UNITED STATES

A new solar flare Tuesday is the biggest in several years and is part of a pattern of solar storms scheduled to last until 2020, experts say.

The portable game system will come in red in September.

Wall Street stocks fell sharply on Wednesday on fears over possible trouble in the French banking sector that has large exposure to shaky peripheral European debt.

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of promising to keep interest rates near zero for at least two more years and said it would consider further steps to help growth, sparking a rebound in stocks.

Boy or Girl? A controversial new blood test, not yet available in the U.S. could determine a fetus' sex as early as seven weeks for soon-to-be parents.

The mysterious orange goo that washed up on the Alaskan village of Kivalina has been identified as microscopic eggs, but the origin of the eggs remains unknown.

Apple's delayed launch of the highly-anticipated iPhone 5 is a marketing strategy that reeks of brilliance.

The U.S. faces nemesis Mexico in Philadelphia

David Cameron is pushing England's police force to use new methods of fighting back against rioting and looting across the country.

Prosecutors asked a federal judge to sentence Raj Rajaratnam to as much as 24-1/2 years in prison, calling the Galleon Group hedge fund founder arguably the most egregious violator of insider trading laws ever to be caught.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose last week as interest rates fell to their lowest level this year, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Toshiba Corp, the world's No.2 maker of flash memory, on Wednesday warned that profits in its chip business could fall short of expectations, citing weak PC sales, faltering U.S. and European economies and a higher yen.

Research in Motion has had a rough year and it hasn't gotten any easier with its phones' involvement in the London riots.

Oil led a rebound among commodities on Wednesday as investors went bargain hunting for riskier assets after the U.S. Federal Reserve promised to extend near-zero interest rates for two more years.

So much for the vaunted Federal Reserve consensus.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Wednesday following the previous session's rally, with futures for the S&P 500 down 1.0 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.9 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.9 percent at 4:33 a.m. EDT.

Standard & Poor's, whose unprecedented downgrade of U.S. debt triggered a worldwide stocks sell-off, is pushing back against a U.S. government proposal that would require credit raters to disclose significant errors in how they calculate their ratings.

Stock index futures fell on Wednesday after a sharp snap-back rally in the last session and as investor fears about the economy and high levels of public debt looked set to generate more volatile trading.

To say it's been an unsettling time for U.S. stock investors would be an understatement. The Dow has been on a wild ride, with plunges followed by sudden reversals. Look for market choppiness to continue until investors determine whether the Fed's latest monetary policy decision -- low interest rates for two years -- will be enough to rev-up U.S. GDP growth.

Gold held steady Wednesday, hovering near a lifetime high around $1,778 an ounce struck in the previous session, but further gains could be capped by a rebound in equities after the U.S. Federal Reserve's vow to keep rates near zero.

Facebook's new Messenger is already the top free app in Apple's App Store. The communications tool is directly taking on BlackBerry's popular BBM.