IBT Staff Reporter

General Electric Co said on Thursday it won a $1.4 billion contract from energy producer Caithness Energy LLC to supply wind turbines for what will eventually be the world's biggest wind farm.

The US President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel peace prize Thursday in Oslo with a medallion and $1.4 million dollars in prize money.

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in October as the weak U.S. dollar helped boost exports and demand for imported oil fell to its lowest daily level since January 2000, a Commerce Department report showed on Thursday.

Nokia will close its only two flagship stores in the United States, in a sign its retail strategy of flashy brand-booster outlets is needing a refresh.

Citigroup Inc remains locked in active negotiations with the government over the company's plans to repay federal bailout funds, and it is not clear whether any deal is imminent, a person familiar with the talks said on Thursday.

Citigroup Inc is planning to sell roughly $15 billion of common shares to help repay funds borrowed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, people briefed on the matter said on Thursday.

U.S. crude for January delivery rose 28 cents to $70.95 a barrel by 1537 GMT (10:37 a.m. EST), after losing almost $2 in its sixth straight day of losses on Wednesday, when it hit the lowest since early October at $70.13.

Sony debuted, what it called, the PlayStation 3 Motion Controller at the E3 event earlier this year. Since then, the company has kept mum on what the product will actually be called, until now.

The yield on the contract due January 2011 DIJF1 fell to 10.37 percent from 10.46 percent. The yield on the contract due April 2010 DIJJ0 fell to 8.75 percent from 8.8 percent. Both were among the most active contracts of the morning.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says Congress may need to raise the U.S. federal debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion.

An eBay Inc executive said on Thursday the auction company bought a stake in Craigslist partly to block rival web company Google Inc from acquiring the classified ads business.

Ciena Corp posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss due to rising costs, sending its shares down 4.8 percent in early trade despite revenue that handily beat Wall Street estimates.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday there would be no precipitous drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and cautioned that U.S. troops could still be there for years to come.

Chris Cuomo will leave ABC's Good Morning America to co-host the newsmagazine 20/20 with Elizabeth Vargas, he said on GMA Thursday.

Costco Wholesale Corp said quarterly profit rose slightly on higher international sales and a weaker U.S. dollar that offset the effect of rising gasoline prices.

The Treasury Department said on Thursday that losses from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund are likely to rise as disbursements to battle mortgage foreclosures increase.

Stocks rose on Thursday as data showed continuing claims for jobless benefits dropped and a separate report revealed the trade gap unexpectedly narrowed for October, a boost to economic growth.

President Barack Obama, winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, declined to participate in events normally attended by laureates, including lunch with Norway's King, according to a report.

Eli Lilly and Co forecast 2010 earnings in line with Wall Street expectations but gave no hint of how profit might pan out after its biggest drugs lose patent protection between 2011 and 2014.

General Electric Co said on Thursday it won a $1.4 billion contract from energy producer Caithness Energy LLC to supply wind turbines for what will eventually be the world's biggest wind farm.

NASA has given out a grant to the University of Georgia that will help undergraduate professors to observe and report on the effects of climate change on birds.

Billionaire financier George Soros told Reuters on Thursday he had found a way to unlock a stalemate on climate finance using International Monetary Fund assets.

Germany's Siemens AG is forecasting a resumption of growth in the global onshore wind market in 2010, the CEO of its Wind Power unit Andreas Nauen told Reuters.

Teachers trying to get students interested in molecular biology or space now have a new tool -- video games.

Citigroup Inc's negotiations to repay its government bailout money might not be resolved until after the holidays, CNBC said on Thursday, citing a U.S. Treasury official.

Fraudulent trading in European Union carbon emissions credits in the past 18 months has led to more than 5 billion euros in tax revenue losses for several EU nations, European police agency Europol said in a statement.

California's global warming law, similar in scope to a measure under consideration by the U.S. Congress, will have a negligible effect on the bottom lines of small businesses, a study showed Wednesday.

Jobless Claims' 4-week moving average dropped 7,750 to 473,750, according to the latest weekly Labor Department report released today, another sign that the labor market may be approaching the end of its steep decline.

Dutch sports car maker Spyker Cars NV remains interested in buying Swedish auto brand Saab from General Motors and is not aware of any deadlines imposed on the process, a spokesman for Spyker said.