San Francisco - Shares of Take Two Interactive plunged Monday after Electronic Arts ended its seven-month pursuit of the maker of Grand Theft Auto.

In midday trading in New York, Take-Two shares fell 23 per cent to 16.84 dollars.

EA, the world's largest video-game maker and publisher of titles such as The Sims, has been fighting to acquire Take-Two since February, when it offered to pay up to 26 dollars per share, or about 2 billion dollars.

Take Two rejected the advances, saying that the offer undervalued the company and its expansion plans. However, the companies started formal talks last month, which EA ended on Sunday after deciding that it would not be able to integrate the company in time for the critical holiday shopping season.

Washington, September 16 : A virulent strain of the common intestinal bacterium Clostridium difficile (C-diff) is emerging as a deadly superbug, warn physicians.

Doctors at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine says that the NAP1 type of the bacterium is currently plaguing hospitals.

They say that it rivals the superbug Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as one of the top emerging disease threats to humans.

Washington - General Raymond Odierno begins his third stint in Iraq on Tuesday, when he takes over command of US forces there, hoping to build on the successes that have been gained under the troop surge.

Odierno has been credited with implementing the new strategy ordered by President George W Bush in January 2007, while serving as the deputy commander to General David Petraeus.

Petraeus is leaving the position to become the head of US Central Command, which runs military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, including Afghanistan.

Washington - After the worst episode yet in a devastating, year-long credit crisis plaguing the United States, the question on some analysts' minds was whether the world's largest economy was in danger of losing its dominant grip on global finance.

New York - Electronics chain Best Buy is to buy online music service Napster Inc for 121 million dollars in a move to expand the retailer's digital music offerings, the companies said Monday.

Best Buy will pay a total of 121 million dollars for Napster, which has 700,000 subscribers to its digital entertainment services. The deal represented a price of 2.65 dollars per share, almost double Napster's closing price before the announcement of the deal. Napster also has 67 million dollars in the bank.

Washington - As a mammoth bankruptcy and a surprise takeover shook the US financial industry, two Wall Street stalwarts were under pressure from the federal government to help bail out yet another major firm.

The US Federal Reserve has asked Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JP Morgan Chase & Co - among the few large finance firms still in the black - to provide up to 75 billion dollars in short-term loans help prop up insurance conglomerate American International Group Inc (AIG), The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.