IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. Sen. John McCain R-AZ said on Thursday that the United States had develop a new policy and needed to do a better job of encouraging democracy amid a wave of protests in Middle Eastern countries.

BJ's Wholesale Club Inc may put itself up for sale, under pressure from a private equity firm that may make a hostile bid, and its shares jumped 13 percent.

Canada's government will block a regulatory ruling that effectively stops small Internet providers from offering unlimited downloads, the industry minister said.

Influential investor advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services has thrown its weight behind a shareholder proposal to require Apple Inc to disclose a succession plan for Chief Executive Steve Jobs.

JPMorgan Chase & Co executives were concerned that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, but they silently stood by for years to protect the bank's investments, the trustee for Madoff's investors said.

Bank of America is shopping online for customers who are not quite wealthy enough to make the cut at Merrill Lynch, posing a threat to entrenched discount brokers and making some of the thundering herd at Merrill see red.

Mobile operator Vodafone accused the Egyptian authorities on Thursday of using its network to send pro-government text messages to subscribers, as telecom firms became further embroiled in the crisis.

Gold rose over 1 percent in choppy trade on Thursday, with a sudden jump by over $20 per ounce within minutes as large buy orders were apparently triggered in the future markets. This comes unexpected to precious metals experts, as the gold price was supposed to be kept low by the usual large Wall Street players during todays speech by Bernanke, and was set to rally on Friday, when unexpectedly bad labor market numbers will come in and drive gold prices higher.

The following are highlights from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech to the National Press Club on Thursday.

Sharp Corp will partner with Taiwanese firm Chimei Innolux Corp to produce television-use LCD panels, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Renault's Robert Kubica set the pace on the final day of the first Formula 1 pre-season test in Valencia closely followed by Force India's Adrian Sutil and McClaren's Jenson Button.

KFC in Hong Kong is no longer selling a fish sandwich by using an actor impersonating President Barack Obama after pulling the ad.

Stocks ended near the session's highs on Thursday, with investors favoring shares of retailers after encouraging chain-store sales raised confidence ahead of Friday's jobs report.

As bailed-out insurer American International Group prepares to return to the public markets, some say it needs a sign from an eminent authority that it is a company with solid operations and a stock worth an investment of hard-earned money.

NASA's Kepler space telescope has found a system of six planets around a small sun-like star 2,000 light years away, the most ever seen at once/

Tens of thousands of Yemenis squared off in peaceful protests for and against the government on Thursday during an opposition-led Day of Rage, a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered to step down in 2013.

Cities and towns across the United States started to dig out on Thursday from a winter storm that stretched for thousands of miles, with many areas still grappling with treacherous travel conditions.

Two suspected gas explosions occurring several hours apart killed 10 people and wounded dozens more in an industrial zone in Turkey's capital Ankara on Thursday, local officials said.

Three bombs killed at least six people and wounded 12 more in the Iraq's western city of Ramadi, a local government official said Thursday.

A Danish court found a Somali man guilty on Thursday of attempted terrorism for trying to kill a cartoonist whose 2005 drawing of the Prophet Mohammad stirred Muslim outrage around the globe.

Australians voiced relief and surprise after one of the world's most powerful cyclones spared the nation's northeast coast from expected devastation on Thursday, with no reported deaths despite winds tearing off roofs and toppling trees.

Haiti on Thursday heeded foreign pressure and amended the results of its November first-round elections, setting up a presidential run-off excluding a government-backed candidate hit by fraud allegations.

Dow Chemical Co barely blinked at soaring energy costs in the fourth quarter as it benefited from fixed-cost supplies from the Middle East and boosted its prices by 10 percent.

Algeria promised to end a 19-year-old state of emergency and provide more political freedoms on Thursday, concessions designed to keep out a wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world.

Egypt's government struggled to regain control of an angry nation, inviting Islamist opponents to political talks as protesters demanding the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak battled with his supporters on the streets.

Sudan's north will continue to use the Sudanese pound after the oil-producing south secedes on July 9, a central bank official said on Thursday, dousing reports that Khartoum may adopt a new currency.

Royal Dutch Shell is facing opposition to its plans to seek shale gas in South Africa's semi-desert Karoo region, as farmers fear methods used to extract it will contaminate water and harm the environment.

Economic growth in the six-nation Central African CEMAC bloc will reach 4.8 percent in 2011, up from 4 percent last year, the grouping's regional central bank said on Thursday.

Sanctions on Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo are starting to bite, with cocoa exports drying up and banks lacking liquidity, but it is not clear how much his rival Alassane Ouattara will benefit from any economic meltdown.