Business news for Fri, 09 May 2008. 1240 news.

Circuit City has given in to pressure from activist shareholders, essentially putting itself up for sale and agreeing to nominate dissident directors to its board. The electronics retailer said Friday it would open its books to Blockbuster.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that California must increase tax incentives to movie and television studios as a way to keep them from moving their productions out of state.

Facebook is loosening its grip on millions of personal profiles to allow inhabitants of its popular Internet hangout to transplant the information and applications to other Web sites.

The search giant's latest Web-hosted offering, Web Security for Enterprise, gives it a leg up on Microsoft in a digital world increasingly turning to cloud computing, experts say.

Marks & Spencer is about to break with 85 years of tradition by selling some of Britain's best-loved brands in its stores alongside its own-label foods

Six banks face potential losses of up to ?400m after they try to refinance a ?2.6bn debt package taken on for the game show producer's takeover last summer

Apple has agreed to settle a pair of class-action lawsuits in Canada alleging it misled customers about the staying power of their iPods, the latest courtroom truce over the dwindling battery life of early generations of the device.

An advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google is facing opposition from consumer and civic groups that didn’t wait for an official deal announcement to voice their discontent.

Virgin Mobile and Helio are in advanced merger talks as the wireless carriers face slowing growth in the market.

Warren E. Buffett is no stranger to Pine Valley. In 1992, the billionaire investor first visited the town that is the setting for ABC’s “All My Children,” after striking up a friendship with the popular soap opera’s creator. And on Friday he returned to counsel Erica Kane, the long-running character played by Susan Lucci. “Warren” has [...]

Looking to Apple's past for a clue to his company's future, Michael Dell knows that reversal of fortune is a common theme in the PC industry's history.

ANB Financial, a $2.1bn bank in Arkansas, was closed down by US regulators, the largest bank failure of the year and the third largest since the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s

Wall Street's downsizing is picking up steam. For employees at banks and securities firms, it feels like death by a thousand cuts.

Fannie Mae is preparing a program of refinancing mortgages for people who owe more than the current value of their homes. The plan is the latest twist in efforts to contain the surge in foreclosures in much of the U.S.

A sampling of events and activities in and around the Beltway.

UPS believes Big Brown is the complete package. The shipping giant is trying to capitalize on the Kentucky Derby winner, whose minority owner named the horse in the company's honor.

Bank's chief executive sets out his plans to shed $500bn of non-core assets in a bid to stem the company's decline and help it recover after the credit crunch

The number of people who are losing their homes because they cannot meet rising mortgage bills is set to double this year, experts said yesterday.

British banks will sell £9 billion of bad consumer debt to debt collectors this year in an effort to free up capital on their balance sheets.

Intertek may have been one of the better performers among last year's Tempus Ten - its shares rose 19 per cent - but that has not stopped the FTSE 250 testing and inspection services provider from starting 2008 in similar fashion. After a poor January, it has risen 17 per cent over the past three months to touch a record high this week.