Some highlights from the day's business news:

U.S. stocks finished sharply lower Wednesday after gloomy manufacturing data and renewed fears aboout Greece's debt problems sparked a sell-off.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 179 points, or 1.5%, to 11,897.27. All 30 of blue-chip index's stocks trading lower. Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase were among the biggest laggards. Other financial stocks followed suit, with shares of Wells Fargo and Citigroup down about 2%.

The S&P 500 slipped 22 points, or 1.7%, with a 13% drop in shares of Owens-Illinois leading the decline. The glass container maker cut its earnings guidance, citing rising manufacturing costs.

The Nasdaq composite lost 47 points, or 1.8%. Baidu was among the worst performers on the tech-heavy index, with shares down almost 5%.

News that European officials failed to reach an agreement on bailing out Greece "continues to drive fear and cues the overall downtrend in the market," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

The market has been weakening since the start of May, and stocks are on track to decline for a 7th straight week.

Oil hits lowest level since February

Oil prices plunged more than 4% Wednesday to their lowest level in nearly four months, as fears over Greece's debt issues pushed both stock and commodity prices broadly lower.

Oil prices closed down $4.56, or 4.6%, to $94.81 a barrel, its lowest close since Feb. 18.

Crude prices took their cue from the stock market, where Wednesday's sell-off sent the Dow down more than 200 points.

Oil has been in somewhat steady decline for weeks after hitting more than $110 a barrel earlier this year.

Senators propose new mobile data privacy law

Two senators proposed a mobile privacy bill on Wednesday, in response to a furor over the news that Apple and Google devices can track and store users' location information.

The so-called "Locationgate" kicked off in April, after two British researchers released an open source application that let Apple's customers see the location data stored on their iPhones and 3G iPads. The brouhaha soon expanded to include Google.

The bill introduced Wednesday would require device makers and app developers "to receive express consent" from mobile users "before collecting or sharing information about those users' location with third parties."

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., co-sponsored the bill, which is called the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011.

The lawmakers said the bill "would close loopholes in current federal law to ensure that consumers know what location information is being collected ... and allow them to decide if they want to share it."

- CNNMoney.com's Hibah Yousuf and Ken Sweet contributed to this report.