TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares recovered some ground on Thursday from the previous day's sell-off, but investors found little reason to chase risk amid deepening turmoil in Greece and fears of contagion to other stressed euro zone economies. Against a background of financial instability in Greece's banking sector, European shares were set to start mixed, with financial spreadbetters predicting that major European markets would open between a 0.2 percent drop and a 0.1 percent rise. U.S. stock futures were up 0.6 percent. ...

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Canada and Credit Suisse are among suitors who have put in initial bids to buy the non-U.S. wealth management business of Bank of America in a deal that could be worth about $2 billion, sources said. Swiss bank Julius Baer was also keen to bid for some of BofA's units in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia excluding Japan, the sources, who had knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. It was not clear whether Switzerland's third-biggest bank had submitted an initial bid. ...

Japan's economy grew an at annual rate of 4.1 percent in the first quarter amid a gradual recovery from last year's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's economy bounced back in the first quarter from a year-end lull, powering ahead of other major industrial nations thanks to rebuilding of the tsunami-battered northeast, solid private spending and some improvement in exports. The world's third-largest economy grew 1.0 percent in the January-March quarter, just above a median forecast of 0.9 percent. A 0.2 percent contraction in the economy reported for the final three months of 2011 was revised up to flat in the government data released on Thursday. ...

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station early Thursday (May 17), kicking off a four-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum was among the first major U.S. oil drillers to make a big bet on the resurgence of domestic production, spending billions to grab oil patches from Texas to North Dakota. Now, as it bemoans steep costs and moves its rigs out of the Bakken shale oil fields, some analysts wonder if the company has lost its clairvoyance. After two years of unyielding gains, costs are bound to fall, they say. The California-based energy giant is beset by escalating labor costs in North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. ...

(Reuters) - It's the biggest parlor game on Wall Street: Estimating how large JPMorgan Chase & Co's trading loss will be from a hedging strategy that went wrong. The biggest U.S. bank by assets has already disclosed $2 billion of paper losses, and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said it could lose another $1 billion or more. The losses will grow, some traders say, because it appears JPMorgan has only sold a small portion of its position, leaving it vulnerable to price swings in a thinly traded market. Others are not so sure the bank will suffer much more than it already has. ...

What only weeks ago was seen as a serious threat to the economic recovery could now turn into a stimulus everyone can love.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's consumers are cooling towards discretionary spending, preferring to salt money into savings or education for their children, according to a Nielsen survey of Chinese consumer confidence published on Thursday. Although Nielsen found that Chinese consumer confidence rose in the first three months of 2012 to its highest since 2005, making China the world's fourth most optimistic nation, willingness to spend remained flat. Savings and education were the only areas in which survey respondents were more willing to allocate additional cash. ...

Tarantulas, like all spiders, extrude silk fromso-called spinnerets on their abdomens, and scientists recently found evidence suggesting the arachnids also shoot silk from their feet, Spider-Man style. Butthese powers were fleeting, it seems, with new research showing tarantulas are not so like the famed superhero, after all.

Tarantulas, like all spiders, extrude silk fromso-called spinnerets on their abdomens, and scientists recently found evidence suggesting the arachnids also shoot silk from their feet, Spider-Man style. Butthese powers were fleeting, it seems, with new research showing tarantulas are not so like the famed superhero, after all.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oxfam America sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday to try to get the SEC to force oil, gas and mining companies to disclose how much they pay to foreign governments. The SEC is more than a year late in issuing a regulation requiring U.S.-listed oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Massachusetts. The regulation is mandated by a section of the Dodd-Frank Act that seeks to increase transparency in the drilling and mining industries. ...

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp said it has made a series of management changes to speed up decision making as the world's biggest coffee chain looks to accelerate global sales. The Seattle-based company named Craig Russell, the senior vice president of U.S. Store Services, as senior vice president of Global Coffee division. In its largest market outside the United States, the company appointed Annie Young-Scrivner as executive vice president and president of Starbucks Canada. ...

