The Latest Breaking News from Kathaleen McCormick

Stock futures mixed with retail earnings in focus; Walmart shares gain on Paramount streaming deal ahead of Q2 profits; Home Depot shares active ahead of Q2 earnings, new Saudi investment; Housing starts set to show decline in single-family builds and Elon Musk gets partial win in latest Twitter takeover skirmish.

Elon Musk has countersued Twitter on Friday in an escalation of his legal fight against the company in a bid to walk away from the $44bn (£36.1bn) deal.

A Delaware judge ruled the trial will last for five days in October, giving Twitter an early victory in its legal battle against the Tesla CEO. The company had argued that any delay would hurt it.

Tesla's CEO lost an important first round in his legal battle with Twitter.

Social media platform Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) and Elon Musk are headed to court over the $44-billion proposed buyout of the social media platform agreed to and then withdrawn from by the world's richest man.