(Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp said on Thursday it was recalling nearly 2.2 million vehicles over the risk that the accelerator pedal could be trapped by loose or misplaced carpet on the driver's side. The massive recall comes a little more than two weeks after a U.S. government probe concluded that Toyota's electronics did not cause unintended acceleration, a victory for the automaker whose recalls had hurt the company's image.

• Read more

(Reuters) - New U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, but orders for a range of manufactured goods recorded their largest decline in two years in January, getting off to a slow start in the first quarter. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits fell 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 391,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to drop to 400,000 last week.

• Read more

(Reuters) - New U.S. single-family home sales fell more than expected in January, a government report showed on Thursday, pulled down by a plunge in activity in the country's West as a homebuyer state tax credit in California ended. The Commerce Department said sales tumbled 12.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted 284,000 unit annual rate after a downwardly revised 325,000-unit pace in December.

• Read more

(Reuters) - General Motors Co posted fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street expectations, capping its most profitable year in over a decade after slashing costs and debt in a landmark bankruptcy. Profit for all of 2010 was $4.7 billion, GM's first full-year earnings since 2004 and its largest profit since 1999, when it earned $6 billion on booming sales of trucks and SUVs. GM shares opened at $34.85, up 26 cents, following the earnings report early Thursday.

• Read more

(Reuters) - Target Corp (TGT.N) posted a 10.5 percent increase in quarterly profit, helped by strong sales early in the holiday season and fewer write-offs of bad credit card debt as shoppers' finances continued to improve. Sales rose 2.8 percent to $20.28 billion, while sales at its established stores rose 2.4 percent, outperforming its larger rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), which said on Wednesday that its U.S. same-store sales fell 1.8 percent over the holiday quarter.

• Read more

(Reuters) - A senior U.S. Federal Reserve official said on Thursday that an improved economic outlook makes it natural for policy-makers to reconsider whether to complete or scale back a $600 billion bond buying program. "The natural debate now is whether to complete the program or to taper off to a somewhat lower level of assets," St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast held at Western Kentucky University.

• Read more

(Reuters) - Bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc could post another multibillion-dollar loss when it reports fourth-quarter results on Thursday, but the real question is how well its surviving life and property businesses did in a tough market. AIG said earlier this month it was going to set aside another $4.1 billion to cover higher-than-expected losses on past claims, mostly related to asbestos and other exposures. It was not clear whether that would overwhelm the "material gain" it expects to report from the sale of global insurer Alico.

• Read more

(Reuters) - Apple Inc released its new lineup of MacBook Pro notebook computers, which will run twice as fast as the previous generation and feature a new high-definition video camera and improved graphics. The new MacBook Pros will be powered by the latest dual-core and quad-core chips from Intel Corp. Intel also supplied the MacBook Pro with a faster, compact input/output technology called Thunderbolt, which supports high-resolution displays and devices through a single port.

• Read more

(Reuters) - Stocks were set to open slightly higher on Wednesday, a day after Wall Street suffered its worst session since August on geopolitical turmoil in Libya. Brent crude futures rose 2.2 percent, staying near a 2-1/2 year high. Markets were concerned the turmoil could spread to other top oil producers in the region and cut more output, weighing on energy stocks. A senior aide to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's influential son Saif resigned as an Italian official claimed that as many as 1,000 people have been killed in the unrest.

• Read more

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co said it would recall about 144,000 F-150 models in the United States and Canada from the 2005 and 2006 model years for the risk that airbags could deploy because of a short circuit. The automaker said that a mistake in the assembly of the trucks at its Norfolk, Virginia, plant could cause an airbag wire in the steering wheel to short circuit.

• Read more