Here at the Fool, we've searched high and low across the Web this Friday morning to find the biggest news and best stories around. Here are your top five morning reads.

1. Retail sales rise
Despite reports of consumers increasing savings and paying off credit card debt, retail sales climbed in September. Among the bigger winners was Costco (NASDAQ:COST), which saw same-store sales rise 3% above last year’s total. (Read more at The Wall Street Journal.)

2. Best management team on the planet: Citigroup (NYSE:C)
The FDIC has questioned a government-mandated review of Citigroup that gave management, and CEO Vikram Pandit in particular, a strong overall evaluation. The same report also gave John Daly the award of "Sexiest Man Alive." (Read more at The Wall Street Journal.)

3. Rupert Murdoch goes for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch continued with his plans to revamp online media. His newest idea: Get search engine providers such as Google to pay up for aggregating their content. (Read more at Yahoo! Finance.)

4. Big Ben speaks
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said monetary policy will need to tighten when the outlook for the economy has “improved sufficiently.” Seeing as how there was no further debate on the topic and no timing was given, this seems like a statement of the obvious more than anything else. Still, the dollar dutifully rose after the comments. (Read more at Bloomberg. )

5. General Motors sets new course
GM started out on the ambitious plan of reshaping the company with a new business plan that cuts incentives. In better news for the company, its sales in China are up 55% through September. (Read more at The Wall Street Journal or Yahoo! Finance.)

And that's your Friday morning recap. If you have a chance, please leave other stories in the comments box below. With so many great articles published each day, this is just a slim collection of what’s going on in the investing world.