Like thousands of other merchants, Tammy Harrison thought she had struck gold when hordes visited her Web site by clicking on the small Internet ads she purchased from the world's most popular online search engines.

For Dax Gonzalez, money management meant collecting his paycheck and spending it on eating out and buying gifts for his friends and family until it was all gone. Then he would wait for his next check and start again.

Crude futures hovered around $47 a barrel Friday on data from the International Energy Agency estimating that global oil usage for this year would rise by about 80,000 barrels daily -- primarily on increasing demand from China.

Blockbuster Inc. on Friday said it started a hostile cash tender offer for the $225 million principal amount of 9.625 percent senior subordinated notes due 2011 issued by Hollywood Entertainment Corp., and is seeking noteholder approval for the move.

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - Interpool Inc., a lessor of cargo containers to transportation companies, said Friday that it finalized the accounting treatment for certain deferred taxes and does not expect any impact to its 2004 financial results.

It's one thing to build a really, really big airplane. It's quite another to find a place for it to land.

Sen. Mark Dayton said Friday his low poll numbers and an expectation of harsh political attacks were factors in his decision not to seek re-election next year.

Americans are feeling a bit more optimistic about the future of Iraq, a bright spot for the administration in an Associated Press poll that indicates many are souring on President Bush's job performance.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Bank holding company UMB Financial Corp. on Friday named Michael D. Hagedorn executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective March 21.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (AP) - Utility operator CH Energy Group Inc. on Friday said its profit fell 17 percent in the fourth quarter, hurt by higher operating costs and less revenue from electricity distribution during the period.

Federal Reserve officials aren't optimistic that China will drop its currency peg against the dollar anytime soon because that decision is in the hands of a State Council focused primarily on political stability rather than financial issues.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Natural gas producer and distributor Williams Cos. on Friday said it received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permission to expand its Transco natural gas pipeline in New Jersey.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - AnnTaylor Stores Corp. on Friday warned that the loss for its latest quarter will be deeper than expected because of a change in the way it accounts for leases and a revamping designed to save money.

If you want some insight into the problems of credit rating agency regulation in the United States, consider the case of Rating & Investment Information Inc.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - Veeco Instruments Inc. stock dropped Friday after the maker of instruments for chip and hard drive manunfacturing said it will delay its fourth-quarter financial release until finishing an investigation into improper accounting at a unit.

The Bush administration said Friday that it wasn't interested in one-on-one talks with North Korea about its nuclear programs outside the six-party negotiations involving the communist nation's neighbors.

The mother of a newborn boy who survived being tossed out of a moving car has been identified and interviewed by investigators, authorities said Friday.

Security forces regained control over a riot-torn Argentine prison Friday, officials said, freeing the warden and two dozen guards held hostage during an inmate rampage that left eight people dead.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - The stock of Sharper Image Corp. skidded to its lowest level in more than two years Friday after the gadget and novelty retailer projected a deep loss in the upcoming quarter amid plummeting sales.

Out of the hospital but still frail, Pope John Paul II sent his blessings Friday to fellow ailing Catholics, assuring them that suffering has a purpose in God's plan and asking for their prayers to keep him at the head of the church.

John Edwards, trying out possible 2008 presidential campaign themes before an audience of party faithful on Friday, rejected any suggestion that "Democrats don't stand for anything."

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The former top lawyer and board vice chairman at Rite Aid Corp. will begin serving a 10-year federal criminal sentence on March 1, nearly a year-and-a-half after a jury convicted him of conspiracy, lying to federal regulators and other charges.

President Bush on Friday threatened to veto any changes Congress tries to make to Medicare's new prescription drug benefit, which takes effect in January 2006.

Mexico's leading presidential contender called on Friday for a mass campaign to keep foes from jailing him to block a run for the nation's leadership. He warned he might seek the presidency from behind bars, potentially creating a political and legal dilemma for the country.

When a radio shock jock insulted acting Gov. Richard J. Codey's wife, making fun of her bout with postpartum depression, it catapulted the former kindergarten teacher and mother of two onto a national stage.

An FBI informant who set himself on fire in front of the White House will be called as a witness for the defense of a Yemeni sheik accused of aiding Hamas and al-Qaida, defense attorneys said Friday.

Arthur Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American Dream gone awry, has died. He was 89.

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp. is dropping Walgreen Co. from its network of prescription drug providers, saying it feared the huge drugstore chain might sever ties with the world's biggest automaker over GM's policy of requiring mail-order purchases of some drugs.

After seven politically painful years, the Kyoto Protocol finally enters into force on Wednesday, reining in industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in a first attempt to control climate change.

NEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup Inc., the nation's largest financial institution, on Friday announced that it was streamlining its corporate structure so the New York-based bank can be managed more efficiently.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - The European-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus has chosen aerospace and defense parts supplier Goodrich Corp. to provide the engine coverings and thrust reversers for its proposed A350 aircraft, designed as a rival to Boeing Co.'s 787.

