IBT Staff Reporter

Over the following weeks 450 selected drivers will be driving the first highway legal Mini E car - the all electric zero emissions version of Mini Cooper - as part of a leasing program.

For the time being, Miss California, Carrie Prejean will be keeping her crown but not her duties as, according to pageant organizers, has violated her contract. Her fate is expected to be announced on Tuesday by Miss USA owner Donald Trump.

Ford Motor Co.’s need for cash to make mandatory payments scared off investors on Monday, sending shares down more than 9 percent in regular and after-hours trading.

With La Belle, Villeroy & Boch offers a premium product that displays a strong trend towards modern interpretation of classics from previous eras. The design of the collection incorporates romantic style elements such as curved ornaments and blossom tendrils, yet displays them in a contemporary manner.

A U.S. soldier opened fire on fellow troops at a counseling center on a military base Monday, killing five before being taken into custody, the U.S. command and Pentagon officials said.

The International Monetary Fund slashed its 2009 economic growth forecast for the Gulf region by more than half to 1.3 percent as the three largest oil-exporting economies, including Saudi Arabia, shrink in a global slowdown.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday replaced the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and picked a former special forces commander to oversee President Barack Obama's military strategy against a growing Taliban insurgency.

The potential for changes in the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average remains high, according to the head of the index's oversight committee, the same day the head of General Motors said bankruptcy had become more likely.

Southern California Edison, a utility of Edison International, is looking for approval to purchase 90 megawatts of power from a wind farm in Idaho assisted by Goshen, a firm owned by BP Wind Energy; and Ridgeline Energy LLC.

Consumers in debt can be given the chance to regain their older, lower rates if they pay their bills on time for six months, a compromise reached by lawmakers seeking changes in federal law governing the credit card industry.

Stocks fell on Monday as investors booked profits in financials after a two-month run-up and news of several banks' share offerings heightened worries about their dilutive impact on current shareholders.

The new strain of H1N1 flu that has killed 56 people in Mexico and has been carried around the world by travelers acts more like a pandemic strain than regular seasonal flu, researchers reported on Monday.

Chrysler's 16,000 salaried retirees will start their fight this week for their benefits in the automaker's bankruptcy restructuring, with the potential to create a public relations headache for the company.

The new H1N1 virus shows no signs of sustained person-to-person spread outside of North America and so has not yet tipped over into a pandemic, a top World Health Organization official said on Monday.

Four big U.S. banks on Monday said they would sell $6.55 billion of common stock and repay funds from the government's bank bailout program, after federal stress tests showed they can weather a deep recession without new capital.

The Obama administration cannot start dealing with the short-term challenges presented by the deficit until it gets the economy moving, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel on Monday to fundamentally change its policies on settlements and prove its commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from its Florida launch pad on Monday just after 2p.m. ET on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, an important tool for scientists probing the origins of the universe.

The U.S. economy shed a further 539K jobs in April, bringing the number of jobs lost since the turn in labour market conditions in January last year to 5.6 million. On the positive side, this was the slowest pace of monthly job losses since October last year.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) launched the first loan of €250 million for supporting Serbia's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and priority projects in the country.

Germany's Schott Solar inaugurated a plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Monday to produce photovoltaic modules and solar thermal receiver lines.

The natural-language search engine, Wolfram Alpha will make its official debut into the search market on May 18, when it will prove just how user-friendly the service is with a mainstream audience

Microsoft Corp is on track to release its new Windows 7 operating system in time for the holiday shopping season, an executive said on Monday, confirming talk it is ahead of its own conservative schedule for replacing the unpopular Vista system.

Oil prices fell marginally on Monday, pressured slightly by weaker equity markets and a firmer dollar.

On Monday, Qlogic Corp. unveils its Storage Router 10GbE iSCSI Router(iSR6250) that can aggregate up to 1,000 iSCSI hosts to a Fibre Channel storage array and offer high connectivity

The Dow and the S&P 500 fell on Monday due to profit taking after a two-month run-up, while news of several share offerings weighed on banks as investors worried about their dilutive impact on current shareholders.

Microsoft Corp. and Agree Technology announced SuperTeller for financial institutions to become more customers centric.

Somali pirates are planning attacks on shipping using detailed information telephoned through by contacts in London, according to an intelligence report cited by Spanish radio on Monday.

South Sudanese gunmen have killed up to 49 people from a rival tribe, most of them women and children, in one of a string of attacks that have raised fears for elections in the region, officials said on Monday.