WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom said Thursday he was "in tears" after a European company deleted all the data it was hosting from his shuttered file-sharing site.

Netherlands-based LeaseWeb announced it had deleted all Megaupload files from 630 servers.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Financial markets in the U.S. shuddered after the Federal Reserve said it could start scaling back its huge economic stimulus program later this year and end it by the middle of next.

The sharp reaction in markets, especially in the 10-year Treasury note, showed just how much investors have come to depend on the central bank's easy money policies.

WASHINGTON - The House voted late Wednesday to delay sweeping food safety rules that would require farmers and food companies to be more vigilant about guarding against contamination.

Lawmakers adopted an amendment by voice vote to a wide-ranging farm bill just before midnight that would delay the rules signed into law in 2011 until the Food and Drug Administration conducts a study on their economic impacts.

MANILA, Philippines - Most Asian markets slid Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it could start scaling back its huge economic stimulus program later this year.

The announcement Wednesday in Washington drew sharp reaction in financial markets, showing just how dependent investors have become on the Fed's easy money policies.

HONG KONG - Manufacturing in China contracted this month at a faster pace as demand weakened, according to a private survey Thursday, adding to fears about a fragile recovery in the world's second-biggest economy.

HSBC said that the preliminary version of its monthly purchasing managers index fell to a nine-month low of 48.3 in June, down from 49.6 in May. Numbers below 50 indicate a contraction.

TOKYO - Sony Corp. needs more time to study a key proposal from a U.S. hedge fund to spin off a part of its entertainment unit as a way to propel its fledgling revival, the chief executive told shareholders Thursday.

Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai was speaking to a Tokyo hall packed with thousands of investors for an annual general shareholders' meeting, where the proposal from Third Point hedge fund, led by activist investor and billionaire Daniel Loeb, was high on people's minds. It was the first question from the floor.

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The UNESCO world heritage committee is recommending a monitoring mission be sent to Canada over "serious concerns" about potential oil exploration near Gros Morne National Park.

Gros Morne, with its glacier-carved fjords, waterfalls, sandy beaches and spectacular cliffs, is a hiker's paradise that was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1987.

WASHINGTON - After secretive talks, key senators expressed optimism Wednesday night that they were closing in on a bipartisan agreement to toughen the border security requirements in immigration legislation that also offers a path to citizenship to millions living in the country illegally.

Under the emerging compromise, the government would grant legal status to immigrants living in the United States unlawfully at the same time the additional security was being put into place. Green cards, which signify permanent residency status, would be withheld until the security steps were complete.

DALLAS - A government review finds that the merger of American Airlines and US Airways would reduce competition on more than 1,600 routes travelled by more than 53 million passengers.

That's a greater loss of competition than occurred with the 2010 merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, an analyst for the Government Accountability Office told a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday.

TOKYO - On the Internet, no one can save you from yourself. That is a lesson many Japanese politicians have learned recently in painful, awkward and at times costly fashion.

In the latest flap, a senior reconstruction official in charge of helping victims of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis was dismissed last week after he used a scatological insult on Twitter to deride civil activists.

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Alison Redford says the United States and Canada share political and environmental values and must work together to become energy independent of those who do not.

Redford, speaking to the Foreign Policy Association on Wednesday in New York, said until recently North American energy independence was wishful thinking.

PORTLAND, Maine - Maine's blunt-spoken governor doesn't mince words when opponents dare to cross him but he's saved some of his harshest criticism for newspapers, once telling schoolchildren he isn't a fan of papers and another time saying that reading one is "like paying somebody to tell you lies."

Now it's gone to an extreme, with Republican Gov. Paul LePage and his administration cutting off comments to three newspapers including one serving the state's biggest city.

MINNEAPOLIS - Stratasys, a leading maker of 3-D printers, is buying another 3-D printer manufacturer, MakerBot, for $403 million in stock.

Stratasys Ltd. said Wednesday the acquisition will enable it to offer affordable desktop 3-D printers. MakerBot, whose machines are priced around $2,000 to $3,000 and are aimed at the "prosumer" market, sells direct to buyers over its website. In contrast, Stratasys makes machines priced $10,000 to $600,000 mostly to industrial clients through resellers.

SAULT STE MARIE, Ont. - Privately held Essar Steel Algoma Inc. has reported a net loss of $92.7 million in its fiscal 2013 fourth quarter ended March 31, up from a net loss of $18 million in the same year-earlier period.

