IBT Staff Reporter

It took S&P until Monday to downgrade Fannie Mae ? years after the troubled federal housing agency doled out thousands of loans to deadbeats who never had the ability to repay them.

Federal Reserve policymakers began meeting on Tuesday under growing pressure to take some type of action to stem a financial market meltdown linked to fears of a new U.S. recession.

It was one of many strange moments in a hearing rich in absurdity. As British lawmakers questioned Rupert Murdoch last month over whether his News of the World journalists broke the law by hacking into mobile phones, the 80-year-old Australian-born boss of media giant News Corporation began to reminiscence about his late father.

Cablevision Systems Corp added fewer Internet subscribers than expected and lost video subscribers in the second quarter sending its shares down as much as 12 percent in early trading on Tuesday.

Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting an underage follower he married in a "spiritual marriage." Jeffs, the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also received a 20-year sentence for sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl. Jeffs received the maximum sentence on both counts.

Worries of more government intervention in European and U.S. debt crises lifted gold early on Tuesday to a record near $1,800, but bullion pared gains as the battered stock market bounced higher.

NASA scientists were able to observe for the first time the powerful effects of an earthquake and tsunami combined, which broke off large icebergs a hemisphere away off the coast of Antarctica.

CI Financial Corp (CIX.TO: Quote) said on Tuesday that higher asset levels led to a 9.8 percent gain in its quarterly earnings, just a tad off expectations, but that recent market weakness was pressuring assets under management.

After Yuri Zhirkov's departure back home to Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala, Andre Villas-Boas is attempting to bring in Alvaro Pereira, according to the Daily Mail, whom he worked with during his time at Porto.

People who have two or more siblings who have suffered blood clots in deep veins such as those in the legs and pelvis -- a disease known as venous thromboembolism (VTE) -- have a relative risk 50 times higher for developing such clots themselves, Swedish researchers say.

AOL Inc reported a surprise second-quarter loss on Tuesday, citing weaker-than-expected advertising growth that sent shares of the company plummeting as much as 20 percent on Tuesday.

The Consumer Reports Index, which tracks the financial optimism of Americans, plunged more than five points to 43.4 this month, the lowest in two years.

Perseid meteor shower, an annual display of shooting stars in Northern Hemisphere, is nearing its peak time of 2011. Tonight, however, may be the time when the Perseids are most visible to the naked eye.

The trillions of dollars that have been lost on markets recently are "market noise" that should not sidetrack fundamental work on expanding trade and jobs, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday.

Standard & Poor's is more concerned that a slower economy, sovereign debt issues and mortgage risks will depress U.S. bank industry profits and credit quality, the ratings agency said on Tuesday.

Stocks rebounded sharply on Tuesday after a major sell-off, but markets remained vulnerable to selling if the Federal Reserve fails to ease fears of a double-dip recession.

A new study from ViaForensics uncovered how most apps on iOS and Android don't properly protect consumer data.

Worries of more government intervention in European and U.S. debt crises lifted gold early on Tuesday to a record near $1,800, but bullion pared gains as the battered stock market bounced higher.

Demand for personal navigation devices , the must-have gadget of recent years, is declining as traffic and mapping functions become almost standard in cars and mobiles, forcing Garmin Ltd and Dutch rival TomTom NV to find new revenue drivers to get profits back on course.

Much of the current rioting and looting in London for the past three days has been coordinated not just via Facebook and Twitter, but also via BlackBerry smartphones that use encrypted communications, according to British authorities.

In a sign of the harm that tumbling markets are doing to the global economy, calls multiplied on Tuesday for a concerted campaign of bold policy-making to stop the rot.

The Tribune Co., one of the largest newspaper publishers in the U.S., is working on a tablet computer of its own to offer its subscribers, CNN reported, citing interviews with more than half a dozen current and former Tribune employees.

OPEC, source of more than a third of the world's oil, cut its forecast for global oil demand growth this year as a worsening economic outlook curbs consumption in developed economies.

Tuesday morning, two cars of an NJ Transit derailed as it was leaving Penn Station in New York City. Commuters are experiencing extended delays, and are encouraged to take PATH trains from Hoboken to the city.

Gold hit a record high on Tuesday in its biggest three-day rally since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, as investor fears over the threat to the global economy from the European and U.S. debt crises hit assets seen as higher risk.

Stocks climbed on Tuesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for only its second advance in the past 12 sessions, but markets remained susceptible to selling if the Federal Reserve fails to ease fears of a double-dip recession.

Ivory Coast's finances are in much better shape than authorities were predicting when it emerged from civil war in April, and with tax revenues beating forecasts, there is no doubting it can pay defaulted external debt by early next year.

Apple has released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant for beleaguered OS X Lion users, allowing them to create recovery partitions on external drives. Previously anyone who had purchased the Lion upgrade through the Mac App Store would be forced to reinstall and update Snow Leopard before they could reinstall Lion if disaster struck, forcing them to replace the hard disk.

U.S. firm, AgriSol Energy LLC, and its joint venture partner in Tanzania will invest more than $100 million over the next 10 years to develop a large-scale commercial farming project in the east African country, a company director said on Tuesday.