IBT Staff Reporter

Google Voice is now available as an application on BlackBerry and Android phones, before the product is made available to the general public.

Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, has sued the three largest credit rating agencies for giving perfect grades to securities that later suffered huge subprime mortgage losses.

Hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel was ordered to serve two more years behind bars on Wednesday for a wild escapade in which he faked his own death in an attempt to avoid a 20-year prison sentence.

Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, has sued the three largest credit rating agencies for giving perfect grades to securities that later suffered huge subprime mortgage losses.

Citigroup has become the latest bank to rebuild its European oil and gas investment banking team, rehiring James Sleeman and naming another senior banker as a global co-head covering the sector.

Industrial distributor W.W. Grainger posted an 18 percent drop in quarterly profit, hurt by weak demand across all end markets and geographies, and said it had not seen an indication of an economic turnaround.

A Spanish woman died at 69 on Saturday after getting in vitro fertilization treatment at a clinic in Los Angeles. The woman is believed to be the world's oldest new mother when she gave birth at 66, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Private equity-backed Kosmos Energy is still mulling a possible sale of its Ghanaian oil interests, despite securing a loan to fund the fields' development, industry sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Ellington Financial LLC, a specialty finance company, is planning to raise up to $200 million in an initial public offering, according to a prospectus filed on Tuesday.

North Korea's nominal number two leader said on Wednesday dialogue with foreign powers was impossible without respect for the sovereignty of the communist state.

Brazilian investor Caio Auriemo and his family will sell their stake in Diagnosticos da America, Latin America's largest medical diagnostics company, in a transaction that might raise up to 210 million reais ($107 million), local newspaper Valor Economico reported.

Private-equity owned Nycomed and a Japanese drugs company are in the early second round of an auction for all of Solvay's pharmaceuticals business, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Germany sees Canadian auto parts maker Magna as the front-runner to take over carmaker Opel, but it would reassess its position if another buyer for the General Motors subsidiary emerged, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

CVTech Group Inc, a Canadian electrical services provider, said it agreed to acquire Riggs Distler & Co Inc, a maintenance and construction services provider, for about $37.1 million in cash and stock, to boost its North American industrial and utility markets.

British bank Barclays Plc is considering the sale of its private equity business and will meet investment partners this week to discuss the issue, several people familiar with the matter said.

Author Ben Mezrich wants readers to enjoy his new book about the founding of social networking website Facebook like a page-turning thriller and ignore criticism of his reporting methods.

Stocks rose sharply on Wednesday, after strong results at Intel Corp lifted shares of chip makers while boosting hopes for an economic recovery and a rebound in technology spending.

It was the nude fisherman who signalled our return to civilisation.

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co Ltd, the country's third-largest life insurer and partly owned by the Carlyle Group, is set to relaunch its Hong Kong IPO, according to sources, after its first attempt failed last year when markets plunged.

Air France-KLM would still be interested in buying Austrian Airlines if the troubled carrier was put up for sale in a fresh auction, Austrian newspaper Kurier reported on Wednesday.

German truckmaker MAN SE will pay 560 million euros ($786.7 million) to get a 25 percent plus one share stake in Chinese peer Sinotruk, MAN said, booting its presence in Asia's top market.

Microsoft Corp. unveiled some of the pricing for its cloud computing platform, Windows Azure. It will offer a discount of 15% to 30% to developers and resellers who agree to work with them for six months or more. In the pay-per-use category, the company will charge 12 cents an hour for computing, 15 cents per gigabyte for storage and 10 cents per 10,000 storage transactions.

Two of the biggest U.S. credit card companies, Capital One Financial Corp and Discover Financial Services , reported lower-than-expected defaults and delinquencies in June, sending their shares sharply higher.

The U.S.'s largest pension fund, California Public Employees' Retirement System, has filed against Moody's, Standard & Poors and Fitch claiming that they are responsible for over $1 billion of losses caused by their wildly inaccurate risk assessments.

Gannett Co Inc , the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results after slashing jobs to cut costs, sending its shares up 20 percent.

AMR Corp , parent of American Airlines, said its quarterly loss shrank from a year ago, when the company took a $1.1 billion charge, but it remains troubled by economic weakness.

Hedge fund swindler Samuel Israel was ordered to serve two more years behind bars on Wednesday for a wild escapade in which he faked his own death in an attempt to avoid a 20-year prison sentence.

Porsche's debt woes, Calpers sues agencies, Gannet beats Street

Crude oil inventories declined by 2.8 million barrels on the week ending July 10. The United States and China agreed to develop a joint Clean Energy Research Center. The world's largest coal producer by market value said its commercial coal production rose to 105.8 million tonnes.