IBT Staff Reporter

Abbott Laboratories' shares are inexpensive, particularly given the strong outlook the company has on earnings this year, Barron's business newspaper said on Sunday.

U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday after Schlumberger Ltd agreed to buy Smith International for $11.34 billion in stock and Lowe's Co. posted better-than-expected earnings.

Mazda Motor Corp said it would not launch a special marketing campaign to draw customers away from Toyota Motor, shunning a strategy used by other car makers keen to capitalize on Toyota's recall woes.

More generations are living under the same roof and the trend will deepen as families grappling with near double-digit unemployment share expenses, a study showed on Monday.

A last-ditch attempt at passing a climate change bill begins in the Senate this week with senators mindful that time is running short and that approaches to the legislation still vary widely, according to sources.

Taiwan's fighter jets would fall short in combat against military rival China, the U.S. government said in a report on Monday that could lead to new weapons sales sure to anger Beijing.

State governors want Congress and President Barack Obama to pay more attention to their concerns as they renew efforts to reform healthcare.

The White House is strongly considering naming the chief executive of Honeywell International, a union president and a former vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve to a new panel on tackling budget deficits, an administration official said on Sunday.

The United States accused Eritrea on Monday of working to destabilize the Horn of Africa region and urged President Isaias Afwerki to bring a halt to what it called a threat to international peace.

A year after President Barack Obama proposed a plan to clean up the Great Lakes, the government Sunday laid out its plan to improve the ecology of the major bodies of water that support much of U.S. agriculture and industry.

Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's Republican governor, defended Democratic President Barack Obama's stimulus plan on Sunday, saying 150,000 new jobs were created in his state thanks to the legislation.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who angered environmentalists, fishing groups and other Democratic lawmakers by proposing to divert more water to California's farmers, said on Friday she was working to avoid controversial legislation.

A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan has killed 33 people after an aircraft fired on civilians mistakenly thought to be insurgents, the Afghan government said on Monday.

Iran has earmarked potential sites for 10 new nuclear enrichment plants and construction of two of them could begin this year, a nuclear energy official said on Monday.

Broader economic guidelines are needed for to make the euro zone work, not just strict fiscal rules, Greece's finance minister was quoted as saying on Monday.

Gunmen shot and killed eight members of the same family and cut the heads off some of them on Monday in a mainly Sunni Muslim district southeast of Baghdad, a senior security official said.

European Union foreign ministers will condemn assassinations and the use of forged passports on Monday to censure Israel after the killing of a Palestinian militant in Dubai.

Hong Kong shares bounced back from one-week lows on Monday after a relatively steady finish in Shanghai and gains on Wall Street boosted investor appetite for battered banking stocks.

U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday as Schlumberger Ltd agreed to buy Smith International for $11.34 billion in stock and Lowe's Co. posted earnings.

After over 200 orbits around the Earth, Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely in Florida on Sunday, ending a 14-day mission to the International Space Station.

Twenty-four European banks may need to issue about 240 billion euros ($327 billion) annually for the next three years to fund existing and new businesses.

U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday, pointing to a stronger start for Wall Street. By 0928 GMT, Dow Jones futures put on 0.2 percent, S&P futures gained 0.1 percent and Nasdaq futures rose 0.5 percent.

Fearing potential staff cuts, Lufthansa's high-paid German pilots took to the picket lines on Monday, plunging the airline into its longest ever strike and forcing the carrier to cancel hundreds of flights.

World stocks hit 2-1/2 week highs on Monday and oil reached a six-week peak as investors became increasingly confident about the outlook for the U.S. economic recovery.

About 800 flights per day will be canceled over a four-day period, as pilots at Deutsche Lufthansa went on strike on Monday after last-ditch attempts to reach a compromise failed over the weekend.

Japan's Finance Minister Naoto Kan reiterated his desire to target inflation, setting up a clash with the Bank of Japan over how best to pull the country out of deflation.

A makeshift assistance should be enough to rescue Greece but bigger problems facing Europe would leave the future of the euro currency in question, billionaire investor George Soros said.

From a story in Bits and Pieces some years back comes an inspiring story. Years ago a John Hopkins professor gave a group of graduate students this assignment: Go to the slums. Take 200 boys, between the ages of 12 and 16, and investigate their background and environment. Then predict their chances for the future.