IBT Staff Reporter

The first 36 minutes of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1”, produced by Warner Bros, was leaked on Tuesday on the Internet ahead of the movie’s release this Friday.

Retail sales in the U.K. rose by 0.5 percent for the first time in three months during October, according to a report by the Office for National Statistics.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is likely to be detained for questioning over his alleged connection to a rape case. The Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has requested the District Court of Stockholm to detain Assange, claiming that they have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations.

Sarah Palin, who announced her intent to run for the Presidential bid on Wednesday, seems to be reaching out to the American public in a rather tidy way. Her latest stint on reality TV, coupled with an unfaltering media management, could come along in her pursuit to the White House.

Ford Motor co engineer Xiang Dong Yu, 49, of Beijing, China, pleaded guilty today in federal court to two counts of theft of trade secrets.

Cadillac today introduced the Urban Luxury Concept, which complements its compact dimensions with the design, features and technology for which Cadillac is known.

Hardware partners beware, lock your warehouses or get sued. Oracle filed a suit against Multis on Nov. 9 at U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, for breach of contract under which they were liable for losses, if they failed to secure the partner's hardware.

Caterpillar Inc.'s (CAT) $7.6 billion-acquisition of rival Bucyrus International is likely to trigger a consolidation of the attractive mining equipment industry.

Futures on the S&P 500 gained 11.80 points to 1,189.30, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 87.00 points to 11,082.00 and Nasdaq100 futures are up 25.50 points to 2,122.50.

London Stock Exchange Group said activity on the primary markets picked up with a more than doubling of the total number of new issues. The group lifted its interim dividend by 5 percent to 8.8 pence.

Investec Plc, the specialist bank and wealth manager, posted a "strong" operational performance in the first half, with five of its six core businesses recording a substantial increase in earnings. Third party assets under management grew 4.9 percent to 77.8 billion pounds.

The Chevrolet Volt electric car is the Automobile Magazine's 2011 Automobile of the Year. The award will be presented to Joel Ewanick, GM U.S. Marketing Vice President, on Wednesday at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

OnLive, a video game streaming company, will begin selling its small gaming console on Thursday for a promotional price of $99.

Facebook is not sure if it's “100 per cent right” in preventing Google’s Gmail and other third party apps from automatically importing email addresses from the social-networking service.

House Democrats re-elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi D-CA as their leader for the next Congress by a large margin on Wednesday as her challenger said the fragmented vote meant moderates should get a say in decision making.

The web retailer has decided to open a movie studio aimed at attracting aspiring filmmakers.

Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is the projected winner of her tight race for the Senate against challenger and tea-party-backed Republican Joe Miller.

President Obama, last Saturday in Japan, reiterated his administration’s commitment to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to get the new START Treaty approved by the lame-duck U.S. Senate before the year is out.

Indiana has over 30 coal-burning power plants. The smoke rises and disperses in the air, but its chemical contents do not vanish. They linger in the atmosphere and they return to the earth, and to the waterways of Indiana, with the rain.

Full-body scanners and the alternative of invasive pat downs are needed to provide security for all air travelers, the top federal transportation security official said Tuesday.

Several Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Warner Bros., MGM, Disney, Universal and Fox, have filed a lawsuit against DVD sanitizer Family Edited DVDS, Inc. and are seeking a permanent injunction to stop the company from altering movies to be free of objectionable content and distributing them to consumers as family-friendly.

Astronomers may have found the youngest black hole ever, offering the first concrete evidence that they are formed in supernovas.

Britain's Prince William and his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton ended speculations about their future by announcing their engagement on Tuesday but triggered a new speculation over whether the couple will opt for a prenuptial agreement.

Hulu has announced the launch of its Hulu Plus subscription service, shaving $2 off from the preview price at $9.99 showcased in July.

Visits to the state of Florida rose in the third quarter of 2010 despite the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

S&P 500 Index edged up 0.68 points, or 0.06 percent, to trade at 1,179.73 at 09:53 a.m. EDT. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 8.47 points, or 0.08 percent, to trade at 11,015.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.24 percent.

Victoria Kolakowski became the first elected transgender judge in United States by defeating deputy district attorney John Creighton in a fiercely contested race for Alameda County Superior Court.

Rain intervened play after West Indies bowling attack took two early Sri Lankan wickets on the third day of the first test at Galle

Construction of new homes touched an 18-month low in October, falling much more than expected, according to a report by the U.S. Commerce Department.