Some auctions for the tickets have already attracted offers of as much as £15,000 before being pulled by EBay. Fans that continually support Jackson have been outraged by the sale of the tickets online and have bid up the tickets to high level sums such as £62m.

Craigslist has also being targeted for ticket sales and advertisements were soon highlighted by users for removal.

The estimation is that over 1.6 million people made an application to the online lottery for the Michael Jackson Memorial Service which is taking place in the Staples Centre based in Los Angeles. Organisers of the Jackson event (AEG Live) put 17,500 free tickets online via email and people had until 6pm last night to pick up the passes.

The Jackson Memorial will be streamed live by the BBC in the UK and on the 5 main US television networks. The timing for the event is 10am Pacific Coast time and could be one of the largest events in Internet history.  Google news has already seen such huge numbers of enquiries about the Jackson Memorial Service at one point it thought it was under attack.

Ford is the only car manufacturer not to have filed for bankruptcy during the economic crisis, with Chrysler filing for bankruptcy protection in April and General Motors joining them in June. Chrysler have subsequently emerged from its bankruptcy protection after Italian car manufacturer Fiat bought its top assets, but GM has been told that its financial support will be pulled if it does not get permission to sell its strongest assets by July the 10th.

General Motors is looking for court approval to sell its assets to a new company, which the US government will be the majority stake holder, but the deal has been opposed by GM’s bondholders, who do not want to sell.

US vehicle sales continue to drop despite large discounts being offered to car buyers. Analysts estimate that sales will increase over the next couple of months as the US introduces their ‘cash for clunkers’ scheme, which it hopes to encourage customers to trade in their old cars for newer models. Similar schemes have already been introduced in Germany and the UK.

President Obama is expected to give more detail at a press conference later today and is likely to announce further funding for GM in the region of $30 billion. As a part of the new funding, the federal government is reportedly receiving a 60% stake in a new, leaner company, which is due to be re-launched within 3 months.

The General Motors restructuring is set to be dramatic, with up to 20,000 workers likely to lose their jobs. GM’s European brands Vauxhall and Opel are likely to be spared though, as Canadian car part manufacturer Magna proposed to buy the brands.

Few smokers realised the effects of passive smoking on their pets, which has been linked to cancer and other health problems in both dogs and cats. Separate studies have shown that cats from smoking households are more likely to get lymphoma and oral cancer, and dogs are more likely to suffer respiratory problems and lung cancer.

Heading up the study, Dr Sharon Milberger said: “Two out of three people in the US have pets and pet owners love their pets so it could be an interesting way of reaching out to people.”

She went on to say that further research would be done to see if people actually stopped smoking as a result of being told about the harmful effects smoking has on their pets.

The album, which has been 15 years in the making, missed out on the top spot in the British album chart last weekend, piped at the post by The Killers new album ‘Day & Age’. Chinese Democracy also looks like missing out on the number 1 slot in the US, with over 200,000 fewer sales than Kanye West’s ‘880s & Heartbreak’.

Bosses at Geffen Records are said to be angry about not hitting their targets for the album, blaming Axl Rose for not publicising the LP enough.

Speaking to a British newspaper, a source at Geffen said, “The label is really glad to have him back, but it is frustrating because the album would have had a much better chance of going to number one if he had only been prepared to show his face.”

The source went on to say, “People have been trying to contact him for two months and he’s been completely AWOL.”

“You would have thought after spending 15 years on an album you might do a few weeks promotion.” The source added.

Barack Obama led his rival John McCain by 349 Electoral College votes to 161, easily passing the ‘magical number’ of 270 that is needed to secure the presidency.

In a speech shortly after the election results, Barack Obama said “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” He also went on to say that his presidential win was the beginning of “our time to reclaim the American dream”.

In his speech, John McCain urged his supporters to “come together and bridge our differences to restore our prosperity, defend security and leave our children and grandchildren a better world than ours.”

Mr Obama will face a number of challenges when he takes over the presidency next year, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ongoing global economic crisis as well as reforming the American health system.

The National Debt Clock was erected in 1989 to highlight the nation’s growing debt, which stood at $2.7 Trillion. The original clock was unable to go backwards and was unplugged, only to be turned back on in September 2000 when the national debt was around $5.7 Trillion.

The US government’s debt now stands at over $10 Trillion, meaning that the dollar sign has made way for the extra number(a sticker now donates the dollar sign). The clock’s owners have said that they plan to add two more numbers to the clock early next year. This means the National Debt Clock would be able to record up to a quadrillion dollars of debt. Let’s hope it never hits this number!

The investigation will centre on whether company officials knowingly misled would be investors about the financial stability of their companies, and the way in which loans were given to customers with low or unpredictable incomes.

Whilst mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the stricken insurance company AIG all received bailout plans from the US government, Lehman Brothers failed to get backing and filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

The FBI has stated that over 20 more financial companies were already under investigation.

The Federal Reserve’s bailout plan comes after the US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, causing the stock markets to plummet. The rescue plan will loan AIG $85bn in return for an 80 percent stake in the company.

Analysts are hoping that this latest move by the Federal Reserve to bailout AIG will help to stabilise the financial markets, which have been plummeting after the recent news of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the government takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Lehman Brothers are the latest US bank to feel the effects of the US mortgage crisis, whilst another US bank, Merrill Lynch also affected by the crisis managed to strike a takeover deal with the Bank of America.

Barclays Bank and the Bank of America were in talks with the stricken Lehman Brothers company, but as talks failed over the weekend both banks pulled out of a rescue plan; leaving Lehman Brothers to file for bankruptcy protection.