UNITED STATES

With a severe lack of confidence that a Greek rescue package would eventuate commodities, in particular gold, were sold off aggressively during Friday's offshore session.

The United States has thrown trillions of dollars at the slumping housing market and it still looks wobbly.

President Hugo Chavez denied on Sunday that he planned to censor or limit the Internet in Venezuela, saying on the contrary Web use had shot up more than nine fold during his decade in power.

Washington's bid to put finishing touches on healthcare reform this weekend should help lift uncertainty on Wall Street, but there may be some turbulence along the way this week as the recent rally appears to be fraying.

Credit Suisse said it is restricting bankers' travel to Germany after authorities there said they had launched 1,100 tax evasion probes against the bank's clients and were investigating staff on suspicion of aiding evasion.

Financial investors are interested in acquiring Metro's department store chain Kaufhof and Arcandor's Karstadt chain, aiming to merge them into one, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Pope Benedict apologized on Saturday to victims of child sex abuse by clergy in Ireland and ordered an official inquiry there to try to stem a scandal gripping the Catholic Church which has swept across Europe.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged lawmakers on Saturday to resist pressure to weaken a financial reform bill and called again for an independent consumer watchdog to help prevent future financial crises.

Japan's Canon Inc said its tender offer for shares in Oce NV has raised its stake in the Dutch printer maker to 84 percent, moving closer to its target of turning Oce into a wholly owned subsidiary.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein and other top executives, pressured by public outrage to slash their bonuses, still received tens of millions of dollars in distributions from an internal investment fund in 2009.

President Barack Obama urged the House to pass health insurance reform in Fairfax, Virginia on Friday, two days ahead of the vote.

Washington's bid to put finishing touches on healthcare reform this weekend should help lift uncertainty on Wall Street, but there may be some turbulence along the way next week as the recent rally appears to be fraying.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to begin a process in a few months aimed at auctioning airwaves that failed to garner enough interest during the 2008 spectrum auction.

Republicans in the House of Representatives on Friday recommended the country's top two mortgage finance companies, the recipients of a massive government bailout during the height of the financial crisis, be phased out in four years in order to restore stability to the housing market.

The U.S. pay czar will slash the number of top General Motors Co executives who will receive base salaries of more than $500,000 this year.

Smartphones may be one of the hottest areas in technology with big names like Apple and Google tussling for share, but investors are questioning the growth prospects for mobile carriers as subscriber gains slow.

In a significant victory for news media, a federal appeals court said the Federal Reserve must disclose records on emergency lending programs to banks bailed out by the government in the financial crisis.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn launched an offer on Friday to buy Lions Gate Entertainment Corp , a move that would hamper the studio's expected bid for storied rival Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc .

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will cut food prices and mount a new ad campaign over the next six weeks, a threat to other U.S. grocers that sent an industry shares index down more than 2 percent on Friday.

The Dow industrials snapped an eight-session winning streak on Friday, as renewed worries about Greece sparked a climb in the dollar and weighed on U.S. stocks.

Unemployment rates in 363 U.S. metropolitan areas rose in January, and 346 areas reported year-on-year declines in their number of jobs, the Labor Department said on Friday.