IBT Staff Reporter

PC shipments may be crimped by as much as a fifth in the first three months of 2012, hurt by the shortage of hard disk drives after the Thailand floods, said IDC.

Defending the Federal Reserve on the turf of his harshest critics, central bank chief Ben Bernanke on Thursday said the Fed was intently focused on lowering unemployment and warned that strains from Europe could trigger global economic shocks.

The United States said on Thursday it will study a new route for the Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, delaying any final approval beyond the U.S. 2012 election and sparing U.S. President Barack Obama a politically risky decision during an election year.

The Walt Disney Company posted record earnings of $4.8 billion in 2011, up 21 percent from 3.96 billion in the year earlier period, mostly attributable to success in both the cable television and broadcasting division.

The trustee liquidating bankrupt broker MF Global on Thursday deflected intensifying pressure to disperse billions of dollars of customer cash frozen in commodity accounts, saying that he could not yet legally release individuals' funds.

The U.S. government racked up a smaller deficit in the opening month of fiscal 2012 than it did in October a year earlier, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.

Stocks bounced back on Thursday from the previous session's steep losses as investors latched onto positive corporate and economic news, in the absence of a clear worsening in Europe's debt crisis.

For 53 cringe-inducing seconds on live television on Wednesday night, Rick Perry's brain froze. Those 53 seconds may have destroyed his presidential campaign. Here's why.

Heart doctors across the U.S. are closing up independent practices and migrating to large medical centers, forcing patients to travel farther and pay more for their care, because of reduction in Medicare slashed reimbursements, experts say.

Walt Disney Co reported higher quarterly revenue that beat analyst expectations as advertising held strong at the company's ESPN sports channel and other media networks.

The 45th annual Country Music Awards (aka CMA) took place in Nashville on Wendesday night (Nov. 9) and The Band Perry got the top honors.

The balanced budget amendment push is beginning again.

Sidney Crosby will not play this weekend, despite earlier rumors he might be returning.

Viacom Inc's quarterly revenue and profit rose, beating estimates, due mainly to the success of the Paramount film Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Popular cartoonist Bil Keane, the creator of household comics Family Circus, has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 89 on Tuesday.

Boeing Co's defense unit is bracing for the worst case scenario -- a trillion-dollar U.S. defense budget reduction over 10 years, the chief executive of the company's Defense Space and Security business said on Thursday.

The download-only multiplayer First-Person Shooter will hit the Gotham streets Jan. 10 next year. Players who can't wait to get in on the action can also sign up on the company's Web site for a chance to be included in the game's beta testing.

CBS is taking aim at a television classic.The network is rebooting the Chuck Connors series The Rifleman, the late-1950s ABC Western about Civil War vet and widower Lucas McCain, who takes his son and his hot-rodded Winchester rifle and settles in the New Mexico territory of North Fork, an individual familiar with the project confirms to TheWrap.

The Twilight Saga might not make it to sunup.

Arab Spring and Royal Wedding were on Wednesday deemed the top phrases of 2011, while late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is the year's top name, according to a global survey of the English language.

Bradley Cooper isn't going Solo.The Hangover actor, who had been in talks to play the crime fighter Napoleon Solo in Warner Bros'. big-screen version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., will not play the role, TheWrap has learned.

The U.S. futures regulator on Thursday said it has launched a formal investigation into bankrupt MF Global, increasing pressure on the brokerage as the search for roughly $600 million in missing funds continues.

This year's Gotham Independent Film Awards, one of the two major awards shows devoted to indie film, will be hosted by actors Oliver Platt and Edie Falco, the Independent Feature Project (IFP) announced on Wednesday.

Forget the 9-9-9 plan -- Herman Cain might be employing a Top 10 strategy soon.

Merck & Co raised its quarterly dividend 11 percent, the first increase since the company's painkiller Vioxx was withdrawn in 2004, and said it expects to file for approval of five new drugs within the next two years.

Nickelodeon is hoping to put together the mother of all programing blocks.

As with many carnal matters, the much-ballyhooed sex-scene episode of Glee caused a rise -- ratings-wise, anyway -- on Tuesday night. And a modest boost for CBS' NCIS was enough to make it the top-rated show of the evening and help boost the network to an overall win Tuesday.

Mariah Carey has become the new spokesperson for Jenny Craig's diet plan after losing 30 pounds of weight by using the company's meal plan.

Malaria-resistant people have mutated red blood cells that resist the parasite's ability to steal that necessary cellular scaffold, according to research published Thursday in the online edition of Science, uncovering a puzzle years in the making.