The Dow Jones industrial average moved into positive territory for the year on Friday as investors piled back into the market. Wall Street finished the week mixed, however, as tech stocks lagged the Dow components.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Shares of Huntsman Corp., a chemical manufacturing giant owned by the family of Utah's governor, rose 7 percent Friday on the first day of trading after the company raised $1.45 billion in an initial public offering.

Dell Inc. set a record for sales and topped Wall Street's earnings expectations in the fourth quarter, but the personal computer juggernaut indicated that revenue for early 2005 could fall short of analysts' predictions, and its shares fell nearly 4 percent Friday.

Starbucks Corp. requested a five-day extension for filing its first-quarter report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- It looks like the denizens of MuniLand are going to visit Capitol Hill this year.

OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) - Fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. said Friday that it generated $3.9 billion in cash from its operations last year, an increase of more than $600 million over 2003 from greater sales and profits at existing restaurants during the period.

North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse the tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state's U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper Friday.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hailed what he described as progress among Iraqi security forces after seeing some of them in action Friday, but said it was too soon to discuss when U.S. troops could begin coming home.

A vegetable truck rigged with explosives blew up Friday outside a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad, and gunmen sprayed automatic fire into a bakery in a Shiite district of the capital in sectarian violence that killed at least 23 people.

NEW YORK (AP) - Money can't buy you love, but can love make you money? Some analysts think it can, and Valentine's Day is boomtime for companies that profit from our amorous affections - including those that sell flowers, candy, lingerie and jewelry.

Arguing it had been burned before in one-on-one talks with North Korea, the Bush administration on Friday rejected an appeal for direct discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Candidates backed by Islamic clerics won municipal elections in Saudi Arabia's capital in the kingdom's first regular balloting, an election observer said Friday. But it was too early to say whether this represented a trend in the landmark polls, which are staggered across three months.

There is a sort of swagger to Howard Dean's smile.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The search isn't over for a new Walt Disney Co. chief executive to replace Michael Eisner, chairman George Mitchell pledged on Friday. But whenever Mitchell wasn't talking, there were just two people on the stage at Disney's annual meeting - Eisner, and the apparent front-runner to replace him, president Robert Iger.

Astronauts on the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia tragedy will practice three methods for patching holes in orbit and have another two repair kits on hand in case their ship is actually damaged by launch debris this spring.

Immigration legislation passed by the House would allow the federal government to complete a controversial fence on the border with Mexico regardless of environmental concerns and force the states to make sure they're not granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

CUPERTINO, Calif. (Dow Jones/AP) - Apple Computer Inc.'s board authorized a two-for-one stock split that will increase its authorized share count to 1.8 billion from 900 million.

NEW YORK (AP) - IDX Systems Corp., which supplies technology to the health care industry, on Friday projected fiscal 2006 earnings that could exceed Wall Street estimates, but forecast revenue below analysts' expectations.

DENVER (AP) - Only days after completing a merger that created the world's fifth biggest brewer, Molson Coors Brewing Co. said Friday it plans to close a Tennessee plant in early 2007 in a cost-cutting move at a facility that employs 410 people.

NEW YORK (AP) - Two days after having its privacy-assurance seal yanked, the company that operates FreeiPods.com and other Web sites said Friday that it had reached a deal that could get it recertified.

A man used an Internet chat room to try to set up a mass suicide on Valentine's Day involving more than two dozen women across the United States and Canada, authorities said.

Rice grower Frank Rehermann contemplates his 33rd spring planting while worrying about the lowest crop prices he has ever seen. And not only that, he is hearing troubling things from the federal government, his silent partner on 900 acres about 60 miles north of Sacramento.

A new report says giving by local dioceses to the national Episcopal Church dropped roughly $4 million last year -- about a 12 percent decline in the first full year after the denomination confirmed its only openly gay bishop.

A nine-months' pregnant woman fought off and killed a knife-wielding woman who may have been trying to steal the baby, police said Friday.

The Mexican Navy battleship Papaloapan left Veracruz on Friday with 1,100 tons of humanitarian aid, the third Mexican ship sent to Asia with help for victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Libyan diplomats can travel freely in the United States, the State Department said Friday, the latest sign of thawing relations between the longtime antagonists.

BOSTON (AP) - Mutual fund company Putnam Investments announced the retirement of Steve Oristaglio as head of investments Friday, and said it has promoted Kevin Cronin to replace him.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy told his finance chief to "go down fighting" on the eve of an FBI raid that resulted in fraud charges against a string of executives from the rehabilitation giant, according to evidence Friday at Scrushy's trial.

Investigators are subpoenaing Internet chat room records to try to contact more than two dozen women, including a mother with two children, who were in contact with an Oregon man organizing a mass Valentine's Day suicide, authorities said Friday.

The dollar gained marginally against the euro Friday after rising oil prices and new uncertainty about the U.S. trade deficit halted gains the American currency made early in the week.

NEW YORK (AP) - It's a child's dream - bedroom decor just like a Bratz doll's. A bed in the shape of a Hot Wheels car. Or a chair shaped like a Tonka truck.