U.S.

Drugmaker Merck & Co has gained rights to sell and distribute CSL Ltd's seasonal flu vaccine in the United States under an agreement announced by the companies on Monday.

Financially stricken U.S. hog producers are cutting back on supply in a bid for profits but consumers will continue to get plentiful pork at grocery stores well into next year, analysts said on Friday.

U.S. copper futures bounced from one-month lows Friday morning, as a weaker dollar and rising consumer sentiment underpinned prices and countered weaker-than-expected durable goods and housing data.

Boeing Co said Friday it is studying new draft bidding rules to decide which plane or planes to pit against the rival team of Northrop Grumman Corp and EADS's EADS.PA Airbus in a renewed $35 billion contest to supply refueling aircraft to the U.S. Air Force.

China's largest video game operator, Shanda Games Ltd, priced its U.S. IPO at the top of its indicated range to raise $1 billion in the largest U.S. IPO this year, a source said on Friday.

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday as a surprise decline in existing home sales suggested an economic recovery would be slow, even as initial jobless claims dropped.

Automakers backed calls to ban drivers on U.S. roads from text messaging with cell phones and other hand-held devices, an issue gaining attention from the Obama administration and Congress.

Fisker Automotive was awarded a $528.7 million U.S. government loan on Tuesday for development of gas-electric hybrid plug-ins.

AutoNation Inc.(AN.N), the top U.S. auto dealership chain, is ready to go on offense by acquiring new stores and buying more vehicles as it bets that the battered U.S. auto market is headed for a long and steady recovery, the company's chief executive said.

The U.S. credit card charge-off rate rose to a record high in August, as more Americans lost their jobs, Moody's Investors Service said on Wednesday, in another sign consumers remain under stress.

Ford Motor Co (F.N) will start production of a small car in India early next year, and its chief executive said the U.S. market had was showing signs of recovery and he expected industry sales to rise in the next two years.

The United States is still working toward an agreement with G20 partners to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, a top White House adviser said ahead of this week's G20 summit.

U.S. antitrust enforcers plan to hold talks on revamping merger guidelines, they said on Tuesday amid expectations that the Democratic administration will give corporate combinations a tougher review.

U.S. stocks rose slightly on Tuesday as the U.S. dollar hit a 1-year low against the euro ahead of the start of a Federal Reserve policy meeting, boosting oil and metals prices.

President Barack Obama Tuesday urged world action to fight climate change, saying a failure to tackle the problem could lead to an irreversible catastrophe in years to come.

European companies outnumbered North American companies on a list of how well global corporations were disclosing their emissions of greenhouse gasses and plans to guard themselves against financial risks associated with climate change, a survey showed on Monday.

U.S. regulators on Friday closed two banking subsidiaries of Irwin Financial Corp, bringing the total of U.S. bank failures this year to 94.

The United States and Air Canada appeared on Friday to have settled a spat over charter flights, which had threatened to disrupt the upcoming National Hockey League season.

President Barack Obama's top economic adviser said on Friday that China's massive holdings of U.S. government bonds are a source of mutual benefit to both countries.

With more requests than money, the U.S. Department of Energy faces the tough task of allocating more than $4 billion among hundreds of utilities that want to modernize the country's aging electricity grid.

The number of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States climbed six this week to 705, according to a report on Friday by oil services firm Baker Hughes in Houston.