IBT Staff Reporter

Princeton University confirmed that there was no armed gunman on the campus on Wednesday morning, following a earlier false alarm.

Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will lease approximately 500 plug-in hybrid vehicles worldwide which are based its the third-generation

The United States may have hit a bump on the road to economic recovery, according to data released on Wednesday, with half a million private sector jobs lost in May and mortgage applications falling last week in the face of rising interest rates.

U.S. stock slid on Wednesday, snapping a four-day winning streak as retreating oil prices sunk shares of energy companies, while signs of further contraction in the service sector doused hopes the recession is abating.

Saks Inc shareholders voted on Wednesday to call on the struggling upscale retailer to put directors up for election annually, eliminating a staggered board with three-year terms, in a move to make the board more accountable.

As the 20th anniversary of the June 4 demonstration approaches, Tiananmen still remembers the cruel crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Hundreds of people were killed on June 4, 1989.

Biogen Idec Inc officials called a three-hour recess in their annual meeting on Wednesday, a move activist investor Carl Icahn blasted as an effort to hijack the shareholder voting.

Researchers at the University of Rochester, NY recently made the surprising discovery that money, looks, and fame don't actually make people happier. The researchers tracked 147 college graduates by investigating their goals and happiness a year after they had graduated.

A British woman who became pregnant while awaiting trial in Laos was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison after being found guilty of drug smuggling.

Student lender Sallie Mae expects loan losses to peak in 2009, although charge-offs are likely to stay high, Chief Executive Albert Lord said at a conference on Wednesday.

U.S. stocks dropped on Wednesday on weaker-than-expected economic data, and energy and resource shares, led by Chevron, fell after the government reported a build-up in oil inventories, reflecting reduced demand.

Fannie Mae on Wednesday said it sold $1 billion in bills at lower interest rates compared with sales of the same maturities a week ago.

Oil and gas stocks plunged at the opening of trade today pulled lower by Valero Energy Corp.’s announcement yesterday that is expecting a net loss of 50 cents per share for the second quarter of 2009.

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, but said it would not give earnings outlook due to several uncertainties related to its business.

The U.S. general nominated to take charge of the war in Afghanistan pledged on Tuesday to try to minimize civilian casualties even as U.S.-led forces step up operations against insurgents.

Al Qaeda's North African wing said on Wednesday it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara.

Wu'er Kaixi, one of the best known dissidents from the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing 20 years ago, tried to reach China via Macau Wednesday but was refused entry, Taiwan authorities said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Wednesday that rising U.S. debt was contributing to a spike in longer-term interest rates, and said now was the time to start working on reining in deficits.

North Korea is assembling a missile that could hit U.S. soil and may test-launch it as early as this month, a newspaper reported, as a U.S. envoy on Wednesday urged Pyongyang to cease provocations and return to disarmament talks.

A second British cabinet minister announced she was resigning Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Gordon Brown's authority and his future as leader of the increasingly out-of-favor Labor Party.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said U.S. President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of revenge and hatred toward the United States in the Muslim world and warned Americans to prepare for the consequences.

President Barack Obama headed for the Middle East on Tuesday hoping to start mending U.S. ties to the Islamic world in a speech that aides say will reach out to Muslims but deal with tough issues like the peace process and violent extremism.

Anglo-French property company Hammerson has sold its Les Trois Quartiers office and retail property in Paris to private equity real estate investor MGPA for 210 million euros ($300 million), both parties said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama met Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on Wednesday ahead of a much-heralded speech in Cairo the U.S. leader hopes will help refurbish America's tarnished image in the Islamic world.

Australian Dollar: As expected the Reserve Bank kept interest rates on hold at 3% yesterday with the major surprise coming in the form of a much lower than expected Current Account Deficit in the first quarter of the year.

General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, both bankrupt, will try on Wednesday to ease congressional concern, and in some cases anger, over their plans to slash more than 2,400 dealerships.

Chinese security forces blanketed Tiananmen Square on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and a day after Twitter and other Internet services in China were blocked.

Singapore state investor Temasek sold its stake in British bank Barclays Plc several months ago at a big loss, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

French officials said on Wednesday they might never discover why an Air France aircraft crashed into the Atlantic killing 228 people and that they might not even find the plane's black boxes on the ocean floor.