IBT Staff Reporter

Shares of Barnes & Noble fell more than 16 percent as the New York-based company posted a $6.6 million loss in the fiscal second quarter due to sagging book sales, resulting in a loss of 17 cents a share.

Herman Cain, who said on Tuesday that he was reassessing whether to stay in the presidential race before saying on Wednesday that there was no chance he would drop out, is now changing course again and saying he may decide to drop out after all -- but not until he talks to his wife.

Federal officials in Boston said on Thursday they charged 13 people in connection with a kickback scheme involving microcap stocks.

Stocks mostly dipped late on Thursday, as raised hopes for a stellar payrolls report on Friday may be hard to match.

Research In Motion does not install, nor authorize, its carrier partners to install Carrier IQ monitoring software on its BlackBerry smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

Sprint Nextel Corp , the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider, agreed to pay up to $1.6 billion to Clearwire Corp in the next four years, including a network pact and a potential equity infusion, easing concerns about a liquidity crisis at Clearwire.

Sasol Ltd. is planning to add a multibillion ethane cracker and ethylene-derivative project to its Lake Charles facility in Louisiana, in part to leverage on the rapid development of shale gas in North America.

President Nicolas Sarkozy will endeavor to warm the nation to giving Brussels more control over national budgets on Thursday as the euro zone crisis pushes France towards recession, squeezes its banks and threatens its AAA credit rating.

Wall Street eased on Thursday after the Dow posted its best run in nearly three years, but hopes Friday's key jobs report would underscore signs of strength in U.S. economy kept investors engaged.

British online gambling company Betfair urged EU regulators on Thursday to stop Germany from implementing a new gambling law, saying it did not comply with EU rules and that it favored state monopolies.

Earlier hours and bigger promotions were the keys to success for several U.S. retailers in November, while chains that held fast to their same old holiday season strategies were dealt a blow.

Wall Street eased on Thursday after the Dow posted its best run in nearly three years, but hopes Friday's key jobs report would underscore signs of strength in U.S. economy kept investors engaged.

Hopes of an imminent reunion of veteran American rock band Van Halen with original lead singer David Lee Roth were dashed on Wednesday when a Grammy nominations concert came and went without an expected announcement.

Police in riot gear and biohazard suits removed anti-Wall Street activists from their camp at Los Angeles City Hall Wednesday, arresting nearly 300 people and fencing off the area.

Apple Inc's newest board member, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger, bought about $1 million worth of the iPhone maker's shares earlier this week, a symbolic gesture of confidence in the prospects of the company.

U.S. auto sales rose sharply in November as more confident American consumers spent more on the average showroom purchase, extending a recovery trend for the industry to a sixth month.

Barnes & Noble Inc's expensive investments to keep its Nook e-reader competitive with Amazon's Kindle led to an unexpected quarterly loss for the bookseller, sending its shares down as much as 24 percent on Thursday.

The company notes the store will offer customers access to over 900,000 book titles in English and other languages, including 22,000 Spanish-language books.

Research In Motion does not install nor authorize its carrier partners to install Carrier IQ monitoring software on its BlackBerry smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

The EU's antitrust chief said on Thursday he would meet Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt next week, adding he would not be discussing the regulator's investigation into the Internet search engine's business practices.

The EU's antitrust chief said on Thursday he would meet Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt next week, adding he would not be discussing the regulator's investigation into the Internet search engine's business practices.

U.S. stocks are expected to end next year with modest gains, despite the threat of a global downturn brought on by the euro zone debt crisis and a tepid domestic economy that may still need more stimulus, a Reuters poll found.

Electronics retailer Best Buy Co Inc is recalling about 32,000 Rocketfish battery cases for iPhones because of a fire hazard, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada said.

Nissan Motor Co and Volkswagen AG posted double-digit percentage gains in November U.S. sales, a strong showing for a month analysts were expecting to set a more than two-year record overall.

Retailers that stuck with their same old holiday season strategies were dealt a blow in November, while earlier hours and bigger promotions were the keys to success for other chains.

At Best Buy, the Fire is the most popular tablet, as noted on a list ranking the top 40 most popular tablets. Apple's Black iPad 2 with 16GB of memory is the second most popular and other models of the iPad 2 are rounding up the top 5 most popular tablets.

New claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, popping above 400,000 for the first time in just over a month and reinforcing the view that the battered labor market was healing only slowly.

New claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, popping above 400,000 for the first time in just over a month and reinforcing the view that the battered labor market was healing only slowly.

Apple's iPhone edged past major news events, celebrities and pop stars as the top searched term on the Web in 2011, according to Yahoo!