Sales for the quarter totalled $447.7 million, with shipments of 638,652 tons, down 1.5 per cent from the corresponding quarter the previous year.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - New York state and Eastman Kodak Co. have reached a deal that will keep some of the troubled company's operations in Rochester and provide $49 million for environmental cleanup at the once bustling Eastman Business Park.

Local media outlets report Wednesday that Kodak will keep advanced manufacturing and its research centre at the 1,200-acre site and lease property there to two companies it will spin off as it restructures under bankruptcy court protection.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve has taken many unprecedented steps in the past four years to try to boost the U.S. economy and counter the effects of a financial crisis that triggered a painful recession. It has kept the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low near zero since December 2008.

It's bought more than $2 trillion in U.S. Treasurys and mortgage bonds to try to hold down longer-term rates. Those purchases have increased the Fed's balance sheet to more than $2.8 trillion.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Shares of gene therapy developer Bluebird Bio Inc. surged in their trading debut.

Its shares climbed $9.91, or 58.3 per cent, to close at $26.91 Wednesday after trading as high as $27 earlier in the session.

DALLAS - FedEx Corp.'s fourth-quarter profit fell 45 per cent as international customers traded down to less-expensive delivery options and the company spent heavily on restructuring.

FedEx said 3,600 employees will take voluntary buyouts and nearly half of them have already left. The company is also retiring older airplanes.

WASHINGTON - Michael Froman, a senior White House economic adviser and classmate of President Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, on Wednesday won Senate confirmation to be the next U.S. trade representative.

The confirmation vote was 93-4, elevating the 50-year-old Froman to the head of an agency now involved in two of the most significant trade deals in recent history.

RICHMOND, B.C. - Catalyst Paper (TSX:CYT) announced Wednesday that company chairman Leslie Lederer will take over as CEO on an interim basis following the departure of current CEO Kevin Clarke at the end of the month.

Clarke announced his departure from the pulp and paper company in April, saying he was returning home to New York state where his family resides.

TORONTO - A long-awaited report on a large and possibly still ongoing outbreak of MERS coronavirus in Saudi Arabia reveals the virus spreads easily within hospitals, at one point passing in a person-to-person chain that encompassed at least five generations of spread.

The study, co-written by Toronto SARS expert Dr. Allison McGeer, also hints there may have been a superspreader in this outbreak, with one person infecting at least seven others.

VANCOUVER - The world's birds are literally the canaries in the coal mine and their ongoing decline should serve as a warning signal of a global environment in peril, says an international report on the state of the world's birds.

Globally, one in eight species — 1,313 — are considered at threat of extinction, said the report by U.K.-based BirdLife International. Of these, 200 are considered on the brink.

OTTAWA - A handful of Canadian troops are about to take part in peacekeeping operation in Haiti, under the command of Brazilian forces, in a long-delayed mission that has been kept inexplicably low on the political radar.

The deployment of an infantry platoon was approved by the Harper government on Oct. 16, 2012, according to internal defence department documents obtained by The Canadian Press.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version had an incorrect number of international troops and police in Haiti

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The UNESCO world heritage committee is recommending a monitoring mission be sent to Canada over "serious concerns" about potential oil exploration near Gros Morne National Park.

Gros Morne, with its glacier-carved fjords, waterfalls, sandy beaches and spectacular cliffs, is a hiker's paradise that was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1987.

NANAIMO, B.C. - Fisheries and Oceans Canada says biologists have spotted a rare, endangered whale in British Columbia waters for the first time in more than 60 years.

North Pacific right whales were once abundant between B.C. and the Bering Sea before they were hunted to near extinction before the 20th century.

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Alison Redford says the United States and Canada share political and environmental values and must work together to become energy independent of those who do not.

Redford, speaking to the Foreign Policy Association on Wednesday in New York, said until recently North American energy independence was wishful thinking.

VANCOUVER - Vancouver has become the next stop for real estate tycoon and reality television icon Donald Trump's international hotel chain.

The 63-storey tower's twisting design by now-deceased architect Arthur Erickson was originally meant for the cancelled Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the city's downtown core.

VANCOUVER - The trial of a Mountie accused of lying at the public inquiry into Robert Dziekanski's death turned its attention Wednesday back to the night of the Polish immigrant's fatal confrontation with police, hearing the imperfect recollections of eye witnesses who made their own mistakes when they first attempted to describe what they saw.

