EARTHQUAKE

The head of the world's most powerful central bank essentially stuck to the bank's latest U.S. economic forecast in his news conference with reporters Wednesday: the U.S. economy slowed in Q2, but growth is likely to pick-up in the second half of 2011.

Lady Gaga's net worth is $110 million, and her earning potential is sky high

The swollen Missouri River had posed a serious threat to a riverside nuclear power plant in the state of Nebraska in the United States after levees built to hold back the rising floodwaters failed.

Three months have passed since the deadliest tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. It was announced as the strongest ever in recorded history of geological disasters. Check out photos of Japan’s amazing recovery that took place after the catastrophic event.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its growth forecasts for the US for the next two years from 2.7 percent to 2.5 percent in 2011 and from 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent in 2012, besides highlighting renewed weakness in the housing market as a risk.

Japanese car major Toyota Motors today said that it expects North American vehicle production levels to return to 100 percent in September. Production is recovering earlier than originally anticipated following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.2 struck south-central Alaska a little after 11 a.m. local time, according to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

Six more employees of Tokyo Electric Power Co. working at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were exposed to more radiation than allowed, the Japanese Newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported today.

Two minke whales were discovered with traces of radiation off the Japanese coast.

The companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trade on Wednesday are: Netapp, Finisar, Owens-Illinois, E-Commerce China, Carnival, J.C. Penney, Sprint Nextel, United States Steel, Baker Hughes and Southwest Airlines.

A Japanese non-profit group that went to explore under the sea in hopes of finding missing Tsunami victims found a ghost town instead.

A series of tremors hit the city of Christchurch Monday, just months after a devastating quake killed 180.

At least 10 people were seriously injured when the New Zealand city of Christchurch was shocked by a series of powerful earthquakes on Monday.

New Zealand's Christchurch was rocked by a series of earthquakes on Monday even as vivid memories of a devastating earthquake in February that killed about 180 people had hardly faded.

Family Radio president Harold Camping, who famously predicted that about 200 million people will Rapture on May 21 and the world will be destroyed five months later, on Thursday night suffered a stroke which has affected his ability to speak.

Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday it expects operating profit this business year to fall 35 percent to 300 billion yen ($3.7 billion) after Japan's biggest earthquake on record severely disrupted car production and slashed sales and a strengthening yen cut into overseas earnings.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda emerged on Thursday as a leading candidate to replace the increasingly unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan, possibly this month.

Growth slowed in some U.S. regions during May as costlier food and energy as well as supply disruptions stemming from a major earthquake in Japan in March took a toll, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

Government officials from nearly 30 nuclear powered countries called for safety tests on Tuesday, after the disaster at Fukushima plant sparked concern over safety standards.

The sun unleashed an unusual solar flare on early Tuesday, a small radiation storm and a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) from a sunspot complex on the solar surface. The flare peaked at 1:41 a.m. ET, according to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

On Monday night, the Palo Alto City Council approved Stanford University’s massive hospital expansion project in a 8-0 vote.