DETROIT (Reuters) - Major automakers will launch new models through 2016 in the United States at a faster pace than in the last two decades, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report. New models draw more traffic to showrooms, which can boost a company's market share, profit and stock price. Automakers are expanding their lineups to better compete in the growing U.S. auto market after a "lull" during the economic downturn, the annual report said. ...

(Reuters) - J.C. Penney Co Inc shares plunged nearly 20 percent on Wednesday, their worst decline ever, wiping away $1.43 billion in market value a day after the retailer shocked Wall Street with a much worse-than-expected drop in sales and by scrapping its dividend. A number of leading Wall Street firms also lowered their price targets on the company. Penney shares closed down $6.57 at $26.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. ...

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

Students' science experiments are about to make history, launching to space on the first attempt by a U.S. commercial company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).

(Reuters) - Adidas AG has sued to stop a U.S. sporting goods retailer and a skateboarding equipment maker from selling sneakers with three parallel diagonal stripes, a design it said looks too much like its own. The world's second-largest sporting goods company claimed that sneakers made by World Industries Inc and sold by Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp are knock-offs that infringe many Adidas trademarks. Adidas first used the three-stripe motif in 1952 and began trademarking it in the United States in 1994. World Industries could not immediately be reached for comment. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Convicted hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam is in prison, but the jurors of a separate insider trading trial of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Procter & Gamble Co board member Rajat Gupta will hear his voice in court on FBI wiretaps. A federal judge in New York made a preliminary ruling on Wednesday to allow prosecutors to play a recorded telephone conversation from July 29, 2008, between Rajaratnam and Gupta, whose trial starts next Monday. Over defense objections, U.S. ...

When it comes to leatherback turtles, the world's largest species of sea turtle, there's a conundrum: The species itself is critically endangered, but at least one leatherback population is stable — on the rise, even — while others plummet.

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has stopped providing liquidity to some Greek banks as they have not been successfully recapitalized, the ECB said on Wednesday, confirming news earlier reported exclusively by Reuters. The news sent the euro lower against the dollar, fanning concerns among investors and in Greece that the country may have to leave the euro zone. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks closed lower in a choppy session on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 logging its fourth straight decline as investors worried about Greece's future as a member of the euro zone. Early U.S. gains were erased after the European Central Bank said it had stopped providing liquidity to some Greek banks that had not been recapitalized. The ECB's move caused some market confusion, adding to volatility as traders have a quick trigger finger when it comes to news about Greece. ...

(Reuters) - Shareholders have asked a judge to delay Chesapeake Energy Corp's annual meeting, arguing that more disclosures are needed about Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon's compensation and personal loans taken out against his share in company wells. Investors need more information to make "an informed vote" on three shareholder proposals and the re-election of Richard Davidson and Burns Harris to the board of directors at the meeting planned for June 8, said the motion filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. The new iPhone screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one source said. That would represent a roughly 30 percent increase in viewing area, assuming Apple keeps other dimensions proportional. Apple has used a 3.5-inch screen since introducing the iPhone in 2007. ...

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - Out past the vacant storefronts and abandoned buildings, beyond the shuttered steel mills and decaying industrial plants, residents of eastern Ohio suddenly are seeing dollar signs. In a region more accustomed to hard times than optimism, residents hope that a boom in shale gas drilling using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing - or "fracking" - will lead to wealth, jobs and a reservoir of domestic energy that could dramatically boost the area's fortunes. ...

(Reuters) - Bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc will sell its shares in Asian insurer AIA Group Ltd after a lock-up period expires in early September, Chief Executive Bob Benmosche said on Wednesday. Benmosche said the shares "will be liquidated after September 4," according to a transcript of AIG's annual shareholder meeting on its website. He said the sale would help decrease volatility in AIG's earnings. AIG spun off two-thirds of AIA in 2010 as part of a package of asset sales to repay its $182 billion U.S. government rescue. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Groundbreaking for U.S. homes rebounded in April and factory activity gained momentum, suggesting a moderate pickup in economic growth early in the second quarter. The reports on Wednesday were the latest in a series to dampen fears that the recovery in the world's largest economy was stagnating after tepid job growth last month. The Commerce Department said housing starts increased 2.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717,000 units. In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said production at the nation's mines, factories and utilities rose 1. ...