IBT Staff Reporter

The weak U.S. economy is improving modestly with little upward pressure on wages and finished goods despite commodity price gains, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report that gives it little reason to move from its current ultra-low interest rates.

U.S. online shoppers spent 5 percent more this Cyber Monday than they did last year as more consumers flocked to the Web for holiday shopping but spent slightly less per person, analytics firm comScore Inc said on Wednesday.

U.S. online shoppers spent 5 percent more this Cyber Monday than they did last year as more consumers flocked to the Web for holiday shopping but spent slightly less per person, analytics firm comScore Inc said on Wednesday.

Kalika Moquin has become the third woman to be added on to the list of Tiger Woods' list of alleged affairs joining Rachel Uchitel and Jaimee Grubbs.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday the European and other U.S. allies will send more than 5,000 new troops to Afghanistan, declaring that the war is not America's alone.

No major new refineries have been built in the United States since the 1970s, but that does not mean that U.S. refinery capacity has not grown. Refiners can increase capacity at existing sites by modifying equipment to increase product flow and by adding new distillation units. Consequently, though U.S. crude oil distillation capacity declined in the early 1980s, it has risen since the mid-1990s (Figure 1) due to these kinds of investments. From 1997 to 2009, total U.S. refining capacity increas...

More than one-fourth of U.S. households do not use traditional banking services, according to a study released by federal bank regulators on Wednesday.

Google offered publishers a way to attract paying subscribers without having to remove their content from Google News search results, after Rupert Murdoch and others accused it of profiting from their news.

The meltdown of the U.S. housing market is not over yet, and home prices will soon start trekking downward again as a flood of foreclosures looms, a well-known economist said on Wednesday.

A prominent Internet critic of Royal Dutch Shell says the oil major has asked an anti-cyber fraud agency to target his site, which Shell admits provides better information on the group than its own internal communications.

A United Nations climate panel will rule this week on whether seven Chinese wind farms are eligible for climate financing, worth around 36 million euros ($54.3 million), the panel's chair told Reuters on Wednesday.

Droughts and floods stoked by global warming threaten to destabilize China's grain production, the nation's top meteorologist has warned, urging bigger grain reserves and strict protection of farmland and water supplies.

Australia's parliament rejected laws to set up a carbon trading scheme on Wednesday, scuttling a key climate change policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and providing a potential trigger for an early 2010 election.

Sam Zell is resigning as chief executive of Tribune Co after two years at the helm of the bankrupt media company whose $8.2 billion buyout he engineered in 2007.

French retail and luxury goods group PPR raised 806 million euros ($1.22 billion) from the oversubscribed listing of its Africa-focused CFAO unit, France's biggest public share offering in two years.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange could launch an initial public offering by May following a recent settlement of a protracted legal dispute, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The parliamentary defeat of Australia's carbon-trade laws has handed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a trigger for an election from early 2010 to salvage his emissions trading scheme and key climate policy.

A top Democratic lawmaker predicted on Wednesday that the government will be involved in shaping the future for struggling U.S. media organizations.

The first of 30,000 new U.S. troops will arrive in Afghanistan in two to three weeks, top U.S. officials said on Wednesday, even as they made clear plans to start bringing the soldiers home in 18 months could slip.

Tribune Co received court approval on Tuesday for more time to exclusively file a reorganization plan, giving the media company 10 weeks to end a fight over the buyout that creditors blame for its bankruptcy.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been handed a trigger for an early election, giving him the option of going to the polls any time from early 2010 in order to resolve a deadlock over his carbon trade scheme.

Australia's parliament rejected laws to set up a sweeping carbon emissions trade scheme on Wednesday, scuttling a key policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and setting a trigger for an early 2010 election. Here are some facts about how the failed carbon-trade scheme would have looked.

Canadian metallurgical coal miner Grande Cache Coal Corp said it has received regulatory approval to proceed with the development of a new surface mine at Smoky River Coalfield in west-central Alberta.

(Corrects to remove reference to ownership of Newsday in paragraph 3)

Kraft Foods is preparing to post its offer documents for Cadbury as Monday's deadline approaches, but interest from Hershey and Ferrero is unlikely to spook the North American food giant into raising its bid in the short-term.

Gold hit a record high at $1,216.75 an ounce in Europe on Wednesday as investors bet on higher prices, with funds lengthening positions on expectations for a fresh leg of dollar weakness and more central bank buying.

The Dow and S&P slipped on Wednesday, pressured by the financial and energy sectors, although the Nasdaq rose on positive news on online retailers such as Amazon.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday there was a good case to let some firms use derivatives with little scrutiny for business purposes, but that most trading should face stiffer rules.

Electronic Arts Inc sees a future where its online and mobile games are as critical as Madden NFL and other console games as the company focuses on building core franchises and winnows its number of titles, said Chief Executive John Riccitiello.