NEW YORK, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Two floors of the Manhattan offices of The Wall Street Journal were evacuated Wednesday after the paper's headquarters received envelopes containing an unknown white powder.

The suspicious mails, in identical, white envelopes with Tennessee postmarks, were addressed to several New York-based WSJ executives, the paper said in a story on its website.

The two evacuated floors housed news, editorial and executive personnel, the paper said, adding that only a core group of editors remained in the building to ensure production of newspaper for Thursday and that others were sent home or to back-up facilities.

Officials from the New York City Police Department and Department of Environmental Protection are on the scene.

The suspicious envelopes, addressed by hand in pen, arrived with different return addresses in Tennessee. One envelope was addressed to Robert Thomson, the paper's managing editor. It was opened by one of his assistants.

The Wall Street Journal is published by News Corp.'s Dow Jones &Co.

An executive of Dow Jones emailed the paper's New York City-based employees, cautioning them not to open any mail.

"While we don't think there is cause for alarm at this time, we are asking everyone not to open any mail while we investigate," Dow Jones vice president of communications Howard Hoffman said in the email.

Last October, the New York offices of the New York Times and Reuters had to be evacuated for several hours after receiving letters with suspicious white powder.
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