IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. mortgage rates rose for a second consecutive week as Treasury yields climbed, a move that does not bode well for the hard-hit U.S. housing market.

Motorola Inc posted a bigger quarterly profit in the second quarter as it cut costs and shipped more cell phones than expected, sending its shares up 7.6 percent.

Stocks rose on Thursday as a string of solid corporate profits and a drop in the number of Americans staying on jobless benefits fueled economic recovery hopes.

Motorola Inc posted a bigger quarterly profit in the second quarter as it cut costs and shipped more cell phones than expected, sending its shares up 7.6 percent.

Canada's Cyberplex Inc, a provider of web advertising solutions, said its offer to buy Burst Media Corp for $16.5 million was rejected by the U.S.-based online advertising firm's board.

Cablevision Systems Corp said on Thursday its board approved a spinoff of its Madison Square Garden (MSG) unit by year-end, in hopes of a better valuation from Wall Street for assets such as its New York Knicks basketball team and Radio City Music Hall.

Primus Financial Holdings, founded by former top Citi Asia banker Robert Morse, plans to team up with a Hong Kong-listed battery maker to bid for AIG'sTaiwan unit Nan Shan Life, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

It took Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc several years to find common ground on the best way to team up in the Internet search market. Now comes the hard part.

It took Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc several years to find common ground on the best way to team up in the Internet search market. Now comes the hard part.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, which buys distressed home loans and is run by several former Countrywide Financial Corp executives, on Wednesday raised $320 million from an initial public offering, $80 million less than planned.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge is likely to rule on Thursday whether auto parts supplier Delphi Corp can go ahead with its plan to sell its assets to a group of lenders and bring an end to its near four-year bankruptcy case.

Industrial conglomerate Tyco International Ltd posted higher-than-expected quarterly earnings, helped by revenue from services across its divisions and improved margins in its ADT security division, and its shares rose nearly 7 percent.

Dubai's Emaar Properties EMAR.DU, the builder of the world's tallest tower in the Gulf Emirate, made a loss of 1.29 billion dirhams ($351.2 million) for the second quarter after it wrote off the complete book value of its U.S. unit.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that General Motors Co [GM.UL] and Chrysler Group were companies worth saving, but he expects both to repay their government loans.

Outbreaks of the H1N1 flu among children attending U.S. summer camps presage a surge in cases this fall as students return to school, an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday.

General Electric Co shares climbed 5 percent on Thursday after a powerful U.S. lawmaker suggested a planned financial regulatory overhaul would not force the largest U.S. conglomerate to spin off its hefty finance arm.

Moldova's pro-Western opposition planned on Thursday to form a coalition after beating the ruling Communists in an election that could decide whether the former Soviet republic swings away from Russia to Europe.

Citigroup will sell its Japanese asset management arm to Sumitomo Trust Banking in a $1.2 billion deal, the U.S. bank's latest asset sale to recoup losses from the financial crisis.

Indian opposition lawmakers staged a noisy protest and walked out of parliament on Thursday, branding government efforts to improve ties with Pakistan a sell out of national interest.

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis expanded its animal health business by buying the other half of Merial from its U.S. partner Merck for $4 billion in cash while opening the door for a bigger deal.

Auto parts maker Federal-Mogul Corp (FDML.O) posted a sharp drop in quarterly profit on Thursday, but reported substantial progress from earlier in 2009 as it cut costs to address the economic downturn and production cuts by its automaker customers.

Top Japanese model Yuri Ebihara has made her mark in Asia but now she wants to take her place on the global catwalk alongside the world's supermodels.

Exxon Mobil Corp reported a 66 percent drop in quarterly profit, falling short of Wall Street expectations, as natural gas and crude oil prices slid from a year ago and the global recession hurt demand for fuel.

In the first half of 2009, Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and General Motors [GM.UL] remained the world's two biggest automakers despite a more than 20 percent drop in sales from the year earlier.

A Mac security expert has discovered a technique that hackers could use to take control of Apple Inc. computers and iPhone's in order to steal data, disproving the long believed theory that Apple products are more secure than PCs.

Oil rose above $64 a barrel on Thursday, boosted by stock markets in Europe and Asia, better than expected corporate results and data suggesting the economic downturn was bottoming out.

MasterCard Inc , the world's second-largest credit card network, reported better-then-expected quarterly earnings Thursday as it raised fees and cut expenses, sending its shares up 6.5 percent.

Dow Chemical Co posted a second-quarter loss on Thursday as sales slumped and the company took large charges to revamp its operations.

Michael Jackson's mother will get custody of the late pop star's three children after reaching a agreement with her son's ex-wife Debbie Rowe, a lawyer for Katherine Jackson told CBS News on Thursday.