IBT Staff Reporter

Shares in Airbus parent EADS cruised to their highest level in nearly four years on Wednesday, boosted by hopes of a potentially record airplane order set to be announced by American Airlines.

Barcelona are set to add to their Champions League and La Liga winning squad after coming to an agreement with Udinese for a fee on Chilean winger Alexis Sanchez.

Stock index futures rose on Wednesday as continued strong earnings, including from Apple Inc , underscored the growing sense that companies were faring well despite the recent soft patch in the economy.

A top Federal Reserve official said on the Thursday the U.S. economy should grow at a modest pace for the next several years, but issued a harsh criticism of the U.S. central bank's just-concluded bond buying program.

Cyprus may need a bailout to cope with its worst peacetime disaster from a munitions blast unless urgent action is taken to improve the country's finances, Central Bank Governor Athanasios Orphanides has warned.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.23 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.32 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.77 percent at 0907 GMT.

Both took to twitter to show their displeasure at the rumor.

Chinese importers of equipment and raw materials used in the construction of third-generation nuclear power plants can apply for tax exemption, a notice issued by the country's industry ministry said on Wednesday.

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee judged that recent economic weakness had reduced the chance that interest rates would need to rise in the near term, minutes to the BoE's July meeting showed on Wednesday.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co launched a thinner and lighter version of its Galaxy tablet in its lucrative home market, trying to chip into blockbuster sales of Apple Inc's iPad.

Murdoch gets slapped across the face in the wake of the phone hacking controversy.

Strong company results and hopes for a settlement in the U.S. debt ceiling row boosted global equities on Wednesday while currency markets remained on edge over the euro zone debt crisis.

The war in Afghanistan entered cyberspace on Wednesday when the tech-savvy Taliban said their phones, email and website had been hacked to spread a false report that the movement's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, was dead.

China pressed the United States to take responsible measures to boost market confidence in the dollar and U.S. government debt on Wednesday, underscoring investor worries that Washington could default on its debt.

Wireless telecom firm T-Mobile USA said it will begin offering unlimited data service plans, in a move aimed at wooing customers of bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc which had stopped offering such plans.

Asian shares rose on hopes that an 11th-hour deal in U.S. debt talks would avert a rapidly approaching default while blowout results from Apple lifted the tech sector which is likely to extend gains into European trading as well.

A worker fell to his death at Foxconn Technology Group's manufacturing plant in southern China, local media reported on Wednesday, the latest in a series of apparent suicides by young migrant workers at its factory complexes in the past two years.

Samsung Electronics Co launched a thinner and lighter version of its Galaxy tablet in its lucrative home market Wednesday, trying to halt the runaway success of Apple Inc's iPad.

Asian shares rose on Wednesday as indications of progress on a U.S. budget-reduction deal boosted investor confidence while encouraging quarterly numbers from Apple Inc and International Business Machines helped Asia's beaten-down tech sector gain for a second day.

Asian shares rose on Wednesday as indications of progress on a U.S. budget-reduction deal boosted investor confidence while encouraging quarterly numbers from Apple Inc and International Business Machines helped Asia's beaten-down tech sector gain for a second day.

The United Auto Workers is talking with a lot of foreign automakers about representing their U.S. plants' hourly workers and could see a deal by year end, top union officials said.

It looked like it was time for a changing of the guard at News Corp.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday arrested 16 people on charges they participated in major cyber attacks, including an attempt to cripple eBay's PayPal website as retribution for dropping WikiLeaks as a client.

The United Auto Workers is talking with several foreign automakers about representing their U.S. plants' hourly workers and could see a deal by year end, top union officials said.

American Airlines' board of directors was to vote overnight on an aircraft order potentially worth more than $20 billion and split between Boeing Co and Airbus , sources said on Tuesday.

Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo called secondary markets a distraction and expects private companies will increasingly enact policies to restrict the trading of its shares on those unregulated exchanges.

Doubts about the economy and sluggish PC sales are clouding the second-half outlook for Intel Corp and other chip makers as they prepare to unveil quarterly earnings this week.

A Coast Guard rescuer did a good job this morning by finding a Los Altos 62 year-old windsurfer who was reported missing yesterday.

Wendi Deng Murdoch, age 43, has two children-- Grace Helen Murdoch and Chloe Murdoch-with international media mogul Rupert Murdoch.