IBT Staff Reporter

A key gauge of future economic activity rose less than expected in June as headwinds from the debt ceiling debate and recent floods and tornado damage in some regions of the country kept growth moderate, the independent Conference Board said on Thursday.

The company does better than expected and addresses the T-Mobile merger.

Leopard-Trek leader Andy Schleck earned back the respect of many who criticized his ride in the Pyrenees, by launching an early attack and making a potentially historic ride up to Galibier.

Euro zone leaders were set to give their financial rescue fund sweeping new powers to prevent contagion and help Greece overcome its debt crisis, according to the draft conclusions of an emergency summit on Thursday.

Stocks rose on Thursday as encouraging results from Morgan Stanley lifted optimism over the battered financial sector, while investors were cheered by the initial details over a rescue plan for Greece.

Richard Marles, the Australian government's Parliamentary Secretary for the Pacific, warned the United Nations Wednesday of rising sea levels and their impact on low-lying islands and asked them to include climate change as a global security issue.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Tuesday that they will invest money across various initiatives, including funding eight universities across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America to 'reinvent the toilet'.

Nokia said it expected its struggling cellphone business to remain profitable in the third quarter, bringing some relief to investors after it lost its lead in the smartphone market to rival Apple.

Nokia Oyj, the world's largest phone maker by volume, posted better-than-expected quarterly profit thanks to a major royalty boost from settling a patent dispute with Apple.

Factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region bounced back in July, lifting hopes of a pick-up in economic growth in the third quarter.

Standard & Poor's reiterated on Thursday it sees a real risk that future U.S. government deficits may meaningfully miss discussed targets and that there is a 50-50 chance the U.S. AAA credit rating could be cut within three months, perhaps as soon as August.

Google's announcement on Wednesday to wind down Google Labs, the breeding ground for many of Google's most brilliant tools, raised questions for the future of innovation in Google and stirred up some unrest among Google's hard-core users.

A comparison of two new Android Honeycomb tablets,Toshiba Thrive and Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 with Apple iPad 2.

Stock index futures were flat on Thursday as investors awaited details on a second rescue package for Greece, though weakness in technology shares kept Nasdaq futures slightly negative.

Eli Lilly and Co reported a drop in quarterly earnings as generic competition increased for its Gemzar cancer medicine, but sales beat forecasts and the drugmaker boosted its full-year profit view.

Ailing Nokia on Thursday surrendered its lead in the global smartphone market to rival Apple and shed more market share as it reported a steep net loss for the second quarter.

Google+ launched the Android app before it launched the iPhone app, yet the iPhone G+ app has quickly jumped to the top of Apple's Free Apps list.

Apple's latest operating system Mac OS X Lion debuted yesterday, and is now available for download from the Mac App Store. If you have a really slow connection, you can come back August and pick up a flash drive from an Apple store for $69.99. It has more than 250 new features, including FaceTime video chatting, AirDrop wireless transfer, multi-touch gesture and autosave. Here are some reviews from around the web.

Thirty-eight soldiers that were deployed to the Middle East were diagnosed with constrictive bronchitis, an extremely rare condition in healthy young people, investigators said. Mean maximal oxygen consumption and anaerobic threshold was disturbingly lower in these soldiers compared to a group of historical controls, said Robert F. Miller, MD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Taiwan's Acer Inc will buy U.S.-based cloud computing firm iGware Inc for $320 million, the fifth-largest ever Taiwanese buyout of a U.S. company, as it seeks to move beyond its core hardware manufacturing business .

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Thursday as encourage results from Morgan Stanley lifted optimism over the battered financial sector.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc has agreed to give its U.S. store data to Nielsen Holdings NV , bolstering an industry benchmark that has long lacked insights into sales at the world's largest chain.

Harper Seven is the most popular celebrity baby at this moment. She was born on July 7 to Victoria and David Beckham.

The frenzy with the launch of Google has slowed down in the past couple of days compared to 2 million users joining every day in the last one week, suggests an analysis by Paul Allen, co-founder of Ancestry.com.

Kim Kardashian and Old Navy are not seeing eye to eye as of late. The reality star is suing them for featuring a look-alike in their campaign.

Europe is willing to let Greece default under a crisis response that would involve a bond buyback, a debt swap but no new tax on banks, EU sources said as euro zone leaders began a crucial emergency summit Thursday.

The space shuttle Atlantis lands and officially ends the space shuttle program after 30 years.

Google Inc is introducing a credit card for its advertising customers, offering its clients a credit line to try and drum up business as competition in the online ad market heats up.

In order to prevent unnecessary confusion and disappointment, New York City officials will limit the number of marriages to 764 on Sunday, the first day the state's same-sex marriage law takes effect.