World News

Helen Coster, Forbes.com
In a commercial for Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light, talk show host Conan O’Brien agrees to shoot a beer commercial only after his agent assures him it will only air in Sweden. “All the Hollywood guys do this,” the agent says, shortly before a beer-shilling O’Brien appears on a Jumbotron in New York’s Times Square.

America's wealthiest entrepreneurs let us pick their brains on everything from the stock market to health care policy.

Keren Blankfeld, Forbes.com
Castles in France. Islands in the Caribbean. Private jets. With a collective $1.27 trillion at their disposal, the members of The Forbes 400 could buy almost anything.

Edited by Matthew Miller and Duncan Greenberg, Forbes.com
America's super rich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400, our annual tally of the nation's richest people, has declined, falling $300 billion in the past 12 months from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion.

Kiri Blakeley, Forbes.com
Attention eligible bachelors: Sabina Ptacin would like to meet you. She's the owner of two successful companies and is energetic and sociable.

Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes.com
The carnage of the economic downturn is everywhere with bankruptcies, foreclosures and unemployment soaring nationwide. None of the 50 states are immune. Only two, Alaska and North Dakota, are expected to see employment gains this year. Maryland, North Dakota and Virginia (by a hair) are the only states where the economy is projected to expand in 2009.

Naveen Jindal has taken what was once a lemon and turned it into India's hottest play in steel and power.

John Koppisch and Scott DeCarlo, Forbes.com
More than in most years, our list of the 50 best big public companies in the region this year is a guide to the outfits that have real staying power. Companies that racked up big numbers when times were good had to show sterner stuff this year.