IBT Staff Reporter

Toyota Motor inaugurated its first new factory in Japan in nearly two decades on Wednesday, betting that advanced, low-cost Japanese production techniques can prevail even as a strong yen drives many manufacturers abroad.

Chancellor Angela Merkel picked her aide Jens Weidmann as German central bank chief to succeed Axel Weber, officials said on Wednesday, making it less likely she will insist on a German running the European Central Bank.

A video shown at the retirement part for the Israeli Chief of Staff may have revealed that Israel was behind the Stuxnet worm.

General Motors Co is recalling over 44,000 Cadillac CTS sedans for a flaw that could cause one of the rear wheels to become unstable.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc's Xoom tablet will sell for an unsubsidized $799 at Verizon Wireless, with WiFi-only version priced at around $600 price, chief executive Sanjay Jha said on Wednesday.

German carmaker Daimler posted disappointing fourth-quarter earnings, with an upbeat outlook failing to deliver the detail that analysts said was needed to reassure investors.

The Kids for Cash trial resumed this week with former Pennsylvania Judge mark Ciavarella's attorneys trying to undermine the credibility of the prosecution witnesses and the accused vehemently claiming that though he has committed tax fraud, he never extorted money from others or took bribe in return for sending juveniles to a private detention center.

U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. said it will challenge the ruling of an Ecuadorean judge who has ordered it to pay a record $9.5 billion fine after holding it responsible for polluting a wide swath of Amazon rainforest in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992 while it operated in a consortium with state-run Petroecuador.

A Connecticut ambulance company has settled with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB ) a lawsuit involving the firing of an employee who had published negative remarks about her boss on her Facebook page.

Wragge & Co has played a leading role in advising the UK's largest branded food producer Premier Foods Plc on the £182m sale of its canned groceries business to rival Princes.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued a former CEO and two former CFOs of failed mortgage lender IndyMac Bankcorp, accusing them of securities fraud.

Metzler, Timm, Treleven, Pahl, Beck, S.C., a Green Bay-based law firm has offered to donate money towards the cost of renaming a street in honor of Packers coach Mike McCarthy after his team emerged victorious in the Super Bowl.

Joerg Kretschmer, who was last week found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and handed down a 21-month suspended sentence for enabling his 17-year old son to go on a shooting rampage in 2009, has appealed the verdict.

Daniel Patrick Boyd, a U.S. citizen and resident of North Carolina, has pleaded guilty in a federal court to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim, and injure persons in a foreign country, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has sued a law firm in Henry County, Georgia, and one of its partners, accusing them of professional negligence, legal malpractice and other misconduct related to multi-million dollar real estate loans that contributed to the 2009 collapse of Neighborhood Community Bank (NCB) in Newman.

German carmaker Daimler posted disappointing fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with an upbeat outlook failing to deliver the detail that analysts said was needed to reassure investors.

U.S. housing starts rose more than expected in January to their highest rate in four months but permits for future home construction dropped sharply after hefty gains the prior month, according to a government report on Wednesday that showed the housing market still bouncing along the bottom.

After a few missteps, Rovio's popular game is finally coming to Windows Phone 7.

Amid growing competition from non-banks, BB&T bank, which has locations primarily in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic U.S., is now offering a new prepaid checking account which comes with a Visa-branded debit card.

Stock index futures pointed to a stronger open for Wall Street on Wednesday, recovering the ground lost in the previous session, on optimism for corporate earnings after forecast-beating results from Dell .

New Bank of England forecasts opened the door on Wednesday for interest rates to rise but Governor Mervyn King warned markets not to jump to conclusions about the timing or speed of any moves.

British chip designer ARM said its royalty revenues would be boosted by the speed of adoption of its newest multicore processors that are powering many of the smartphones unveiled in Barcelona.

Digital security company Gemalto NV has developed an application that embeds Facebook on SIM cards, letting GSM phone users stay connected on the social networking site even if without data plans.

Gold steadied on Wednesday ahead of a raft of U.S. data due later, having earlier risen to four-week highs as a retreat in the dollar and concerns over the medium-term inflation outlook helped support the precious metal.

HTC released its 7-inch Android tablet Flyer at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona while BlackBerry maker RIM announced that it will offer its tablet PlayBook in HSPA+ and LTE versions.

African Barrick Gold Plc reported higher-than-expected earnings in its first full-year results since listing, as strong gold prices outweighed a decline in production and lifted its shares.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday after estimate-beating results from technology bellwether Dell and a deal for Sanofi-Aventis to buy Genzyme for $20.1 billion in cash.

China's Internet controls, under challenge again from Washington, may face an even tougher time from the 125 million Chinese people who have embraced online microblogs to gossip, rant and mobilize.

Telecom operators may be discouraged from offering phones from the new Nokia-Microsoft pact if the two groups adopt a closed system akin to Apple Inc's iPhone, an Orange executive told Reuters.