IBT Staff Reporter

Oil prices rose sharply to above $70 a barrel on Thursday on renewed rebel attacks against oil facilities in Nigeria and worries that a glitch at the largest U.S. oil refinery could tighten gasoline stockpiles this summer driving season.

Microsoft Corp will sell the standard home-user version of its new Windows 7 operating system for 8 percent less than the comparable version of its Vista system, as the global downturn hits spending on technology.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, facing his toughest grilling yet by U.S. lawmakers, said on Thursday he had never threatened to fire Bank of America's management if they pulled the plug on a planned merger with Merrill Lynch.

Stocks rose sharply on Thursday, helped by consumer discretionary shares after Bed Bath & Beyond Inc posted a surprising profit increase and home builder Lennar Corp reported a rise in new home sales.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, facing one of his toughest grillings yet by U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, denied he had ever threatened to fire Bank of America management if they pulled the plug on a planned merger with Merrill Lynch.

It started when I was nine years old and my family somehow scraped together enough money for a set of round-the-world flights.

China would maintain a moderately loose monetary policy to support economic growth, People's Bank of China (PBOC) reiterated in its second quarter monetary policy report published on Thursday.

After spending a week in jail, Texas financier Allen Stanford pleaded not guilty on Thursday to 21 criminal charges that he ran a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

Bank of America Corp was sued on Thursday in a federal lawsuit in New York, accusing the largest U.S. bank of discriminating against female brokers at the former Merrill Lynch & Co by offering them lower retention bonuses than their male counterparts.

Stocks rose sharply on Thursday after the latest Treasury auction garnered strong demand, pressuring bond yields, while consumer discretionary shares gained.

The first iPhone porn app was approved and then later, disapproved and removed from the iPhone App Store in the space of a few hours.

French carmaker Renault has decided to replace a French executive vice president at Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ, in which it owns a 25 percent stake.

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday extended a number of its emergency funding facilities and swap lines with central banks around the world to February 1, 2010, saying that while conditions in financial markets have improved recently, some markets remain impaired and seem likely to be strained for some time.

Duke Energy Corp Chief Executive Jim Rogers sees Areva and Toshiba's Westinghouse emerging as front-runners in the design of reactors for a much-anticipated U.S. nuclear revival.

Maintaining motivation during your job search is not easy—and that is an understatement, for sure. Threats to your motivation include:

Oil prices rose more than $2 to near $70 a barrel on Thursday after Nigerian rebels attacked a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline, raising worries about supply from the OPEC-member nation.

Dear Sam: I have been struggling for the last four years to find a teaching job. I want to find a way to make myself stand out from the crowd and I was hoping to be able to do that with my résumé.

Google will soon roll out a new service called Google Voice that is built with technology obtained through its 2007 acquisition of Internet telephony company GrandCentral.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc posted an unexpected rise in quarterly profit by cutting costs to offset slumping demand for home furnishings, and the retailer's shares rose more than 6 percent.

Actress Farrah Fawcett, who appeared on the series Charlie's Angels died today at age 62 from cancer, People Magazine reported.

Oil prices rose more than a dollar to above $70 a barrel on Thursday after Nigeria's main militant group shut down one of Royal Dutch Shell's pipelines, raising concerns about supplies from the region.

A top Iranian cleric warned on Thursday that continued crackdown of opposition protests could destabilize the government and threaten the very basic of the Islamic republic.

U.S. stocks rallied on Thursday on investors' relief that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was weathering a tough grilling in Congress relatively well.

U.S. homebuilder Lennar Corp posted a wider year-over-year quarterly net loss, but saw a sequential rise in new home sales and orders, sending its shares up as much as 18 percent.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that he will submit to Congress legislative language on a new consumer protection agency in the next few days, but is also working on regulatory reform plans that use existing authorities.

Kimberly-Clark Corp said on Thursday that it would cut about 1,600 salaried jobs, or roughly 3 percent of its workforce, as it tries to trim costs and respond faster to rivals and store brands.

Oil prices rose more than a dollar to near $70 a barrel on Thursday after Nigeria's main militant group shut down one of Royal Dutch Shell's pipeline junction points, heightening concerns about supplies from the region.

Fresh signs of weakness in U.S. job markets on Thursday underlined the strains faced by a recession-struck U.S. economy that contracted slightly less in the first quarter than previously thought.

After spending a week in jail, Texas financier Allen Stanford sat in a Houston courtroom on Thursday waiting to face a U.S. judge who will decide whether he must remain behind bars while he awaits trial for an alleged $7 billion swindle.