Const. Bill Bentley is charged with perjury for his testimony at hearings that examined what happened when Dziekanski was stunned with a Taser and died at Vancouver's airport — specifically, when he attempted to explain discrepancies between his initial accounts in October 2007 and an amateur video of the incident that emerged later.

WINNIPEG - Children have been removed from an orthodox Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, where more adults have been charged with assaulting youngsters using items such as cattle prods and leather straps.

Manitoba Family Services would not say Wednesday how many kids had been taken into care, or reveal any other details about the case.

MONTREAL - After a spring of sleaze, Quebec's Charbonneau inquiry is taking a break for the summer.

While the inquiry will continue to conduct investigations and prepare for the fall session, the public testimony is done until after Labour Day.

OTTAWA - A massive trove of books, maps and manuscripts from the War of 1812 now belong to Canada.

The federal government has paid nearly $700,000 at an auction in England to acquire what's know as the Sherbrooke Collection.

VANCOUVER - A great-grandmother who has waited 56 years to get her high school diploma can finally cross that dream off her bucket list.

Maureen Baker has attended several high school reunions with her classmates from the 1950s but felt like an outsider because she never finished school.

MONTREAL - Montreal will have its next interim mayor — the third mayor in less than a year — by early next week.

The city clerk's office has announced a vote will be held during a special meeting of council next Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, a friend to Barack Obama and a major Democratic financier, is unveiling a social media campaign on Thursday that aims to rally the president's formidable online army of supporters against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Steyer and a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be in the U.S. capital to step up their efforts against Calgary-based TransCanada, a company they accuse of wanting "to reap billions in profits by getting the United States to allow the shipping of dirty tarsands oil across America’s heartland for export to China and beyond while the United States will get very little in return."

BURLINGTON, Ont. - Newly installed Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz on Wednesday tried to rally business toward the kind of spending he says is needed to bolster the economy, while giving no signal about any change in interest rate policy.

In his first major speech since taking over from former governor Mark Carney earlier this month, Poloz preached the virtues of "stability and patience," saying the central bank's long-standing target of low, stable inflation remains "sacrosanct."

OTTAWA - Bob Rae, a fixture on Canada's political scene for more than three decades, is giving up his seat in the House of Commons to devote himself to another of his Canadian passions: working on behalf of First Nations.

The Toronto Liberal MP and one-time Ontario premier announced Wednesday he's leaving politics so he can focus on his new role: chief negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council in talks with the province about development of the Ring of Fire mining project in northern Ontario.

TORONTO - Senior managers agreed that intervening every time a teen inmate tied a ligature around her neck was unnecessary because she was not always in immediate danger, an inquest into her death heard Wednesday.

Michelle Bridgen, a middle manager at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., said it was the warden and deputy warden who decided essentially that guards should intervene only if Ashley Smith risked imminent death.

OTTAWA - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is about to launch a 48-hour emergency appeal for Syria.

The goal is to help the four million children affected by the two-year-old civil war that the UN says has killed 93,000 people.

HALIFAX - Mere hours after the Nova Scotia legislature was recalled to deal with his possible expulsion, an Independent member who had pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust in the province's spending scandal changed his mind and abruptly resigned Wednesday.

Trevor Zinck had said he would fight for his job shortly after hearing that the house had been reconvened by Speaker Gordie Gosse for noon on Thursday.

The Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky collectors has netted big bucks for old pucks after an auction of some of his choicest memorabilia closed Wednesday.

Shawn Chaulk, a construction contractor from Fort McMurray, Alta., received more than $500,000 for a collection of jerseys, skates, helmets, gloves and pucks used in action by the Great One.

VANCOUVER - Camilo scored two goals and assisted the other as the Vancouver Whitecaps beat Chivas USA 3-1 in MLS play Wednesday night.

The Whitecaps (6-5-4) posted their second consecutive win — something they had not done since the first two games of the season.

Wednesday's Games

NHL

DETROIT - Chris Davis cleared the fences twice, giving him a major league leading 26 homers, to help the Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 13-3 Wednesday.

Davis hit a two-run homer and Taylor Teagarden followed with a three-run home run in Baltimore's six-run fourth. Against embattled reliever Jose Valverde, Davis hit another two-run shot for his second multihomer game of the season and the fifth of his career.

BOSTON - The Boston Bruins' comeback fell short this time. And suddenly the Stanley Cup final is a lot more interesting.

Brent Seabrook scored at 9:51 of overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 6-5 win over the never-say-die Bruins in a wild game Wednesday night. The defenceman's shot through traffic that beat Boston goalie Tuukka Rask gives the Blackhawks, who never trailed in the game, a new lease of life.

