UNITED STATES

The U.S. government will announce as soon as Monday a long-awaited plan to try to get bad assets off the books of banks, a cornerstone of its efforts to tackle the credit crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. regulators seized control on Friday of U.S. Central Federal Credit Union, a huge wholesale credit union with $34 billion in assets that provides services to nearly every other credit union.

A judge in Denver on Friday set aside her previous order that former Qwest Communications International Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio report to prison on Monday after his attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his 2007 insider trading conviction.

British bank Barclays PLC is offering to finance the purchase of its iShares fund unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources.

Proposed legislation to tax 90 percent of bonuses at companies receiving more than $5 billion in government funds is unfair, Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis said in a memo to employees on Friday.

Advisers representing General Motors Corp bondholders on Friday issued an appeal to the automaker and U.S. officials to break an impasse in a crucial round of debt restructuring talks.

Verizon Wireless is the U.S. network that has received fewer complaints from its subscribers, according to J.D. Power and Associates.

Advisers representing General Motors Corp bondholders on Friday issued an appeal to the automaker and U.S. officials to break an impasse in a crucial round of debt restructuring talks.

An exodus of expertise from the natural resources sector following the collapse in commodities prices mean banks and industry could face a shortage of seasoned professionals when demand eventually recovers.

U.S. states have spearheaded moves to curb global warming and are not ready to pass the leadership baton to President Barack Obama.

The West Antarctic ice sheet may start to collapse if sea temperatures rise by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit), triggering a thaw that would raise world ocean levels by 5 meters (16 ft), U.S. scientists said.

Hundreds of people in the United States are under investigation for financial scams, many involving Ponzi schemes, a U.S. regulator said on Friday, calling the phenomenon rampant Ponzimonium.

The European Union on Friday pledged more than $100 billion in new loans to the International Monetary Fund to bail out countries in the global recession and urged the G20 economic powers to help double its funding.

The U.S. software industry is pushing for a greater role as government officials develop a policy to ward off attacks on the nation's communications infrastructure, a trade group said on Friday.

Government aid requests from General Motors Corp and Chrysler may rise considerably, a top adviser to President Barack Obama's auto task force said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Chrysler LLC said on Friday that Italy's Fiat SpA would not assume any of its debt under a proposed alliance between the automakers, backing down from a claim it had made just a day earlier in a bid to bolster support for the deal.

Oil fell on Friday, dragged down by economic concerns, the stronger dollar and a dip in the stock market.

China and the United States traded blows over entertainment and software piracy Friday as the World Trade Organization formally ruled some Chinese practices were illegal but exonerated it of other complaints.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc did nothing wrong when it accepted payments to close out trades with American International Group , the giant insurer rescued by the U.S. government, Goldman's chief financial officer said on Friday.

Xerox Corp chopped its first-quarter earnings forecast by as much as 85 percent, as the slowdown in office equipment spending badly hurt revenue and thwarted its cost-cutting efforts.

The following is the full text of a statement released by several federal agencies in the United States on November 12, 2008, encouraging financial institutions to set in place the conditions to improve lending in a responsible way.c