UNITED STATES

British Airways, American Airlines and Spain's Iberia have offered to cede a number of lucrative transatlantic slots in a bid to gain EU antitrust immunity for their alliance.

U.S. mortgage applications nudged higher last week, reflecting increased demand for home purchase loans even as interest rates trekked higher, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

U.S. wholesale inventories unexpectedly fell in January, while sales rose much faster than expected to their highest level since October 2008, a government report showed on Wednesday.

Venezuela's deepening electricity crisis may drag on the economy for several years, dashing government hopes for GDP growth, slashing fuel exports from the OPEC country, and ushering in lengthy rationing.

An experimental approach that looks for the DNA leaking out from dead and dying cells may provide a route to a blood test for breast cancer.

People sensitive to the taste of fat tend to eat less of it and are less likely to be overweight, according to Australian research that found human tongues can detect fatty tastes.

Shares in Citigroup Inc , one of the big financial companies bailed out by the U.S. government, rose more than 4 percent on Wednesday, while another, American International Group Inc , jumped 10 percent.

Healthy Americans who donated a kidney were not at higher risk of dying afterward, which may reassure potential donors and help shorten the long waiting list for an organ.

The stock market edged higher on Wednesday as stocks in the transportation and financial sectors made significant gains.

A city with a distinct architectural style has a certain draw to travelers. Great architecture is both artistic and scientific, both beautiful and practical. Even more, architecture gives us cultural clues about a city's past, present and future.

Shareholders may have to wait for months to retrieve capital after U.S. regulators told banks not to increase dividends or buy back shares amid political and economic uncertainty surrounding the financial industry, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

U.S. stocks drifted higher on Wednesday following several merger and acquisition deals, overshadowing an unexpected drop in January wholesale inventories.

After a growth spurt at the end of 2009, the U.S. economy will slow in the months ahead, keeping the Federal Reserve from raising borrowing costs until the final three months of the year, a Reuters poll showed.

A dark corner of corporate America is being thrust into the harsh glare of disclosure.

U.S. safety regulators and Toyota dispatched teams on Tuesday to inspect a Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway a day earlier, as the automaker struggled to reassure consumers shaken by its recall crisis.

After a growth spurt at the end of 2009, the U.S. economy will slow in the months ahead, keeping the Federal Reserve from raising borrowing costs until the final three months of the year, a Reuters poll showed.

U.S. mortgage applications nudged up last week, reflecting increased demand for home purchase loans even as interest rates trekked higher, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

World's largest rice exporter, Thailand's exports of rice and other foods are expected to rise this year by five to ten percent, according to country's Commerce Ministry. The ministry, in a statement said food exports in particular would recover to growth of as much as 10% after dropping by 7.37% in 2009 to $19.56 billion, mainly because of the global recession.

Lone Star plans to resume selling a $3.9 billion majority stake in Korea Exchange Bank, KEB said, in what would rank as South Korea's biggest banking deal to date.

The outlook for precious metals remain positive over the medium term and bearish over the long term.The sharp rise in gold prices over prior months, set against the prospects for economic recovery over the coming quarters, have eroded gold's attractiveness for investors, pushing capital towards riskier assets such as equities. Meanwhile, unwinding of government stimulus measures and monetary easing have dulled gold's lustre as a hedge.

American International Group could learn the fate of the stalled $2.2 billion sale of its Taiwan unit Nan Shan Life Insurance as early as Thursday.