SAN FRANCISCO - Gregor Blanco had a pinch hit, two-run triple in the seventh inning, leading the San Francisco Giants to a 4-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Wednesday.

Brandon Belt and Marco Scutaro also drove in runs and the Giants won their second straight following a three-game slide. Scutaro and Hunter Pence each had two hits.

MONTREAL - Home turf is a happy place for Marco Di Vaio.

The veteran striker scored his 10th goal of the Major League Soccer season Wednesday in a 2-0 victory over the Houston Dynamo.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Yasiel Puig kicked back in his chair, his well-worn uniform streaked in red clay, and calmly answered questions in Spanish. Then, suddenly, he threw his hands in the air and shouted, "Pow!"

In any language, he's about as unpredictable off the field as he is on it, and everyone in baseball is riveted.

TORONTO - Early leads have been the norm, the pitching staff is rounding into form and confidence is growing by the day.

The Toronto Blue Jays are doing everything right these days and it's paying off with victories.

DETROIT - The Detroit Red Wings and city officials on Wednesday announced a $650 million plan for a new arena development for the NHL team in Detroit's downtown entertainment and sports district.

Plans for an 18,000-seat arena were announced by the team's owners and local economic development officials. Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch has long said he wanted a replacement for the 32-year-old Joe Louis Arena.

Georges St-Pierre will defend his UFC welterweight title on Nov. 16 in Las Vegas against No. 1 contender Johny (Bigg Rigg) Hendricks.

UFC president Dana White confirmed the details in a text to The Canadian Press.

BOSTON - Chicago Blackhawks forward Marian Hossa was back in the lineup for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night.

Hossa played after missing Game 3 on Monday night with an undisclosed upper body injury. Hossa was a late scratch from the lineup for that game. The Bruins won 2-0 and took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

MIAMI - Game 7s do more than settle championships. They define legacies.

No matter what happens Thursday night, LeBron James and the Miami Heat, and Tim Duncan's San Antonio Spurs have already won NBA titles and secured a place in history.

CALGARY - Max Gartner lists his career highlights as the back-to-back world downhill titles captured by Canadian skiers John Kucera and Erik Guay.

But there's also been drawbacks to being president and CEO of Alpine Canada — with potentially more on the horizon. And on Wednesday, Gartner announced he was leaving Canada's national skiing organization after more than three decades.

NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. - State police returned to the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, two days after a body was found about a mile away.

Two troopers knocked on the door of Hernandez's sprawling house in an upscale subdivision Wednesday morning, but no one answered. The night before, police spent hours there as another group of officers searched an industrial park where the body was found Monday. No more details about the body have been released.

From piping Canadian television coverage into the athletes' village to locating soy milk for the lactose-intolerant Olympian, no detail is too small in pursuit of a gold medal.

That's the philosophy of the Canadian Olympic Committee team currently in Sochi, Russia, inspecting the 2014 Winter Olympic sites.

TORONTO - Pat Watkins is back with the Toronto Argonauts.

The all-star cornerback rejoined the defending Grey Cup champions Wednesday and was with his teammates for the first time since the start of training camp. The six-foot-five, 205-pound defensive back needed the time away to take care of unspecified personal matters in Florida.

PADERBORN, Germany - Leonie Maier scored the lone goal of the game to lead Germany's women's soccer team to a 1-0 win over Canada on Wednesday.

Maier launched a shot from the right side in the 53rd minute to beat Canadian 'keeper Erin McLeod.

Forward Danny Briere is preparing to become an unrestricted free agent as part of the Philadelphia Flyers' off-season shakeup of their high-priced roster.

A person familiar with discussions confirmed on Wednesday that Briere has been informed by the Flyers that they intend to buy out the final two years of his contract. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Flyers have not announced their decision.

MONTREAL - Quebec has found a place to play soccer on the international stage, but it is not in a World Cup or any other event with national teams.

A group of 18 players patched together and coached by former Montreal Impact player Patrick Leduc will begin play Sunday in the International Tournament of Peoples and Cultures in Marseille, France.

The Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky collectors has netted big bucks for old pucks after an auction of some of his choicest memorabilia closed Wednesday.

Shawn Chaulk, a construction contractor from Fort McMurray, Alta., received more than $500,000 for a collection of jerseys, skates, helmets, gloves and pucks used in action by the Great One.