Charles Barkley acknowledged he owes a $400,000 gambling debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino and promised Thursday to repay it after a prosecutor said the retired NBA star faced criminal charges.

To complement the three new regional Shariah ETFs, db x-trackers is also listing a global Shariah compliant ETF on Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100 ETF.

Recent business intelligence shows the number of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs) decreased 87% for Q3 2008 compared to the same quarter in 2007. In all, only five companies went public - making for slow IPO activity on the stock exchange.

There was a time, not so long ago, when China seemed the ideal place for intrepid investors worried about U.S. and European prospects and looking for a ticket on the world's most exciting growth ride.

Losing a family member to a drug overdose can be like wearing a scarlet letter, Mary Thrasher says. After her only son, Brian, died of a heroin overdose outside his Chicago apartment in 2001, many of her friends didn't know how to react.