IBT Staff Reporter

Euro zone inflation rose further above the European Central Bank's target in April, data showed on Friday, increasing the chances of another interest rate rise in June, despite a weakening of economic sentiment.

On Thursday, April 29, 2011, the IAEA provided the following information on the current status of nuclear safety in Japan:

The big day for the much-anticipated Royal Wedding has arrived.

Nasdaq OMX and IntercontinentalExchange are poised to go hostile in their bid for NYSE Euronext after shareholders ratcheted up pressure on the Big Board parent to get a better deal.

Daimler posted robust quarterly results that underwhelmed investors whose expectations had been inflated by recent stellar reports by peers such as Volkswagen and truck maker Volvo .

The dollar languished near three-year lows on Friday, weighed down by weak U.S. data and the prospect of ultra-loose policy for months yet, while stocks paused for breath and a strong commodities rally tailed off.

Daimler warned that commodity prices may rise by more than it bargained for in coming months and maintained its full-year outlook after posting stronger than expected first-quarter operating profit.

Samsung Electronics faces a challenging outlook after reporting its third consecutive fall in quarterly profit as it struggles to make ground on Apple Inc and faces a tepid recovery in its TV and flat screens business.

Silver and gold were within sight of historic highs on Friday and could resume an uptrend as the U.S. dollar held near three-year lows against a basket of currencies on hopes U.S. monetary policy would stay ultra-loose, keeping inflationary price pressures high.

Daimler posted stronger than expected first-quarter operating profit as its passenger car business was boosted by demand from emerging markets such as China.

Blackstone Group LP plans to buy the top floors of the former New York Times building in Manhattan for $160 million, according to a report in the New York Times.

Credit card lenders could be facing more than $300 million of card replacement costs if customers affected by the Sony Corp data breach decide to replace their credit cards.

The dollar floundered at three-year lows against a basket of currencies on Friday, keeping precious metals near record highs, although the risk of dealers covering bets against the beleaguered U.S. currency in thin trading looms, especially given holidays in some centers including Japan.

Strong demand for smartphones continued to boost overall cellphone market volumes in January-March, research firms said on Friday.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top memory chip maker, reported its weakest quarterly profit in almost two years and warned of challenging business conditions.

In the run-up to one of the hottest social media IPOs of the year, China's Renren Inc lowered the number of users it said it gained in the first quarter of 2011, raising questions about the rest of the information it provided to investors in official filings.

Warren Buffett will not limit the scope of questions he is asked at this weekend's annual meeting of his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway , the iconic investor told Fox Business on Thursday.

Superman, the character long associated with 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way, is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in the latest issue of Action Comics.

Join the International Business Times in covering Prince William's and Kate Middleton's royal wedding.

The series of tornadoes and thunderstorms that have swept past the southern U.S. state of Alabama and seven others, have claimed at least 311 lives so far and have left the city of Tuscaloosa in ruins, flattening entire city blocks.

Samsung Electronics filed its own U.S. lawsuit against Apple, accusing the iPad maker of infringing 10 patents in an escalation of the dispute over tablet and mobile technology.

More than 1 million customers are without electricity in Southern states on Thursday in the wake of devastating storms with tornadoes which have officially killed 305 people, mostly in Alabama.

Apart from the murmur of voices and bursts of laughter, nothing was heard on Thursday from 12 jurors studying the evidence in hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam's high-profile insider trading trial.

Mobile privacy safeguards should also extend to third-party application developers, two lawmakers said after reviewing the practices of four major U.S. wireless carriers.

Quarterback Cam Newton has been selected by the Carolina Panthers as the No.1 pick in the 2011 NFL draft.

The death toll in the South continued to rise to nearly 300 Thursday evening after massive storms with tornadoes ripped through the region a day earlier and first responders continued to search for survivors, with about two-thirds of the victims coming from Alabama.

Chrysler Group LLC, which came to the brink of collapse before a federal bailout in 2009, plans to fully repay more than $7 billion in loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments by the end of June.

Verizon Wireless said it has fixed problems with its high-speed U.S. wireless network that left customers unable to connect for about a day.

Research in Motion cut its quarterly earnings and revenue forecasts, expecting to ship fewer BlackBerry smartphones.