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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is proposing an alternative to the $24.4 billion plan to sell slumping PC maker Dell to a group led by founder Michael Dell, saying it substantially undervalues the company.

The growing toll of diabetes cost the nation a record high $245 billion in 2012, a 41% increase from $174 billion in 2007, according to new research released today. The study Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2012, commissioned by the American Diabetes Association, estimated the health care and work-related costs of diagnosed diabetes. The full study will be published in the April issue of Diabetes Care.

Heinz CEO William Johnson is entitled to a golden parachute worth $56 million if he's fired by the company's new owners. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital announced last month they were buying the ketchup maker for $23.3 billion. Pittsburgh-based Heinz disclosed Johnson's deal in a regulatory filing Monday.

A federal judge on Friday slashed nearly half of the $1 billion damage award a jury ordered Samsung Electronics to pay Apple Inc. after a high-profile trial over the rights to the design and technology running some of the world's most popular smartphones and tablet computers. U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh lowered the damages awarded to Apple Inc. by $450.5 million for 14 Samsung products including some products in its hot-selling Galaxy lineup, saying jurors had not properly followed her instruction in calculating some of the damages.

Apple Inc lost a major ruling in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung Electronics on Friday, as a federal judge threw out part of a jury's $1.05 billion damages award against Samsung over a variety of phone products.

Pope Benedict XVI will keep the name Benedict XVI and become the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, putting an end to days of speculation on how the pope will be addressed once he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics on Thursday.

The economy may have remained sluggish last year but Americans refused to scrimp on their pets, with animal lovers spending upwards of $53 billion on food, veterinary care, kennels and other services in 2012. That's up 5 percent from 2011, when spending first broke the $50 billion barrier, says the American Pet Products Association, a trade group based in Greenwich, Conn. And APPA President and CEO Bob Vetere predicts another 4 percent gain this year.

Florida governor Rick Scott created a stir this week when he said he’d expand Medicaid as requested by the Obama administration. But health policy experts say it's hard for any governor to say no to billions of dollars in federal subsidies.

What do you buy the nation that already seems to have everything? That is the question facing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he aims to spend more than $100 billion on infrastructure in the next 15 months to help revive his country's economy. But with its gleaming bullet trains, jungles of elevated highways and strings of man-made islands, ultra-modern Japan doesn't appear to want for much.

Office Depot Inc. and OfficeMax have agreed to merge in an all-stock deal that would transform the $21.2 billion office supply retail sector. U.S.-based Office Depot Inc. and OfficeMax say holders of OfficeMax shares will receive 2.69 shares of Office Depot for every OfficeMax share they own.