollar lawsuit by an actress who claims her job prospects were damaged when she was outed online as a 40-year-old has run smack into conventional wisdom: If Sandra Bullock, 47, and Helen Mirren, 66, are getting steady work, bias against older actresses surely must have vanished.

A career con artist who helped with a criminal investigation that led to Google Inc. forfeiting $500 million was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison for his role in a multimillion dollar fraud scheme targeting 83 customers and a credit card processing company.