IBT Staff Reporter

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson said on Wednesday he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain where he is courting the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex.

Nokia has found a software bug in its Lumia 900 smartphone, its answer to Apple's iPhone, and is effectively giving the model away until it is fixed, blunting its bid to turn around its fortunes in the United States.

Stock futures pointed to a higher opening for equities on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.1 to 0.3 percent.

IBM is taking aim at competitors such as Hewlett Packard Co and Oracle Corp with PureSystems, a new product line that helps companies reduce time and money spent on increasingly complex information technology maintenance.

Struggling cellphone maker Nokia has found a software bug in its new flagship Lumia 900 model, dealing a blow to its ambitions to re-enter the lucrative U.S. smartphone market.

Best Buy Co Chief Executive Brian Dunn suddenly resigned from the company during an investigation into allegations of personal misconduct, the electronics retailer said on Tuesday.

Carlyle Group LP is eyeing a market valuation of $7.5 billion to $8 billion in an initial public offering, as the U.S. private equity firm prepares to kick off a marketing blitz to investors, perhaps as soon as next week, said a source with knowledge of the situation.

The Bank of Japan will consider easing monetary policy at its next rate review on April 27 by boosting government bond purchases under its asset-buying program, sources familiar with the central bank's thinking said, as it battles to nudge consumer inflation toward its 1 percent target.

Activist hedge fund Starboard Value, dissatisfied with AOL's $1 billion deal to sell the majority of patents to Microsoft Corp , has filed with U.S. regulators for the nomination of three of its candidates to the board of the Internet firm.

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson said on Wednesday that he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain, where he is courting the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex.

Japan's core machinery orders rose unexpectedly in February, reinforcing expectations that rebuilding in the earthquake-battered northeast will bolster corporate spending and economic recovery although risks loom from a resurgent yen and wobbly overseas economies.

The U.S. House of Representatives will take up a cybersecurity bill at the end of April that lets the government and corporations share information about hacking attacks on U.S. networks, with amendments intended to ease civil liberties concerns, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

Bank of America Corp's proposed $8.5 billion mortgage bond settlement received fresh opposition on Tuesday from New York's attorney general, who said the accord appears unfair to investors who may deserve to recover more.

Carlyle Group LP, the private equity firm with $147 billion in assets under management, is planning to sell a 10 percent stake in its upcoming initial public offering, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The Justice Department could sue Apple Inc as early as Wednesday over alleged electronic book price-fixing, while settling with several publishers as early as this week, two people familiar with the matter said.

Ford Motor Co will partner with Yahoo Inc on a reality show this spring to promote its first electric passenger car, a move that comes as the auto industry is growing more pessimistic about the prospects for these kinds of vehicles.

Bonuses offered by the U.S.'s biggest securities companies to recruit top brokers are reaching their loftiest levels since the financial crisis, and none of the big firms are retreating from the bidding war.

Reebok International Ltd agreed to settle a lawsuit by rival Nike Inc, and will stop selling New York Jets football apparel with the name of the team's popular new quarterback, Tim Tebow.

China's ZTE Corp, which recently sold Iran's largest telecommunications firm a powerful surveillance system, later agreed to ship to Iran millions of dollars worth of embargoed U.S. computer equipment, documents show.

Best Buy Co Chief Executive Brian Dunn is stepping down from the world's largest consumer electronics chain, which said it is looking for a new CEO to help it better compete against Internet retailers and discounters.

The selloff in U.S. stocks accelerated on Tuesday, as the Dow and S&P 500 dropped for a fifth day, with the pullback coming on the cusp of earnings season.

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Scott Thompson outlined how the Internet pioneer will revive itself by putting in place a new structure to sharpen its focus on users, advertisers and overlooked areas such as commerce.

China's space program remains far behind the U.S. in sophistication and technological advancement, but this summer the People's Republic is expected to carry out another two historic firsts. The summer 2012 mission is predicted to make history by sending China's first female astronaut into space and will be China's first manned space docking.

Bo Xilai, the former party chairman of southwestern China's 28-million strong Chongqing municipality and a leading figure in the country's leadership, has been stripped of his high ranking posts with the Chinese Communist Party.

Nike Inc and Reebok International Ltd have settled a lawsuit over the right to sell New York Jets football apparel bearing the name of the Jets' new quarterback, Tim Tebow.

As weather disasters strike with more frequency, homeowners first get hit with the destruction or total loss of property. Many are then hit with the unexpected loss of homeowners insurance policies as insurance companies re-evaluate their financial liabilities.

Stocks fell in a broad and steep decline on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 dropping for a fifth day to break under a key support level.

Japan's Sony Corp flagged a record $6.4 billion annual net loss, double an earlier forecast and a fourth straight year of red ink, as it writes off deferred tax credits, heaping more pressure on its new CEO to turn around the electronics giant.

Research In Motion Ltd likely lost money on sales of its BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablet computers in the fiscal year just ended, an analyst said on Tuesday after studying the company's latest data.