From a park near Albuquerque, to the top of Japan's Mount Fuji, to the California coast the effect was dramatic: The moon nearly blotting out the sun creating a blazing "ring of fire" eclipse.

A Chinese conglomerate announced Monday it will buy a major U.S. cinema chain, AMC Entertainment Holdings, for $2.6 billion in China's biggest takeover of an American company to date.

FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) - The head of General Motors unit Opel sought to allay workers' fears that the automaker plans to shut one of its four German plants as it pulls production of the Astra, its best-selling model, from the country. Opel Chief Executive Karl-Friedrich Stracke is under pressure from GM to end heavy losses at the U.S. carmaker's German arm by shifting production to countries with lower labor costs. Stracke told workers in Bochum on Monday that no decision has been made on their plant's future beyond 2014. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares took a breather from last week's sell-off and the single currency steadied on Monday, but investors were wary after a weekend meeting of Group of Eight leaders failed to ease concerns about the risk of Greece exiting the euro. The FTSE Eurofirst index of top European shares edged up 0.2 percent at 972.09 points after losing 5.1 percent last week to reach its lowest level in five months. ...

Bargain-hunting helped Asian stock markets edge upward Monday, but gains were limited as investors remained unconvinced that the world's major economies nailed a solution to the European debt crisis following a summit in Washington.

A German official says Berlin continues to oppose the idea of jointly-issued bonds for the eurozone, which France's new president had suggested could be used to fund economic growth.

The July 29, 2008, phone call between two titans of Wall Street began with the old friends exchanging mild pleasantries, but then quickly turned serious and — by the government's account — criminal.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The chief executives of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd come face to face on Monday in court-directed mediation in the United States over a dispute in which the iPhone maker claims the Korean firm has "slavishly" copied some of its products. Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Choi Gee-sung have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for mediation in San Francisco to help resolve the bitter patent litigation between the two firms. The U.S. ...

SHANGHAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chinese Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma is buying back up to half of a 40 percent stake in his Alibaba Group from Yahoo Inc for $7.1 billion, in a deal that moves the Chinese e-commerce leader closer to a public listing. Under the agreement, Yahoo will sell half its stake in Alibaba for at least $6.3 billion in cash and up to $800 million in new Alibaba preferred stock. ...

Struggling Internet company Yahoo Inc. has secured a lifeline after agreeing to sell half of its prized stake in Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba for about $7.1 billion, with most of the cash going to shareholders.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are backing Montana in its fight to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision from being used to strike down state laws restricting corporate campaign spending.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barely a day went by at the insider-trading trial of multimillionaire hedge-fund founder Raj Rajaratnam a year ago without mention of Rajat Gupta, a boldface name in business and charity circles. On Monday in the same federal court in New York, it will be Gupta's turn to go on trial. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Procter & Gamble board member is accused of leaking stock secrets to Rajaratnam, his erstwhile friend and business associate who was convicted and is now in prison. ...

A spectacular solar eclipse treated skywatchers around the world to dazzling celestial views Sunday (May 20), as the moon wandered between Earth and the sun, leaving a "ring of fire" in the sky.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia's top airline Qantas Airways said on Monday it is eliminating 500 jobs by merging maintenance facilities to save up to A$100 million ($98.4 million) annually, as high fuel costs and weak demand take a toll on airline profits. Qantas, which is emerging from a costly industrial dispute, said in statement it will stop heavy maintenance in Tullamarine in Melbourne and concentrate on centers in Brisbane and Avalon, resulting in the job cuts. It had, in February, flagged another 500 job cuts for the group. ...

(Reuters) - The Nasdaq is planning to revamp its systems for handling stock offerings after acknowledging that technology problems had affected trading in millions of newly issued Facebook shares on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Individual investors were left in the dark for hours on Friday about whether their buy and sell orders for Facebook shares had actually been executed, in the latest of a series high-profile exchange glitches. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Newly issued shares in Facebook Inc may have a hard time in the coming week if lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stops supporting the stock and managers lower down in the IPO book who were hoping for an early surge decide to get out before going underwater. Facebook on Friday sold 421 million shares of stock in a deal that valued the company at more than $100 billion. But investors, expecting a first-day pop in price, instead saw it close just 0.6 percent above the IPO price at $38.23. ...

A rare solar eclipse is darkening skies from China to Texas today (May 20), and has crowds of eager skywatchers and photographers hoping to see the sun transform into a dazzling "ring of fire."

This month marks the 20th anniversary of a spectacular day for zoologists. Two decades ago, in May 1992, scientists announced the discovery of a new species — the saola — living in the lush mountain forests that straddle the Vietnam-Laos border.

NEW YORK — A nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton has sold for just over $1 million, in spite of a call to halt its auction because the fossils may have been taken illegally from Mongolia.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Newly issued shares in Facebook Inc may have a hard time in the coming week if lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stops supporting the stock and managers lower down in the IPO book who were hoping for an early surge decide to get out before going underwater. Facebook on Friday sold 421 million shares of stock in a deal that valued the company at more than $100 billion. But investors, expecting a first-day pop in price, instead saw it close just 0.6 percent above the IPO price at $38.23. ...

(Reuters) - A pledge by leaders of industrialized nations to help the troubled world economy is unlikely to herald quick new action by Europe on its debt crisis, meaning more uncertainty for nervous financial markets. The Group of Eight economies stressed on Saturday that their "imperative is to promote growth and jobs", as they also recognized problems among European banks and gave verbal backing for Greece to stay in the euro. Still, despite U.S. calls for immediate moves to boost growth, no sign emerged that Germany would soften its stance on austerity as the cure for Europe's debt ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The chief executives of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd are used to running the show at their global tech empires, but they will be in for a different experience when they arrive at a San Francisco federal courthouse on Monday. Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, whose companies are embroiled in bitter patent litigation, have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for court-supervised mediation. A joint court filing in April said that "as directed by the Court, Apple and Samsung are both willing to participate" in the discussions. ...

Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sea levels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

(Reuters) - Shares in social media company Facebook Inc could fall below the initial public offering price of $38, Barron's wrote in its May 21 edition. Facebook saw its shares rise a scant 0.6 percent to $38.23 on Friday in the first day of trading. The stock stayed above the $38 IPO price, supported in the market by the deal's underwriters. But Barron's said the "big question" this week will be whether they continue to do so. ...

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season got an early start with the formation of Tropical Storm Alberto off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday (May 19).

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Normally a big decline would set up Wall Street for a technical rebound. But that may not be the case this week, even after the market posted its worst weekly loss for the year and the S&P fell for six straight sessions. With the corporate earnings season drawing to an end and recent U.S. economic data raising doubts about the pace of growth, the S&P 500, which is down 7.3 percent so far in May, could decline further this week as concerns about the financial health of Europe persist. ...

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics' mobile division chief JK Shin said on Sunday the South Korean technology giant was still seeking to resolve differences in its international patent war with Apple Inc.. "There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple but we still have several negotiation options including cross-licensing," Shin told reporters at Seoul airport shortly before his departure for the United States. Asked about the prospects for Samsung's memory chip business, Shin said the 4G chip shortage was expected to continue until early in the fourth quarter of this year. ...

(Reuters) - Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wed longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan on Saturday, announcing the nuptials through a status update on the social networking site. The 28-year-old billionaire's wedding took place a day after Facebook's initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday. More than 280,000 people "liked" Zuckerberg's status change, which was accompanied by a photo of the smiling couple in wedding attire in a small, verdant outdoor setting with a string of lights behind them. ...