UNITED KINGDOM

The seventh and final Harry Potter book flew off the shelves on Saturday as fans the world over poured into stores or waited for the first post to discover the fate of the boy wizard.

In the Vermont town of Springfield nestled in a mountain valley, a banner decorated with images of pink doughnuts is festooned across Main Street, welcoming visitors to the 'Home of the Simpsons.'

Fresh takeover speculation pushed shares in Friends Provident up over 4 percent on Friday, making Britain's smallest bluechip life insurer the top gainer in the FTSE 100.

The world's richest corporations and finest minds spend billions trying to solve the problem of carbon emissions, but three fishing buddies in North Wales believe they have cracked it.

Undaunted by the odd polonium poisoning, murder plot or diplomatic face-off, Russia's wealthy elite are hungry for the good life in London and there is no sign of their appetite waning.

The New York Times published reviews before the book went on sale, drawing a stinging response from author J.K. Rowling.

The dollar eased slightly against most currencies on Thursday over concerns about the health of U.S housing market as investors eye the next Federal Reserve rate move.

Gulf Arab state Qatar values Britain's third largest supermarket group at $24.5 billion, including debt.

Set the dining table, light some candles and crack open a nice bag of wine.

For the BBC and commercial broadcasters across Britain, their problems right now are all summed up in one word -- trust.

It's costing a small fortune to keep the secret safe, as security measures increase ahead of this week's book release.

The takeover battle for ABN AMRO heated up on Monday with the Royal Bank of Scotland consortium boosting the cash element of its 71.1 billion-euro ($98 billion) offer. The offer is above a rival all-stock bid from Britain's Barclays that is worth about 64 billion euros, which has been recommended by ABN's board.

The dollar weakened against major currencies on Monday, plumbing fresh multi-year depths against higher-yielding units as bearish sentiment toward the greenback and the outlook for U.S. interest rates gripped markets.

European stockbrokers may find it hard to escape unscathed as sweeping regulatory changes lead to a boom in the use of high-tech systems designed to remove the human element from trading and radically reshape markets.

Former media mogul Conrad Black is guilty of criminal fraud and obstruction of justice but innocent of racketeering, a U.S. jury found on Friday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied on Friday a shift in foreign policy away from the United States after one of his ministers told an audience there that a country's strength depended on alliances not military might.

The Indian government has rescued a rare manuscript of a letter Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi wrote 19 days before his assassination in 1948 from being auctioned by British auction house Christie's and has paid a confidential sum for it.

An experimental cancer drug from Britain's Antisoma Plc and Swiss-based Novartis AG has failed in a mid-stage clinical trial for ovarian cancer, lopping 15 percent off Antisoma's market value.

HD DVD video players have outsold rival standard Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year, according to a lobby group.

A fat tax on salty, sugary and fatty foods could save thousands of lives each year, according to a study published on Thursday.

The Dutch Supreme Court will issue its ruling on ABN AMRO's suspended sale of its U.S. unit LaSalle on Friday and the decision could sway an acrimonious takeover battle for the Dutch bank.