IBT Staff Reporter

Stock index futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.1 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.1 percent at 0733 GMT.

NASA Saturday released some spectacular never-seen-before space images from its infrared explorer. Here are few more from the WISE gallery.

Booming smartphone demand kept cellphone venture Sony Ericsson in the black in the first quarter, despite supply disruption following Japan's earthquake and tsunami.

The Treasury could sell a big chunk of its remaining 33 percent stake in General Motors Co in the summer or fall, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday, although doing so may lead to more losses for it on the automaker's bailout.

Toshiba Corp said it likely fell short of its operating profit forecast for the past business year by 4 percent, citing the effects of the March 11 quake and tsunami, which affected operations at some of its plants.

Spontaneous activity on the Internet is on the wane among experienced users as they shun aimless surfing and plan their online sessions more, according to a study published by Microsoft and two agencies.

Samsung's Galaxy S 4G, Nexus S, Epic 4G, and Galaxy Tab are all cited in the suit.

Asian stocks fell on Tuesday after rating agency Standard & Poor's lowered its U.S. credit outlook to negative, prompting a global flight to other assets.

Toshiba Corp is likely to post a forecast-beating 130 billion yen ($1.6 billion ) net profit for the 2010/11 business year that ended on March 31, boosted by robust sales of flash memory chips for smartphones and tablet PCs, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Apple Inc may provide the first signs this week that the Japanese crisis is pressuring margins, clouding what should otherwise be another dazzling second quarter for the makers of the iPad and iPhone.

Japanese cabinet ministers on Tuesday moved to shore up confidence in U.S. debt after Standard & Poor's threatened to lower its credit rating on the world's largest economy due to a bulging budget deficit, touching a nerve with one of the largest holders of Treasuries.

Three dozen Crips street gang members and two motel owners have been indicted for running a prostitution ring that targeted underage girls through social networking sites including MySpace, Craigslist, Twitter and Facebook, prosecutors said on Monday.

Price cuts from multiple vendors may signal that a successor to the Wii is around the corner.

Novartis AG is likely to be the latest drugmaker to show it too has been hit by a collapse in sales of pandemic flu medicines when it posts its first-quarter results on Tuesday.

An Illinois man pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges he helped three popular online poker websites trick banks into illegally processing payments from U.S. customers in $3 billion scheme.

Cellphone venture Sony Ericsson is expected to shed light on the magnitude of the hit from Japan's earthquake on the cellphone industry when it unveils its January-March earnings on Tuesday.

Standard & Poor's threatened on Monday to downgrade the United States' prized AAA credit rating unless the Obama administration and Congress find a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years.

Chip maker Texas Instruments Inc warned of slower-than-usual quarterly sales growth as it scrambles to restart production after Japan's massive earthquake, and said it was unclear when the supply of the silicon and wafers it needs will return to normal.

SAN FRANCISCO/SEOUL - Apple Inc has sued rival Samsung Electronics claiming that the South Korean firm's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets slavishly copies the iPhone and iPad, according to court papers.

Texas Instruments Inc warned of slower-than-typical quarterly sales growth as it scrambles to restart production after Japan's massive earthquake, and said it was unclear when the supply of the silicon and wafers it needs will return to normal.

The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank Richard Fisher said on Monday he expected to be at the front of the pack in pressing for monetary policy tightening at an appropriate time.

Volkswagen AG showed off a redesigned Beetle small car on Monday at auto shows in Shanghai, Berlin and New York.

Federal Reserve officials offered clashing views on Monday of whether soft U.S. growth or inflation pose a greater risk to the economy but the face-off looked unlikely to alter the Fed's ultra-loose stance for now.

Nokia said its sales in Germany will not be impacted by the decision of an appeals court on Monday to turn down its request to stay the enforcement of a local district court injunction.

Anxiety over a possible Greek debt restructuring and an outlook warning on the United States spurred safety bids for U.S. Treasury bills and pushed their rates lower on Monday.

Match.com said it will begin checking users against the national sex offender registry, days after a class action lawsuit was filed by a woman allegedly sexually assaulted by a man she met on the dating site.

Standard & Poor's threatened to downgrade the United States' prized AAA credit rating on Monday unless the Obama administration and Congress find a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years.

President Barack Obama will focus on two kinds of finances this week. The United States' and his own. Obama will take Air Force One to the West Coast this week in a trip combining talks on reducing the deficit at a pair of town hall gatherings and at a pair of fundraisers for his 2012 Presidential re-election campaign.

Microsoft Corp urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to make it easier to challenge some patents as part of its appeal of a record $290 million jury verdict for infringing a small Canadian software firm's patent.